Understanding one's plug needs

While travelling, my most important travel accessory these days is my plug adaptor. The phone has of course become an extension of oneself these days, and keeping it charged is as important as keeping a pet fed and groomed.

The trouble is when one goes from one part of the world to the other, one encounters an array of very individualistic plug points that have no understanding of what one’s plug needs.

Now that I have been caught out desperately trying to save the quickly diminishing battery of my phone in Switzerland in past years, I have equipped myself with a multi country adaptor. The mix and match marvel works like magic, and so, whether it is sockets that are single-minded in that they will only take flat pins or those that prefer two point ones or demand three point plugs with round pins, I have a way to get them to work for me, and adapt to my phone charger’s needs.

But really, I wonder, if variety is indeed the spice of travelling or whether it is the bane. Surely with the globe shrinking day by day, some standardisation can be achieved with a little cooperation among the countries of the world. At least the most developed and travelled-in ones!

Take the metric system as one more instance. Driving through Ireland, we were happy to realise that the left side of the road was the right one to drive in, as we do in this our land called India.
But the car I drove had the signal stick and the wiper handle on the sides opposite to the one I usually drive back home. Not at all an issue when I was calm and happy driving along with the sun in the sky and a song in my heart.

Alas, all of my bon homie evaporated when things went awry. In a stressful situation, when my mind was occupied with which road to take or which exit was mine, the brain would switch to autopilot and I would start the wiper instead of the indicator! Phew!
I don’t know what the driver of the car behind me thought of me, and am I glad I never learnt to read minds!

Or for that matter the sudden change in road signs as we drove into Northern Ireland where the metric system has yet to be accepted as the done thing, and speed limits are in miles as are distances. It needed some quick calculations indeed to stay on the right side of the law, especially when faced with the grim knowledge that a speed camera was looking blearily at my car from some hidden perch and a cop could come screaming down behind me, should I calculate wrongly!

There must be many other instances. Light switches are another bug bear. Often in a new hotel I have spent half the night seeking out a well hidden switch, to finally give up and sleep with the light shining brightly on to my face. At other times, I end up trying to switch things off and switching them on instead.

Up is down and down is up in the US for one, and can it be exasperating, especially if jet lag compounds the issue. Hot and cold water taps, shower heads that turn in different ways; there’s enough of all that to confuse and confound the traveller.

And anyone who had tried to buy clothes or shoes on their travels knows, sizes can make you feel good or terrible. The first time I read 38 on a size label for a dress I was buying in France, made me feel I needed to go on an instant diet! The changing room mirror showed me looking quite normal, and I decided something was wrong with the labelling of that garment, then discovered that the French use quite another sizing system. And if you are a  shoe size five in the UK, you could be a size six-and-a-half in America and a 36 in Europe…

Why o why can there be no standarisation of the essentials that are supposed to make life easier. But end up making it that much more difficult!