TRAVEL PIGS: the root of travelling problems?
Travel editor Chris Rogers takes us through the nightmare that is travelling in a group of three
Just the three of us: you and I...and him! I
t’s not, it’s not, it’s not! How dare you!?” screamed Dom storming out of the cabin and along the train carriage with floods of tears flowing from his eyes. He slammed the door behind him as he entered the toilet where he fell to his knees. Shivering and shaking he gasped and groaned. He felt utterly sick with rage, but slowly managed to stand and stare through watery eyes at his red face in the mirror. “How can he? How can he?” he said to himself between heavy breaths. “How can he claim it, with such conviction as well?” Dom knew it, he just knew that Harry was wrong; the pig was scientifically proven to be the second most intelligent animal on the planet, not the dolphin as Harry so arrogantly claimed. But how could he prove it? They were stuck on this train for at least another three days; without internet access. How could Dom destroy Harry? Because that’s what he wanted to do. He wanted to wipe Harry out; he wanted to hit him so hard. The idiot. The fucking moron. Although a fictional story, with fictional characters, this little episode is drawn from real experiences. During my gap year I travelled with two of my closest friends and this type of scenario was not uncommon. We are still the best of friends now, but our three month trip really tested
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our friendship. We were warned before we left that deciding to travel as a three was a big mistake, but we were defiant. We knew we were too close, we knew each other too well. We would be fine or so we thought. How wrong we were. Our daily arguments ranged from fairly lighthearted debates such as whether or not religion is the root of all evil, to far heavier and intense rows over who gets the window seat on the bus. We would scowl at each other’s stupidity for believing that we needed to turn left to get back to the hostel, or cackle at each other’s ridiculous attempts to haggle, and hated each other for it. This, along with the supposedly unflawed decision making device, the flipped coin, being brought into to question with allegations of cheating, which left us wanting to murder each other.
The experience was wholly unpleasant The main problem we found about travelling in a group of three was the feeling of jealousy which we all experienced. Each one of us was convinced that the other two were far more ‘chummy’ with each other. I had a particular problem due to my
fairly passive nature. Often I would find myself left out during a blazing row between the other two. Bizarrely I felt jealous of the attention they were giving each other by arguing. And then of course there would be the post argument bummer fest they would always seem to engage in - in order to make up. These feelings did, however, change on one occasion when I was routinely observing the fight from the sidelines when one of my friends turned on me and demanded to know why I refused to get involved. The experience was wholly unpleasant and I found myself not feeling quite so jealous of their arguments from that point on. There were of course many great advantages to travelling as a three. It allows you to go off by yourself if you feel you need space without leaving someone alone. Although that’s the only advantage I can think of. I have recently been sent the photos from our trip by one of my two travel companions and as I browse through I have fond memories of the wonderful time we had together. But, in terms of group dynamics, a three is troublesome and challenging and so I would strongly recommend travelling in even numbers. Although having more than four can be messy as I experienced when I travelled with sixteen friends, but that’s another story.
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