Travel Is No Fun Anymore

Taking an international trip during the pandemic.

A few days back, I flew for the first time since the outbreak of the Coronavirus this year — almost precisely 7 months after staying only within one country, one city and one home most of the time.

Wonder how my travel experience has been? Or rather how travelling might feel for an average travel enthusiast and flight passenger nowadays?

If you do, then continue reading.

Buses, trains, airports and planes amid the pandemic

So, I started my journey in West London, Kew Gardens on early Sunday morning with a final destination being Slovakia, Bratislava — my home country and capital city airport.

I left home and took a regular overground train from Kew to central London, more specifically, Finchley Road.

Finchley Road — the place close to well-known Sigmund Freud’s museum, steps away from another landmark place — Highgate and St John’s Wood with the famous Abbey Road Studious popularized by Beatles.

The reason why I landed in Finchley Road was that it’s one of the few central London locations that serve great — regular and reliable transport links to North London’s airports such as Luton (for my flight) and Stansted.

The initial travel journey I took was both short and pleasant as I did start it at around 9 am, the train was timely and almost empty, there was a plentiful of space everywhere and most of all — I felt safe.

I reached Finchley Road in less than 30 minutes, my bus to the airport was leaving in the next 15 minutes. Now, although I prefer taking trains everywhere, including the airport journeys, this time, I had to opt-in for a bus as the trains from London to Luton was limited on this day due to regular weekend construction works in the area and so there was no straight ‘one train’ option for me. I left the overground train station and the bus station was just outside it, which made this initial bit of travel super convenient.

I was wearing a cotton face mask since getting on the train and light fabric gloves for touching public spaces such as the train doors. Not because I am worried about the coronavirus or panicky about my health — on that note, I’d not take the gloves with me if I wasn’t travelling to the airport and visiting my family in Slovakia. That is my parents who are over sixty and so I chose to take a few extra safety measures to minimize the risk and make sure that I arrive home safe for them.

And although I do appreciate that face masks are essential, I can’t stand having to wear one for more than 5 minutes due to the lack of oxygen and the consequences of that on my body over a longer period of time.

But anyway, masks wearing on public transport is mandatory throughout the UK, so we all have to comply.

During the bus-wait time, I managed to have a little conversation with a fellow travel passenger who was waiting at the same bus stop, only for a different bus and was a bit confused, so we got to talk. We were both wearing masks so this interaction was different than what it’d have normally been if we’d have seen each other’s facial expressions. The time flew by and soon, the bus arrived and we got to boarding.

But before that or the driver scanning my ticket and letting me in, the first one-liner of a conversation with them went something like this. “Hello madam, can I take your temperature, please?” Well, I read National Express’s T&Cs a night before and knew that this is now a common practice and so I either comply or don’t and can forget about the travel as they won’t let me into the bus. I had my temperature taken by a digital thermometer that didn’t even touch my forehead but was kept a few centimetres away. I was marked as safe to travel and boarded the bus.

I noticed that safety measures on the bus were quite well-put, managed and respected. Such as people not sitting next to each other unless they travelled together and only every second row of seats was been taken. The rest was marked as out of use and no one was allowed there. I liked what the company has done there considering that they had to provide a secure travel experience for everyone.

Again, the journey passed sooner than I thought, but I was starting to feel pretty uneasy about wearing the facemask. Such as, I couldn’t breathe freely, my head felt heavier, I couldn’t eat anything — and I haven’t had breakfast yet. And drinking water also wasn’t one of the easiest tasks.

Here I somewhat understood already that the travel as I am undergoing now is a completely new experience incomparable to any previous one of such kind in the past.

I only wished that things will soon get better, travel easier and that my actual flight and airport experience will be brighter.

After reaching the airport, taking a small break to breathe, have banana breakfast, I entered the airport with the face mask on and the security check went very fast. Nice and smooth.

Then, as I was entering the duty-free section, and looking forward to emerge myself in some posh free perfume and creams from Rituals to feel dope again, I suddenly noticed that the free testers of all the body cosmetics were gone. Again, COVID-19 measures in place. Logically, but it took pieces of my airport joy away.

I was left with having to get some food for later on, a smoothie to keep me going for now (I love and always go for the blueberries or mango from Innocent), and ended up reading a Time Out while waiting for my Gate information, while slowly sipping my Innocent.

I flew with a Hungarian low-coster called Wizz Air, the name sounds cool, but there’s much less magic when it comes to their flight service. Unfortunately, I had a few bad experiences with them such as when my flight was delayed for about 3 hours, we were stuck on board and weren’t allowed out, not even offered a free glass of water. Anyway, I flew with them again as I didn’t have other options — them being the only airline flying Slovakia during the day time.

As my Gate number was announced, I walked towards the gate and joined around a hundred of other passengers waiting for the boarding. My first reaction was a bit of a shock. I didn’t expect the flight to have that many passengers if we’re trying to stay safe and secure.

And second, people somehow forgot about safety rules and started pushing and pulling each other so they can be closer to the Gate entrance. ‘Typical’, my cynical mind voice whispered and made a grimace.

As if that ever made any difference as their seat is already allocated and there always is enough space for the carry-on baggage on board. Anyway, I kept my distance and gave a look to one cheeky mid-aged lady at my back who was pushing herself towards me to push me upfront more. I haven’t moved an inch and soon, she’s given up her urging.

