When it comes to trips abroad, we are always mindful of the airlines’ baggage allowance — and thus we can go from anywhere between 20 and 30 kilos, depending on where we are going and with which airline.

Most often, of course, our outgoing baggage is less than half the allotted weight, because we want to be very sure that we can splurge on the specialities of whichever place we visit. One would imagine then, with so much baggage space, that we would run wild in the markets and pick up whatever costly gizmo catches our eyes. But that doesn’t happen because we are always on a fairly strict budget. We like to bring back as much of the unspent currency notes as possible and use them for our next trip — and our next — thereby controlling those budgets too ...

Therefore, while others in our group pick up crystal in Prague and sapphires in Sri Lanka, opals in Australia and amber in Poland, we settle for a taste of the juiciest pears we have ever had, a coconut shell bowl, Tim Tams, a resin necklace and heaps of local chocolates ... all at a fraction of the cost others incur.

“The crystal / sapphires / opals / amber will be a lasting reminder of the trip when we return home,” our friends tell us. “We will think about the wonderful time we had in each place when we look at them ...”

We nod sagely. They are absolutely right. But unlike them, when we — husband and wife — return home, we do not sit together and talk about our experiences over a cup of tea or coffee. We do not reminisce at mealtimes. As we lounge in the drawing room, we do not exchange views of what we liked best about each place.

‘Special’ offers

Because we have pretty much maxed out on a month’s quota of conversation during those ten days of travel and with all those memories of conviviality, it is easy to zip our lips, press the individual silencers, knuckle down and head straight to our work stations to scour the internet for off-season discounts and ‘special’ offers available for our next trip ... and our next round of packing and unpacking.

Unlike our other travels, a trip to Dubai, however, involves the rest of our nuclear family. Months in advance (because that’s when the excitement starts building up), we get a list of what is wanted from “back home” and we start collecting — and when we set out, we find that we are packed to capacity with items like hand-wash and mouthwash and variations of the same. “Why are we carrying all this?” we ask the children. “We know you get the best of everything there!”

“It’s what we are accustomed to using at home — it gives us the feeling of home,” they say; and so we remain true to their list and we haul it all with us, wondering idly what the airport officials would think if they inspected the contents of our luggage closely ... Soap — and washing powder? Really? Once relieved of our burden — and happy to see the look of contentment as our children hurry to use the familiar toiletries they have grown up with — we set out to fill up our baggage space with all the bargains available in the Dubai stores.

Of course, there are plenty of them.

But what do we settle on? Shower gels and body sprays and air fresheners — just like the ones that were being used in our children’s home until we brought in the Indian replacements.

And shamelessly, we buy them. So that, when we return, we can fill our senses with the perfumes of their homes and go back in our minds to the short time we spent together ...

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.