Remembering my Travels through Smells

Everybody knows that scent is the most powerful of our senses. So it is no surprise that sometimes a smell can warp you right back to an unforgettable moment on a trip or an amazing experience while travelling, sometimes bringing back memories more vividly than a photo album can. I have got a few of those. Good and bad.

An obvious one is body products that smell of coconuts. As soon as this wonderful scent wafts into my nostrils, I’m mentally transported to a far flung beach with lots of palm trees and clear blue water sprinkled with blue starfish. 

A slightly less pleasant smell is the Chinese stinky tofu. As pungent as this Chinese delicacy reeks, smelling this will conjure up memories of my trip to China a few years ago where I wandered around the Muslim Market in Xian, discovering all kinds of weird food types. I tried a good few, but the disgusting smell of the stinky tofu made me very reluctant to try it. Although I have heard good things about it.

Photo by uniquenikki under Creative Commons Licence

Then there is the durian. The fruit from hell. I was introduced to this stinky number growing up in Jakarta in Indonesia. I remember being driven to school with the windows down, till we passed the street vendors selling durian and those windows went right back up. It is worse than a human fart. And from what I remember, it tastes just as foul.

Photo by Jeevs sinclair under Creative Commons Licence

And there are loads more. Car fresheners, you know those ones in the shape of a Christmas tree, make me think of road-tripping through the USA. So does apple and cinnamon potpourri for some reason. The smell of actual fern trees, on the other hand, reminds me of my childhood summer holidays down in the south of France and north of Spain. As does the smell of an over-packed car interior that has been out in 30+ degrees for way too long, stuck in a traffic jam somewhere halfway between Holland and the Costa Brava in Spain, with my brother and I fighting in the back seat. That last one though, is one memory I'm maybe not so fond of.