All this talk about recession conflicts with some of the things I am witnessing in terms of how busy some places are. It may be that it is overseas people coming to the UK to take advantage of the good exchanges rates for both for euro and dollar against the pound, but never the less every day we are informed by the media that it is a global recession. I have seen that some people in our industry are lobbying for some upbeat and good news. A good sentiment as it certainly does affect our feel good factor but I am not hopeful – because much as we want to hear celebratory things – the realty is unless it is a major sports achievement then we don’t actually pick up the paper or concentrate on watching or listening to the news. Whilst we don’t enjoy bad news stories we feel more informed for knowing them.
I do actually have some good news- a lady called Joan Pollock who has escorted many tours for Bales Worldwide, invited us to sponsor an evening at the Royal Geographical Society. Michael Wood, the famous presenter and author was to speak about his journey to Shangri- La. This connection was because Joan wanted to raise further money for a remote place called the Spiti Valley in Northern India. Joan has already fund raised successfully and both a hospital and school have been built but she is relentless in wanting to do more for such an idyllic area. Michael Wood had visited many of the areas around the Spiti Valley and was the ideal candidate to engage an audience of over 500. Mixed with his previous life as an academic historian and his genuine love of the people and the intrigue of his travels, he entertained us with a very in-depth, real and vivid recollection of his journey. I cannot imagine that anyone left the evening without wishing to follow in the footsteps of Michael Wood.
Joan raised £7,500 that evening which will go a very long way in the Spiti Valley.
One of the things I asked a group of friends last weekend is what they look forward to most when they return from being overseas, a lot of it revolves around food and of course it does depend how long they have been away for, but things like – a good cup of tea, cereal with cows milk, bacon sandwich – no – one said I miss hearing the news! Well I know we have CNN and BBC World News and you can view the channels all over the world even in some remote areas but I derived from this discussion I had that actually it was quite nice to get away from the news especially when on holiday .
For my self I like to book holidays in advance- and even with times of uncertainty or perhaps because of them I love to know that I have a journey or an adventure to look forward to. To me, ‘the looking forward’ plays a big part and one can lose all that build up and anticipation. I am one of those in the ‘sod it’ category, I know this as last night one of my sons stated that we seriously needed to think about our holiday plans to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia because of the costs. To dispel a popular myth – my family don’t actually travel free – if we were lucky enough to have the opportunity we may get some special rates on standby but I am not prepared to take the risk of all or any of us being bumped off and would prefer to pay for the certainty of my holiday arrangements. I think we never know if we will find the opportunity again in the future so just go for it and live life to the full – if something happens to disrupt that so be it.
Despite the anticipation I have mentioned I do love surprises and I know many of you romantic people that book with Bales have booked a surprise holiday for your spouse or partner , which has got to be a safe thing to do if you know where they want to go to and know their commitments . I know too that some people do not like the element of surprise but you as the gift bearer use your own council on whether it is a right or wrong move. There are arguments for both – we took our 4 children to Canada some years ago and they didn’t know that they were going overseas until we got through customs believing we wee going to another part of the UK. They were really thrilled, but had lost out on the excitement..
Anyway, whether you are booking to travel next week, next month or even next year – we look forward to welcoming you to Bales and to a truly great experience.
About Mandy Nickerson
Other articles by Mandy Nickerson
Mandy endeavours to share her travel experiences (where she will 'tell it like it is') and also detail the latest exciting projects that she is involved in.
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