Being Considerate

I have become a lazy traveler. Today, staring at my first day of full summer sun in a couple weeks and a potential 2 hour roundtrip on a non-AC bus to visit the ancient fortified, World Heritage city of Fatehpur Sikri, I blinked. The lure of my comfortable bed, the glistening pool, and the quiet chairs under a garden canopy of trees were just too enticing. Fatehpur Sikri is no doubt worth seeing and would add another entry to my growing collection of UNESCO sites, but how could it win out against the creature comforts of the ITC Mughal?

Plus, I was already feeling pretty proud of myself for getting out of bed at 7am to do yoga (which didn’t happen, because I was the only fool who got up at the crack of dawn while on vacation to do yoga.) I figured after everything I’ve been through, I deserved a nice morning off. This of course comes on the heels of a nice evening off yesterday, replete with a much needed nap, a hot bath, and a filling (but also overpriced) meal at the hotel restaurant.

I do not feel guilty though. While it is true that I am supposed to be working (what, you thought the fact that you are traveling automatically equates to being on vacation!?!?), everyone needs a break every once in a while. Here, on the tail end of my trip, I look back at all of the places I have seen and been to in the past six months, all of the people I have met, the conversations I have had, the countless hawkers and touts I’ve fended off, all of the buses, trains, and planes I have been on, the days sick, the strange foods tried, the ridiculous amount of fried chicken consumed – and I am proud. I realize that I could have packed more in and that I’ve given myself a fair share of days off – but I am a leisurely traveler, one more inclined to spend an hour talking with a rickshaw driver than fighting traffic to get to some minor tourist site, or to lounge about people watching in a café rather than rush through a museum. Whether just slothfulness or an actual method of travel, I know not. It is however, how I do it, and what I most enjoy doing.

Of this I am certain. Not only do I deserve this morning off, but I am better for it. Fatehpur Sikri is not going anywhere, and with two nights in airports (bad connections in both ingapore and Hong Kong on two different airlines, aka bad planning) in front of me, I have many hours to go before finding real comfort again. Thus, while I could have pushed myself in this heat to find a public bus, fight through the hawkers and fake “guides,” and brave the burning heat to see Fatehpur Sikri, would I have actually enjoyed it? I will never know for certain, but I have a pretty good guess of the answer.

We have this saying in Chinese that essentially means: it is good to leave yourself a little wanting so that there is reason to come again. I think it’s a pretty good rule to live by. The way I see it is, if I see everything in Agra this time I’d have no reason to come back, and moreover, there’d be nothing left for me to discover with my future wife if she wanted to come. So, for her benefit and mine, I’m skipping Fatehpur this time. Really thoughtful and considerate, right? :)