TRAVEL AMENITIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 137, 11 June 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

TRAVEL AMENITIES.

ASSERTING ONE'S RIGHTS.

HOW TO TOUR PEACEFUI/LY. (No. IT.) (By MARC T. GREENE.) 'Thin is liio second of two nrticloa wriiton for this paper by an American journalist o£ note, who is uow in Iv'ew Zealand. Consider the position of the hotel man catering to tourists — chiefly perhaps, to American tourists —who present problems possibly as numerous as tie number of his guests. He ie a much-enduring person, arising each day to face new difficulties, compelled sometimes to listen unmoved —apparently— to comments of an exceedingly caustic nature, requiring on frequent occasions to exercise a degree of forehearance few of us could match. I recall a summer when I was at the famous old Mitre Inn, at Oxford, a favoured place of American tourists anxious to discover that elusive thing known as "atmosphere." Sline host received a telegram from Stratford, from a party of Americans vigorously engaged in "doing the Shakespeare country" in three days. They were about to return to London, but hopeful of a glance at Oxford en route. Thus ran the telegram: — "Stopping two hours in Oxford on way to London. Have lunch ready at twelve and keys to college at 12.45." Not tho least of the hotel proprietor's problems is that of the tourist not only eager, but determined, to see all the guklc-book-rccoimncnded "sights" between trains. To me personally, even Oβ to Mr. Tricstley, a list of things that "must be seen" in any town is a perfect detestation. I would rather miss them all than be "one of a driven herd." I have as energetically "shooed" awav guides to the Roman Forum and Iho Taj Mahal as to the Forbidden City of the Manchus and tho volcano of Kilauea. I must see these tilings by myself, at least for the first time, in order that in undisturbed solitude I may dreamily recreate the rich-hued past.

"Request," Not "Demand." ' Moreover, I am one of those strange persons who never "make reservations" in advance, never "book ahead," never liavo any "plans." Sometimes, then, I am greeted with the familiar, "Very sir, but —." Whereupon I smile quietly, bide my time a little—and invariably reach a solution of the triflingproblem. The thing I carefully abstain from doing is "asserting my rights," even if I' have any in the premises. I have found it so excellent a rule as almost to be accepted as a maxim, never to "demand," but always to "request." For example again: I met this other American on the etation platform in Antwerp. He was in a much perturbed state of mind and anxious for sympathy. He approached determinedly. "You're an American, I expect," he began, without preliminaries, "or anyway an Anglo-Saxon. So you can sympathise with me. I started for Paris this morning and when I got to the border they went through my baggage with a fine-tooth comb. I had a pair of shoes I'd got cheap in Brussels (this was at a period of depreciated currency in Belgium) and they wanted to line mo a thousand francs. A thousand francs, inind you, for a little thing like that! Said I was smuggling. When I wouldn't pay they told me I couldn't enter France. So here Inm back here. What am I going to do now?" His was the childlike helplessness of the inexperienced traveller. "What did you say to the French Customs officer ?" I countered. "Say? Why, I asserted myself, of course! Told 'em I was an American and knew my rights." "The very worst thing you could have done!" "Why?"

No Rights. "Because you had no righto.- You were, whether understandingly or not, violating the French law which was enacted to prevent wholesale importation of cheap Belgian shoes from destroying the French footwear industry. That being the case a. less testy manner toward the Customs officials would have been wise. For these officials, once antagonised, are able—and inclined ■ —to place many obstacles in the traveller's way. Customs men, especially in the Latin countries, are sensitive persons. The little authority they exercise they are very jealous of. Seek to flout that authority and you arc certainly in for trouble. Cater to it, on the other hand, and you will be amazed at the ease with which you may step from one country into another. Frequently, upon a simple, courteously-given, negative reply to the question whether you have anything to declare, you will be permitted to pass without even an inspection of your baggage." (Personally I had t.hi.~ experience not long ago even at such a testy frontier as that between Siberia and Manchuria—and I was passing into Soviet Russia, too.)

"I never thought of all that," finally unified my perplexed acquaintance. "Takes an experienced traveller to—"

"Permit me to disagree, my friend," I interposed. "An understanding of such human characteristics as are common 1o us all is the only thing required. And that may be gained in one place as well as in another. It is only necessary to erek it. Try the frontier guard again this afternoon."

I met him a few days later in the American Express offices in Paris. "Well," ho said, "I tried your way. Thov let me off with 500 francs. Guess likely if I'd gone at it different the first time I'd got by with 250."

A Slight Confusion.

I suspect tliat a considerable number of the American tourists who dash frantically about Europe every summer grow quite as bewildered as that one who, standing on the bridge of shops, in Florence, observed dutifully. "This Kialto Bridge is a wonderful thing, isn't it?" "But this isn't the Rialto," protested another. "That's ill Venice." "Well, where are we now?" perplexedly demanded (he first. It is as difficult to regard tlie little amenitiee of travel When in a desperate hurry as it is to pet any lasting satisfaction out of the journey, for indeed BHeh regard anywhere presupposes a reasonable degree of leisure , of thought and action. Each is as essential to the finer-ess of wandering as the l.'ift which, after all. i? nothing mure than a blending of courtesy and the golden rule.