Collecting Countries...

Many of you will be familiar with the social networking site WAYN.com (Where Are You Now?).  It provides potential travellers with the opportunity to find out more about their next destination from people who have already visited. All very nice, but the one feature on WAYN that I can’t get enough of is the plain map of the world which automatically colours in all the countries you’ve been to.

It’s great; I spent ages inputting all of my travel history thinking I would put Michael Palin in the shade but when I looked back at the map it was nearly all still plain white.  The trip to see Mickey Mouse back in 1999 had thankfully shaded in the whole of North America for me, and Australia last year made a big mark, but the Kenyan safari had only filled in a tiny proportion of Africa, the rest of which, apart from Egypt and Morocco, remained stubbornly blank.

Time to think about this tactically; three visits to Hong Kong had made no discernable mark on the map but then I remembered the day trip into China.  At the time this consisted of a visit to a local school, a foul smelling market selling caged birds, and a very ropey guide who I remember only for the fact that he refused to let us leave his coach until we tipped him with dollars!  Now, however, this short excursion succeeded in colouring in almost a quarter of my globe!

My addiction to this activity became worryingly clear to me last week as I was flying to Sri Lanka (a nice one to tick off, but India, just above and almost connected, still remains annoyingly un-visited).  On the way down to Colombo the plane stopped for an hour to refuel and during the brief wait the doors remained open to allow cleaners on board.  Better still, the steps to the runway were in place inviting me to step onto the runway and to claim the Maldives as my own – not a huge win in the whole scheme of things but a prize worth bagging nevertheless.

The rules of this game by the way are very clear; it’s essential to actually step foot in the country.  Passing within sight of land on a cruise ship, or sitting in transit on a runway simply doesn’t count!

In every other way the cabin crew were fantastic but they simply would not be persuaded to let me walk the twenty steps down to terra firma.  I tried explaining WAYN to them; my map; the colouring in situation; but they were struggling to follow my logic.  I was briefly tempted to make a break for it but the semi-automatic weapon slung across the chest of the security guard quickly brought me back to my senses.

Some people collect stamps, others collect football cards.  What’s so odd about collecting countries?  Thanks to WAYN I now know that I have fifty two under my belt.