A.I.D.S. (Acute Itinerary Dependency Syndrome)

Somehow nearly a year and a half has passed since the last post. I have a new name for this disease - A.I.D.S. (Acute Itinerary Dependency Syndrome). Simply put, it is the condition of perpetual movement on work from one country/city to another, one airline terminal to another, one hotel room to another, one cuisine to another, one currency to another, and so on. Frequent travellers reading this post will sympathise with me, people who don't travel will think that this is just another of those boasts of jet-setter, something like "I don't like to travel, but I have to".

But A.I.D.S. is a disease that is afflicting people worldwide at a pace that its namesake is doing, maybe faster. There is still no cure, people will continue to travel more on work as our countries become globalized, will continue to wake up in unearthly time to beat the queues at the morning airport rush hour, and will continue to go on a diet of bananas and cornflakes and airline junk food, taking a toll on their bodies in the long run. But then, like its namesake, A.I.D.S. is addictive because it is pleasurable - the adrenaline rush of a business deal or a corporate meeting or a conference presentation - maybe a bit of testosterone too between them!

So there it is, I have come under the spell of A.I.D.S. while working on AIDS (the real thing). Twelve international trips and a couple of local ones within 9 months, passport down to the last available page for a Chinese visa next week, and then a new one for the Sri Lanka jamboree in three weeks' time. In between, A.I.D.S. has taken me from Delhi to Bangkok, KL, Manila, Jakarta, Washington DC, Uganda and sundry other countries. I now look back at them as a lost opportunity for this blog - how nice it would have been to say "this post comes from a non-descripit 5-star room on the 12th floor in Bangkok"! Maybe more people would read it then, thinking I have something interesting to say from the 12th floor window overlooking a concrete jungle. But alas, that is not to be.

So, blame it on A.I.D.S. - blame it when a personal email gets unacknowledged, a phone call unattended, or a blog posted one and a half years later. But remember, it is not going away soon, so get used to it.