Why I... travel
"We slept in a wood hut, which was on stilts because of the wild animals crawling about – you could hear them in the night."
I once managed a financial planning business within a travel agency. My clients were all travel consultants and they kept telling me about all the places I should visit – so I did.
I speak Hindi and Gujarati and I understand Urdu and Punjabi. These are obviously useful when I go to South Asia. I speak a little French and I’d love to learn Sanskrit.
One of my most memorable trips was to Thailand eight years ago with two of my friends. We booked only one night’s accommodation, a return flight home and nothing else. We trekked into the jungle in the north and stayed with a local family. We slept in a wood hut, which was on stilts because of the wild animals crawling about – you could hear them in the night. It was monsoon season and when it was time to go we came back on a bamboo raft down a river because it was the easiest way.
Visiting the Killing Fields in Cambodia was really eye-opening. You realise the horror of what happened there and it puts everything into perspective. It was the same with Vietnam. We looked where the cu chi tunnels were – that was my scariest travelling moment ever. You drop down through a tiny hole in the ground and I got in but couldn’t get back out – I didn’t have the height. There was a point I thought I wasn’t coming out. But I used all my upper body strength and made it.
I like to go off the beaten track and will sleep anywhere as long as there’s a clean bed and a clean bathroom.
My top travel tip is: keep an open mind, try everything within reason and don’t judge. When people go travelling, they sometimes expect people to behave the same as we do in the UK, that they’ll live the same lifestyle and have similar values but it’s not always the case.
I’ve met some incredible people. In Cambodia, they let you tour the old concentration camps and prisons. Our guide had lost her uncle, who she was very close to, in one of those places. To take people round that prison and to remember that horror every single day showed great strength of character.
As a financial planner you come across people from all walks of life so the more travelling you do, the more you understand people’s cultures, beliefs and their financial mind blocks.
What I get most out of travelling is learning the history and culture of the country I’m in and understanding what shapes the people there and hearing their stories.