In praise of quiet travel

My latest travel story, in today's Sydney Morning Herald, is about a subject close to my heart. Here's an excerpt (see the link below for the full article):

Pic: Fairfax Media

The quiet Australian*
I’m halfway to Kathmandu when it hits me. Listening to metal chair legs scrape on the tiled floor of the food court in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, babies screaming and several Russians deep in vigorous conversation, I get a sudden urge to abandon my journey, crash through the floor-to-ceiling windows and trade places with the gardener calmly watering the grass and the plants outside.

Of course, being Bangkok, it’s probably no quieter out there than in here. And airports aren’t the reason we travel. They’re on-the-way places that force us to hold our breaths and amuse ourselves until we’re somewhere real again. But the experience starts me thinking about something I’ve often overlooked or, more precisely, underheard: the joy of quiet travel.

You won’t find me running with the bulls in Pamplona, clinking steins full of beer at Oktoberfest or watching the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. If I had a bucket list, Rio’s Carnival wouldn’t be on it. Nor would any of Thailand’s full-moon parties, or that festival in Spain where people throw tomatoes at each other.

Cities have their charms, but I’ve always felt drawn to wide, open landscapes far from Thomas Hardy’s “madding crowds”. I don’t mean to be misanthropic; in fact, travelling to these empty quarters, getting away from our fellow humans now and then, can make us kinder when we return. It can also develop other, undervalued qualities such as patience, fortitude and modesty. Standing on a ridge high in the Himalayas, surrounded by 8000-metre peaks that seem close enough to touch, for instance, you can relax into insignificance. Give me Mongolia over Manhattan any day. 
Read the full article.

(*This was the title in today's newspaper; it has a different title online but it's the same story.)