I suspect that most people experience the paradox I feel when writing this title: time passes simultaneously quickly and slowly. On one hand, it feels like the first month has gone in a shot, but when I think back through all we’ve seen and done, it feels like a long time.
If you’ve been following my photo of the day, in which I’ve showcased the great places we’ve been, you will probably be surprised to hear that there have been several occasions when I’ve contemplated cutting short the trip or taking a break already. It has been a surprisingly emotional month for me and my mood has been up and down more than ever before.
A combination of things may have caused this: A feeling of aimlessness and wanting to do something useful / challenging with my time, in part caused by the fact that the job I left was very easy so I don’t feel like I need a break. It can be hard to find ‘freedom’ as a tourist in south East Asia: most activities are organised tours. The punishing tropical heat doesn’t help. A reason very thematic to this blog: I enjoy a country more when I can have a conversation with local people – my western European languages are of scant use here. I’ve been a little lonely at times: my lovely wife Alice is great, but I miss having other people in my life.
I’ve traveled for longer than a month before, but it’s surprising how the open-ended nature of this trip has affected my feelings. Have I (rather cheesily for a RTW trip) learned anything about myself? I like being busy and challenged, people and talking. I dislike organised fun and excessive heat. I’m sure I knew these things already, but the last month has emphasised/reminded me.
Happily, things are looking up. Alice’s theory is that we were never particular wanted to go to the Philippines before we planned the trip, so that’s why we didn’t enjoy it as much. It’s definitely true that we are happier in Vietnam: there are more things we want to see and do, which is keeping us busier. It has been much easier to meet fellow travellers here (we’ve probably just got better at approaching strangers!) so I’ve finally got some language practice in.
We had originally planned a month in Indonesia: after initially considering scrapping that entirely, we came to a compromise and booked a flight to Australia (aka “the cold zone”) for mid-September. Some mountains which we can climb independently feature in the itinerary to that point.
So the ‘solution’ has been to change the approach to do more of what I like and less of what I dislike. Sensible, perhaps, but I’m mindful of a suggestion from a friend: take the opportunity to discover a slower pace of life, perhaps try a meditation course. In some of my more uncompromising moments, I chastise people for not liking certain foods. Maybe I need to take my own advice and realise that trying a different pace of life is something not to miss out on. We’ll see…
Oh yer… A great IPA brewed locally helps too 🙂
Martin and I find it helpful to take turns to decide activities, with the agreement that we will commit to whatever the other decides. It makes the power balance more equal and we each enjoy being in charge! Also surprises are fun?
Daily mindfulness also works well to calm discontented feelings X X
We’ve been doing that to some extent with the planning, which has been nice because we haven’t both had to plan everything. That hasn’t been a problem anyway.