We boarded the plane. And my doubts and frustration were all confirmed when I realized that actually - every bloody seat around was taken. No one was taking precautions here to the number of passengers on board.

No one seemed to care in the low-cost airliner about whether it’s safe to enable a full-flight and travel with other passengers in your face for a few hours journey amid the pandemics.

I wasn’t too happy, didn’t feel comfortable or safe seeing this. Especially considering the number of safety measures drawn and carefully monitored elsewhere and how I tried my best to keep them myself throughout the journey. Here, I didn’t fail due to my inability or negligence, but because the airline was fucking around with safety rules.

I quickly calculated my options, whether to fuck it and leave the plane and then how much I want to go home. And ended up sliding to my middle seat.

I’ve not even checked where I was sitting before boarding, expecting a half-empty flight, and here I ended up being surrounded by people — two ladies — our hair was literally touching each other. And wearing the face mask seemed like an ultimate joke. I didn’t laugh.

To silence my disappointment, I put on my headphones with piano music by an amazing piano composer who also happens to be a good friend of mine — Austrian made, Nadja Dudek. Closing my eyes, I did some meditative deep breathing. It didn’t last long till I was woken up by an ongoing cry of the babies around me who were feeling uneasy about something and kept crying throughout the flight. I felt further uneasy as I couldn’t even safely have my food — without other two passengers breathing straight to it, and started to feel suspiciously hungry and dizzy.

To make the long flight story short — the babies cried continuously, time was passing slowly and I first time ever felt unwell on board as I didn’t eat there not to risk the safety, although the food and drinks were served on board. The air hostesses wore masks and disposable gloves while serving the food, but not while eventually handing us pens and papers to fill in with our personal details for Slovak Office for Public Health (to have our data in case of some passenger onboard getting infected).

Another joke of a safety measure. People throughout the flight were sharing a few pens handed over by the air hostesses. So, in the end, everyone’s hands shook.

Well except for mine as I had my pen handy. A writer can’t deny being a writer. And maybe being a writer can even save lives now.

We eventually landed, people were suddenly in a hurry to exit the plane and pushing, pulling was back — typical. We had to take a sardine-like-packed bus to get from the plane to the airport, although the actual journey was barely 100 meters. But that’s nothing new in Slovakia as that’s a common practice.

I often wondered though whether it’s because my country has so much money to spare on extra fuel and driver’s wages or they just want to show off in front of the tourists (although it does quite the opposite).

Or it’s actually because they want to avoid some security risks like some of us running with our carry-ons in hand away from fully monitored airport — trying to exit through some unauthorized entrance.

Or it’s in case someone fooled the airport security scanners shrewdly, carries explosives in their hand luggage, and decides to drop them off somewhere at the empty landing space. I still don’t know as I never asked anyone relevant, but I am seriously considering to do it next time as these questions keep crossing my mind too often over the past years.

Then, there was a passport police check where the lady officer at the counter shouted at me to remove my face mask because I was in some dreamland and forgot that she’s supposed to verify my identity and the face mask is not a part of my face that shall not be removed at any cost. And then we had to pass the digital temperature-taking test before we were allowed out of the neutral ground to the sacred soil of Slovakia. I passed. And what awaited me then were additional 3 hours of a drive to reach my home town.

To summarize this whole day of my pandemic journey — namely 12 hours of travel by train, cab, buses and plane in one sentence:

‘Fuck this shit.’ Or in a more censure free and English way — ‘Travel is no fun anymore.’

I can’t help it. It’s not. Not for me.

To Conclude

1. This whole thing with pandemic travel feels like a bad joke.

The face mask I wore throughout the day of my travel — that’s most of the time I was awake, to protect myself and the fellow passengers, has given me such a big headache lasting over two days that I actually started thinking that I must have caught the virus somehow anyway. So not only the day of my travel was screwed, but so did the following two days become painful and stressful.

2. No place seems to follow unified rules when it comes to the safety and security of people. Bus service providers have their own rules, trains have their own rules, cabs have their rules, airports also have their own — and again different rules.

Don’t even get me started on what rules people have individually as that’s a chapter of a heavy book (if not the book) on its own! Okay, maybe a hint — there’s not a face mask for a face mask and some, the disposable ones, are not supposed to be kept on, while staying a reliable protection, for over a few hours and I bet that a percentage close to zero keeps changing their disposables that often. While nobody keeps tracking this. So, the safety rule we’re trying so badly to achieve has serious double standards.

And then the airlines make up their very best and unique rules, God only knows based on what. Maybe the drastic losses they produced in the past few months make them compromise the safety strategy now?

3. I honestly don’t know but one thing I know is that the feeling of joy, excitement and adrenalin that travelling used to give me before is gone for now. (Temporarily replaced by confusion, exhaustion and frustration.) I just hope it’s not gone for the good.

Please consider this essay with a pinch of salt (add tequila). Meaning, it’s made to be cynical, critical, sceptical and sarcastic. Because that’s how I felt. You can disagree with me, challenge me or share your unique travel experience. I honestly can’t wait to hear some evidence that would contradict my story. Peace.