Travel writing anyone?

The essence of travel writing is a journey of reflections of life as seen by the traveller.

It amazes me that not much of travel writing is evident from the local aspirants and we always consummed with western travel writers who never ceases to be enlightened by our Orang Utans and virgin jungles.Not much is written about people and their daily lives and aspirations.

I wonder where I should start.

Of course in the spirit of VS Naipaul or Paul Theroux you need to have some compelling themes. For me I don’t have the so called rich civilizations to ponder on or a great railway ride to relish.

Shall i go back to my childhood and try to find some answers to the nature of what shapes my own present thinking and attitude?

Unfortunately I cannot pride myself of a famished upbringing and overcoming all odds to succeed in the rat race of life nor do I can count on living during interesting times in history that can forever give you a vivid image of the world.

An idea comes to mind and dare I venture to explore it in full honesty and make it into some form of a revealing journey of my life so far?

I am talking about a recent debate in the press regarding the Prime Minister’s call for meritocracy within the Bumiputra’s community and not to continue on a dangerous path of what is termed as a “subsidy mentality”.

I can’t possibly write another Malay Dilemma story,that is better tackled by my Brethrens on the mainland and also what has this got to do with stories about travel writing.

It is worth trying though i.e in seeking some strand of relationship of the present hype on meritocracy and my own urge to do some travel writing .

Now that is an idea worth pursuing.Without a need to be structured,(coming from a trained engineer like myself it does take some mindset change),I can explore the world as I know thirty years ago and the world now and see through my own lens of experience the impacts of the privileges given to Bumiputras and the relevancy of the new clarion call on the embracement of meritocracy.

PS: I wrote above article a while back, well maybe one day i may pursue this, you never know...Rehman Rashid may have his 'Malaysian Journey"...hmmm if indeed this is to be a reality one day, what shall i call my travel sojourn? "The Sarawakian journey"? How original!!!!