Bye-Bye Buy-Buy
Don’t waste time shopping on
your travels; enjoy the destination instead
There
is a special pleasure in coming back to your hotel, laden with local,
ready-to-eat delicacies, and fashioning an impromptu picnic in your room
The one question you are
guaranteed to be asked when you come back from vacation is: “Did any shopping?”
Or perhaps: “What did you buy?” In my case, the answer is always a resounding:
“Nothing at all!” Frankly, the last thing I feel like doing on holiday is
shopping. Why would I want to spend hours in some poky shop or a soulless
department store or even a tony boutique when I could be pounding the streets
of a new destination and getting to know it better? Why would I try on yet
another linen shirt in a badly-lit changing room when I could be out there,
downing a drink while getting my fill of an amazing sunset? Why would I want to
browse through endless racks of shoes when there are restaurants to check out
and museums to visit?
Short answer is: I
wouldn’t. I have never really seen the point of shopping when I am on holiday.
And now, even more so, when thanks to the homogenisation of our world, no
matter where you go, the same brands and labels thrust themselves in your face
in city after city. It doesn’t matter whether you are in London, Paris, Rome,
Lisbon, Johannesburg or Buenos Aires, the same luxury brands – Chanel, Hermès,
Louis Vuitton, Armani, Versace – crop up again and again. It is much the same
story in the mid-market segment, or on the high street. Zara rubs shoulders
with Marks & Spencer; H&M sits cheek by jowl with Topshop; L’Occitane
chugs along nicely with The Body Shop. And when it comes to liquor or perfume,
the same labels are available all over the world (though the duty-free zone
after you’ve checked in for your return flight is still your best bet).
So why waste time
shopping on holiday when – no matter what your taste or your budget – you can
buy pretty much the same stuff in your own city? In fact, some of the brands
are actually cheaper back home than they are abroad – with the added bonus that
you don’t have the palaver of finding space in your suitcase, and then worry
about the excess baggage fees you will have to cough up at the airport.
I can see some of you
shaking your heads sadly at this. Surely, you say, there is so much more to
shopping in foreign parts than just clothes, bags and beauty products. There
are, for instance, indigenous arts and crafts that I should be hoovering up and
bringing back home to serve as mementoes of my travels. Those lovely silk
cushions from Bangkok; that landscape portrait the roadside artist painted by
the Seine; wooden carvings from Africa; the list goes on and on. Well, thanks
but no thanks. The truth is that there is nothing I find more dispiriting than
the ‘souvenirs’ that are on display for the benefit of unsuspecting travellers
in every great city of the world. More often than not, they are not even made
in the place they claim to represent, having been mass produced in some factory
in China. (On a recent trip to Venice I discovered that the face masks on
display around St. Mark’s Square and the glass that purported to come from
Murano were actually the work of Chinese manufacturers, who can knock them off
at a much cheaper price.) And while they may look nice and exotic while hanging
in the shop window, they look cheap and nasty when you bring them back and
grant them pride of place in your home.
The only shops I make an
exception for in my travels are those that sell food and groceries. I can spend
an entire afternoon in markets that sell fruits, vegetables and flowers. I
revel in the colours – the bright red of the apples, the shocking orange of the
tangerines, the green of the asparagus. I inhale the wonderful smells – of
everything from the narcissus blooms to the heaps of dried lavender. I may not
buy anything more than a few persimmons and a bunch of tulips, but just
feasting my eyes on all that plenty is enough to keep me satiated.
The other places I love
browsing through are the food halls at supermarkets across the world. Just
looking at all the stuff on display – the endless varieties of sausages, cold
meats, cheese, yoghurt, bakery products, chocolates, etc. – and watching the
shoppers fill their trolleys makes me feel as if I am part of the tapestry of
everyday life in the city, a local if you will, if only in my own mind.
In fact, it is only in
food shops that I relax my no-shopping-onholiday rule. There is a special
pleasure in coming back to your hotel, laden with local, ready-to-eat delicacies,
and fashioning an impromptu picnic in your room. And sometimes these treats are
so delicious that you can’t resist buying a few more to bring back home, so
that the taste of the holiday lingers in your life for just a little bit
longer. The Sachertorte from Vienna; the musk melon from Bangkok; the chorizo
from Barcelona; the egg tart from Lisbon; a tiny truffle from Piedmont.
Now these are things it
is worth making space in your suitcase for. Tourist tat? Designer brands?
Perfume and liquor? Not so much.
No matter what your
taste or your budget is, you can buy pretty much the same stuff in your own
city.
seema goswami
HTBR 23SEP18
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