Is travel the source of lifelong friendship?

Shaken and perplexed, I cross to the safer side of the road just as I hear the roar of an engine again. This time the bike zooms past us, the pillion passenger grabs Kathi's shoulder bag, but she holds on tight and is dragged down the hill. In a flash she's metres in front of me, her legs hardly keeping up with the bike that never slows down. I run behind her screaming, "Let go, let go". But she doesn't and is pulled by the pillion guy, tumbles and is dragged further along the road until she finally wrenches herself free. They speed off. When I catch up with her, I see her jeans are ripped, her legs raw and bleeding from gravel rash and her hands are gripping that shoulder bag for dear life. She's crying, sobbing, shaking. "Why didn't you let go?" is the only lame thing I can muster.

"No way," she retorts. That bag had her passport, money and plane ticket back to the US and she wasn't letting it go. It also contained a pair of surgical scissors. Later, over drinks, I discover that she's a theatre nurse and had the presence of mind to grab the scissors from the bag and jab the pillion guy in the leg. Holy moly.

Thirty-five years later Kathi and I are still friends. She lives in Montana now and I see her near-daily Facebook posts, be it the latest house renovations or what she's cooking for Halloween.

After the bag episode, she wanted to go home, get out of Greece pronto. But selfishly I talked her out of it. We went to the police station and reported the incident before heading to Nick's. Fuelled by ouzo, we went looking for the guys and their bike, with the hope of slashing their tyres, but it was needle-in-a-haystack stuff.

Instead we took a taxi home and next day moved to Hotel Zorzis in the heart of Mykonos. Her legs healed and we stayed a week eating delicious hot bread and pastries from the next door bakery, took the boat to the island of Delos and spent a lot of time chatting on the beach at Platanos​.

She wrote to me throughout the '80s on that beautiful, decorative stationery that Americans use, telling me about her life, loves, job in the surgery. And, remarkably, I received a few postcards as she went back to Hotel Zorzis almost every year and befriended the Greek owner, who just happened to have grown up in Bankstown.

Our story had me contemplating those friendships we make on the road. Certainly Kathi's dilemma and my comfort in her time of need was the glue for our friendship. Over the decades we've caught up only a few times but the friendship is there for life, as is her invitation to come over to Montana any time I like.

I asked some of my friends about their travel experiences and buddies, how they met and why they stayed in contact.

Ros, a school friend, had several tales. A passionate traveller, she has been to at least 100 countries, many more than me, and has acquired plenty of experiences along the way. But it was the story of Brenda and the spherical bed that got me interested. Ros was on her way to South America in 1987, alone, to join an organised tour from Rio to Lima. She just happened to be sitting next to Brenda, from Wollongong, on the plane. After not too long the girls realised they were both headed to Rio and taking the same overland tour. After stops in Auckland and Buenos Aires they finally arrived in the carnival city and took a taxi to their booked hotel.

Unfortunately, the booked hotel was all booked out (those things do happen to budget travellers), so the taxi driver dropped them off at another "hotel" down the road and farewelled them rather nervously, as Ros relates the story. The establishment, bathed in a rather dim red glow, with lots of inebriated men coming and going through the foyer, turned out to be a brothel. Exhausted after a 30-hour flight and their arrival coinciding with Carnival, Ros and Brenda decided to stay. They were given a room with a huge circular bed – they pushed a heavy piece of furniture against the door, cracked open Ros's duty-free Scotch and their friendship was sealed. The girls have kept in touch for 26 years and will relay that little incident without too much prodding!

Jeff, another avid traveller, has been to Nepal at least a dozen times. He loves trekking. In 1984 he met a Canadian couple, Glen and Sheila, in Namche Bazaar. They trekked together for weeks, swapped addresses and went their separate ways. Three years later they landed in Sydney and made their way up to Bathurst, where Jeff was then living, and off they went bushwalking. Over the years they met up all over the globe – London, Lake Louise, Hanoi and the Grand Canyon. Jeff and the couple's love of walking, cycling and camping was the adhesive for a friendship that has endured for more than three decades.

A former flatmate of mine, Tui, didn't meet her lifelong friend on the road, but in a pub, also in Rio, where she went with her new husband as an expat wife back in 1979. While a posting to Rio certainly sounds good on paper, it was lonely when he was off on his oil company business. That was until she met Barbara at the legendary Lord Jim, an expat drinking hole whose patrons included Ronnie Biggs, who liked to hawk his famous story and pose for photos for tips. Tui and Barbara stayed in contact for decades despite Barbara moving back to England and Tui back to Australia. For the first time ever, Barbara is planning a trip to Australia this year, where the old friends will once again share a few drinks and celebrate their meeting of 38 years ago.

No-one's travel-bonding tales are the same; it's the connection that is the key. An experience, whether it's life-threatening, a little scary or just plain exhilarating, is better when shared. We all know that having a friend on the journey lightens the load and heightens the joy.

But why do some endure? Just like in a relationship, you've got to do some heavy lifting to make it work. Just because there are a million ways to stay in touch these days doesn't mean you will. Back in my day, to invoke my inner old fogey, you had to put pen to paper if you wanted to stay connected. I think friendships endure because that person and that shared experience touched something deep within us, sparked a feeling that is warm and feels good when we recall it, and like a drug we want to keep remembering it – even if sometimes there are years that go by without having a "hit".

In October 2015, exactly 35 years after I first landed in Mykonos, I revisited the Greek isle. I knew that Hotel Zorzis still existed and had some idea where it was. Luckily I arrived in town on the very last week of the season; the following week everyone would have shut up their hotels and headed back to Athens for the winter, away from the tourists and the marauding backpackers.

When I arrived at the hotel, it looked smaller, and the street was narrower than I remembered. I asked to speak to the owner and was met by his young wife (second wife, she told me). I told her my story. We sat on the front porch and she made me a coffee. I told her what it was like in Mykonos in 1980 and she told me how things were now (and not all of it was pleasant). I described our old room off the balcony and she showed it to me. I took some photos and we chatted for an hour. In that 60 minutes of companionship we formed a bond. She was obviously happy I had dropped by, that I had made the effort. We wished each other well. And, of course, when I next logged on to Facebook, I eagerly shared the story with Kathi.