Our journeys through the decades have never been long enough for us to pay more than cursory attention to our fellow travellers. In our childhood, our family over-filled a train compartment and anyone who wanted to stretch out comfortably on their journey gave us a wide berth.

Later, we were fully occupied with child and dog and again — had everyone keeping a distance of at least a leash’s length from us. Now that our days of a nervous dog and a demanding child are done, however, we have had many encounters of the memorable kind with fellow travellers.

The ‘guided tour’ bug has bitten us and willy-nilly we are thrown into the close company of diverse personalities. Other than the time we spend asleep, we are together practically twenty-four hours a day — and that can be a lot when most of us are in that stage of life when we think we know it all ...

There are some in the group who also think they have to say it all. Using seniority, experience, wider travel, financial success — anything and everything — to back them up, they expound their views – be it on the history and culture and customs of the place we are visiting or the methods and madness of the home country we have left behind. They may sound obnoxious when thus written about, but in reality there is much to learn from them – if we can get over our own egos for long enough to actually pay attention.

There are the chronically weary: who grumble each time they have to walk even a short distance (how did they think they were going to do their sightseeing — with the issue of a pair of wings?) and therefore take their own time making their way down a street while the others cool their heels at a convenience store and shop — unnecessarily — while they wait for them to catch up.

Stop a moment

If you think that the always-tired are the annoying ones — stop a moment and consider the effect of an over-enthusiastic traveller. As the group has started to bond over a common grouse of a slightly extended trek, the eager beaver pipes up with ‘Where does that trail lead? To the grotto? Let’s go there — oh, please, just for a couple of snaps ...’ And since the group has to stick together, everyone is marched off muttering below their breath or at full volume, depending on the time of day.

Then there are the eternally disgruntled and never satisfied travelling companions. If the breakfast is lavish, it is not laid out well enough for them to get a taste of everything. If it is laid out aesthetically enough to appeal to their finer senses, it is not adequate for their hungry families.

Their seat on the bus is never good enough, there was no hot water in their shower this morning, and so on through every day of the holiday.

And what about those who take their country along with them? They cannot savour a single meal that is not redolent of home and they drown out the guide’s inputs about the country they are visiting with loud renderings of Bollywood songs, and home sweet home is all they talk of until you wonder why they didn’t stay put there and not set out thus with you.

There are, of course, many more categories and sub-categories of travellers, each with their own special way of livening up the journey — or getting on someone else’s nerves.

That’s why it really helps if, before we set out, we take the time to figure out which category we fall into. Do we grate on the others or are we great companions? What is our impact on fellow travellers?

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.