Globetrotters Writer’s Spotlight — Wendy Wright

Hi Globetrotters!

Who am I and why do I enjoy travel?

I’m Wendy Wright and I’ve been lucky enough to fulfill an ambition that started growing inside me as a child — to get out there and see as much of the world as I was able to within the constraints of life.

The family members that came before me, on both sides, weren’t people to sit around in one place. My mother’s paternal grandfather left Denmark to settle in South Africa as a dairy farmer and a couple of her maternal ancestors abandoned a dismal Lancashire to participate in the Boer War. Now I’m not saying that joining in a war is a particularly good motive for fulfilling a desire to travel, but it got them to a new land and there they stayed. My mother’s uncles and aunts eventually ended up in Australia and New Zealand.

My father’s folk were also out there trying to explore. Distant ancestors relocated from Ireland to England and then his father took a position as a crew member on a cruise ship after the Second World War. He took in a large proportion of the world in this way and loved it, before deciding to retire in New Zealand as well.

Then came me, born in Zimbabwe, although at the time it was known by a different name. My mother had spent a period of around eight years in Bournemouth, England, where she met and married my father and made him curious about Africa. He took a two-year contract in Rhodesia that turned into thirty-odd years of a great deal of adventure and enjoyment but also a load of trauma and heartache — you’re never far from a war on that continent.

In fact, war and political turmoils of one sort or another were what prevented me from travelling beyond Southern Africa as a child. As far as jolly family holidays go, much of Africa itself was off-limits at the time but friends of my parents enticed me to dream with tales of Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, the Congo, Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt.

South Africa is a stunning place, however, and we made the most of it over the years during which my own country dug itself deeper and deeper into the void of civil war. We did manage one trip to New Zealand. On the first leg of the journey, we left for Johannesburg in an Air Rhodesia Viscount, newly painted battleship-grey instead of its usual bright livery. The pilot coaxed it into a near-vertical take-off before spiralling upwards on one wing tip. We returned three weeks later in much the same manner, this time with a nose-dive to land at Salisbury airport. Those Viscounts were pretty elderly by then and I’m damned sure the manual did not recommend these aerobatics or the dramatic take-off and landing techniques, but in the year before our NZ holiday, two of them had been shot down by heat-seeking missiles.

The war ended, I left school and the relatives on the other side of the world evolved into a temptation I knew I couldn’t resist. After all, I was earning my own money now. I said to my father, “I can’t decide whether to buy a car or go to New Zealand and Australia for a holiday.” He gave me a look that I now know means, “Life is packed with decisions like this and they’ll only get harder.”

I eventually left Zimbabwe to settle in England, living there for more than two decades, and my English husband has the same travel bug. Both of his parents had spent some time living in other parts of the world, his father in Singapore and Malaysia. And that’s where we’ve ended up now — Penang Island in Malaysia. It’s an exciting new venture and another phase in my travelling life and it’s another story.

I love to travel because…?

Well, there’s an old saying: that it “broadens the mind”. My surrogate grandfather — our neighbour when I was a child — told me this and I believe it unreservedly. Apart from being fun and entertaining at the time and the source of a fantastic supply of stories to tell at dinner parties afterward, it really does open your mind to all the other people in this world, their cultures, their languages, their histories, and their spectacular scenery. After doing South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and New Zealand as a child, I’ve since explored parts of Europe, the USA, Australia, South East Asia, and Scandinavia. And not enough of any of those places in my view, because that four-letter word — WORK — got in the way. But without the work, I wouldn’t have been able to do the travel, so I am grateful, honest, guv.

I’m a civil engineer by profession (I’ve often been told by wise wits that it’s better than being an uncivil engineer) — a highways designer and detailer, turned project manager and mentor. I sort of fell into it and I wrote a story about that: “I didn’t know what a civil engineer was until I became one”. This career has enabled me to travel around my own country and England far more than I might have done otherwise and to link with other professional engineers around the world, including SE Asia where I live now, so it’s also been a means of fuelling my globetrotting ambitions.

My number one travel activity?

That’s easy. Doing it. Planning the itinerary, getting there and then living it. What more can I say?

The best place I’ve ever been is…?

That’s harder. Much harder. Can anyone actually answer that question in one?

Everywhere is different. Some people have travel catastrophe tales to tell and I’m lucky that I don’t, although I’ve certainly had a few unfortunate experiences — it’s only to be expected. It hasn’t put me off, that’s for sure.

When I was about nineteen, just starting in my career, I told a friend’s mother that I wanted to travel. I respected her, and she had seen a few places in her time, but her response was resoundingly disappointing. She said, her tone patronising, “My dear, when you’re as old as I am, you’ll realise that everywhere is just the same.”

She was wrong, as I’m sure you will all agree.

I guess my favourite part of the world has been the Far East but then it’s probably where I’ve done most of my travel adventures — Malaysia (including part of Borneo), Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, and Japan. We had a holiday to India planned for the middle of 2020 — well, guess what happened to that one? Yes, I am bitter about it.

I love Australia and New Zealand and I yearn to see more of the USA. Oh, and more of Europe… And Africa… The Middle East… The “Stans” and Russia…

No, I can’t answer that question.

In my spare time, I like to…

…ride and just generally be with horses, read and write, mess about with Photoshop and get a bit of dancing in too.

My top travel tip is….

Be open-minded. Everyone loves their own country, so have respect for others’ cultural heritage, religions, and ways. Don’t criticise what you find in another place just because it’s not the same as where you come from. We’ll all get on better when we understand and tolerate each others’ differences rather than making comparisons.

If I could live somewhere else, I’d live in..

I’ve tried this already and have emigrated twice for various reasons. I left a politically and economically unstable country for one that felt safe and stable and then left that cold and over-familiar place for another that’s much warmer and exotically different. I’d definitely choose warm over cold any day, but I don’t regret my years in England at all.

I suppose that deep in my heart I still wish I could have stayed in Africa.

My favourite way to travel is…

I don’t have a preference. I’ve driven, been driven, used trains and buses, flown and travelled by boat or ship. Each mode of transport has had its place in my experiences, whether it’s been getting to the destination country or on tours once I’ve got there. Some train and bus trips have been tedious but I wouldn’t have not done them.

Three lessons I’ve learned from travelling are…

1. As I’ve already said, be open-minded. Everywhere and everyone is different — my friend’s mother was wrong.

2. Plan well and research your travel, accommodation, and destination thoroughly. We have the internet at our disposal, so use it. At the same time don’t be afraid to be spontaneous either.

3. Talk to other travellers. They will have different experiences, sometimes better, sometimes worse, and you will discover new temptations for future trips.

I am loving reading all your stories and I hope you will enjoy mine.

A toast to Globetrotters!

Thank you for reading — you can find more of my stories (not all of them about travel) on my profile https://medium.com/@read-write-travel