Travel....to be or not to be a travel writer?

I love travelling not because of the glamour of the places that one gets to visit but to imbibe in the culture and atmosphere of places one visit. I still remembered well my forays of travelling in the summer as a young student way back in late 70's and early 80's in particular as customary with most young students in Europe....just buy a month euro rail pass and travel as you please .
With practically little money in your pocket and with a backpack you just trudged around,staying at youth hostels, on the trains and even in a park(i did that in Rome).
What did i actually remember of those trips(or sojourns.hmm). Nothing much except the constant hunger and tiredness which was always enlightened whenever one arrived at the desired destination, to me Venice is still one of the most beautiful places on earth even it was now overly trundled with tourists flagging US dollars.
Thus my admiration for those travel writers(that's what they called themselves possibly) for having the innate ability o describe their travels with such clarity and poignancy that you felt so engrossed as you read through their observations and happenings during their travels.

Sir VS Naipaul really stands out for me as the most imminent of the lot. Paul Theroux is another favourite travel writer of mine, now in the midst of reading his latest,"Ghost train to the Eastern Star", bit disappointed though that just a brief mention of Malaysia, more so on Singapore which he described as a "social laboratory"..but the most absorbing part of his account was his time in Cambodia ,you can feel the chill in your bones when he related the killing fields and talking to some of the survivors.

So? Can we relate our travels the way these people do?
Besides that early bone crunching walkabout in Europe in my teen years ,travel lately is always been about shopping "walkabouts" in the malls,bazaars and markets.
A trip to Bali, Phuket, more so Singapore and Dubai is more a trip of paying homages to the various shopping outlets in its many forms. Can one really stop for a while and try to savour the place that one visits ,learn a bit more of the people, their stories and if one is lucky can even come up with a nice story that even Theroux can be proud of!! Humbug will be the possible reply from Naipaul(he's well known for his arrogance but cant slight the man for his genius in writing good stories)
Oh by the way Rehman Reshid book, "The Malaysian journey" is a great read but was written almost 25 years ago, will be good if he can come with a new book,come on Rehman do it, please!!
Lastly, my home town Kuching is still one of the best places on this planet earth(trust me..)