"I don't like my job," he said, hoping we'd empathise.
No dice - we enjoy ours, so "not our problem", we replied. In a futile bid for sympathy, he said: "You're making me feel bad."
We weren't feeling crash-hot either, imagining having to squeeze five people into a micro car for nine days and gobsmacked at how the system had gone so wrong in the land of the automobile and in a state that sells itself on service.
- Grant Bradley faces a stand-off at Alamo Rentals in Hawaii, "Stand off at the Alamo", March 1.
Noise and movement intensified until, eerily, everything stopped. A frozen tableau.
Slowly, people started to disperse. One of the main players - a passenger - walked past, sweaty and ashen-faced.We learned through whispers that a man in his 50s, travelling alone, had tragically died.
The corpse was wrapped in blankets, then dragged down the aisle by four people. As the convoy passed us, seated right at the back by the galley, the smell was pungently and traumatically unpleasant. The blanket bundle was unceremoniously laid out on the galley floor. A passenger showed some compassion and placed a pillow under one end.
- Owen Scott experienced the trauma of a death mid-flight. "For some, it's a final journey", March 8.
Travelling as a sole female also has its drawbacks. In Guatemala, a country I heartily recommend visiting, I was walking to my Spanish class in the pretty little town of Antigua when a passing local reached out and grabbed one of my breasts. In broad daylight.
Instinctively I lashed out, while yelling at the offender at the top of my lungs.The rest of the street stopped. Sweet little Mayan women were clearly aghast, but at whom? Me or him? I couldn't tell and it felt like I was the one at fault.
- Elisabeth Easther bemoaned the creeps that spoil travel for solo females. "Got the wandering hands", March 15.
After quite a battering of the credit card on the holiday part of the trip (which included two trips to Ikea - don't ask), I had used up a fair chunk of my 23kg and there was no way of shedding it.
For some reason I couldn't add baggage to the ticket online so had to do it at the airport. It cost $130, and then I had to pay for something to eat on the plane. Plus I got told off by the check-in guy for not booking it in the first place. I'd been travelling all day and I may have had a small tantrum. It wasn't my finest moment.
- Shandelle Battersby fell foul of airlines' added-fare extras. "Suck it up and shell out", April 5.
Cemeteries offer a quiet respite in the haste of travel, the option to stretch one's legs without the inconvenience of being hit by a golf ball. It's a chance to meet the locals - living, and those not so much - and an opportunity to contemplate the transitory nature of life. They make me feel glad to be alive because the alternative - no matter how big the headstone or mausoleum - doesn't seem especially appealing.
- Graham Reid encouraged visiting cemeteries while travelling. "Dead Interesting", June 21.
My bank manager saves me a substantial amount of money every year. Not by tax advice and directing me towards loopholes but by looking like a dugong. He has no external ears, as well as an impressive pair of pectal teats, which means I don't have to fork out absurd quantities of hard-earned credit to go and see a real dugong in the flesh.
- Kevin Pilley said you don't need to leave home to marvel at the animal kingdom. "The call of the wild", July 12.
Fewer and fewer hotels now provide a clothesline in the shower or even anything you can fasten a clothesline to.
I have, for some time, taken one of those expanding travel clotheslines with me, plus a few clothes pegs for larger items of clothing, but it's often very hard to erect it over the bath or shower to catch the drips. In one English pub, I ended up with the line stretched from a bath tap, up round the shower rose, down the bath to the end of the shower curtain rail and round the corner to a coat hook.
- Jim Eagles said travelling light is getting harder and harder, "That sinking feeling", Sept 20.
I watched in envy as more organised campers opened neat plastic storage boxes and, with a stage-magician flourish and a puff of smoke, pulled out plates, cups, knives, pots, dishwash, dishbrush, dishrack, cleaning cloths, table cloths, silver serving platters, spice racks, Nigella Lawson cookbooks, lemon squeezers, avocado keepers, oven mitts and a runcible spoon.
- Helen van Berkel gets camping envy. "Earning Brownie Points", October 11.
