For one minute, walk outside, stand there, in silence, look up at the sky, and contemplate how amazing life is. – Author Unknown
Monday, December 2, 2013 (DAYS 637 - 639)
Through my travels I’ve been fortunate enough to meet some amazing people, many of whom are also aspiring writers and travel bloggers with their own experiences and stories. There really aren’t enough people blogging whilst traveling, right? Recently, I asked to interview a few of these similar backpackers, and my first interviews will be with Steve and Kristina. I posed to them the exact same questions because I knew that their answers would certainly bring some variety. Steve, I met in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua quite a few months ago and is from New York, please check out his blog The Backpacker Report, and is currently in Turkey. Kristina, I met more recently (a few weeks ago) in Pai, Thailand and she also has a great travel blog Alaska and Abroad, and last I checked she is traveling around the South Islands of Thailand. So here these are the 10 questions I asked these travel bloggers:
Through my travels I’ve been fortunate enough to meet some amazing people, many of whom are also aspiring writers and travel bloggers with their own experiences and stories. There really aren’t enough people blogging whilst traveling, right? Recently, I asked to interview a few of these similar backpackers, and my first interviews will be with Steve and Kristina. I posed to them the exact same questions because I knew that their answers would certainly bring some variety. Steve, I met in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua quite a few months ago and is from New York, please check out his blog The Backpacker Report, and is currently in Turkey. Kristina, I met more recently (a few weeks ago) in Pai, Thailand and she also has a great travel blog Alaska and Abroad, and last I checked she is traveling around the South Islands of Thailand. So here these are the 10 questions I asked these travel bloggers:
 | 1. How do you define a successful day? Eating well, sleeping well, and having a laugh with good people. 2. What book or film inspired you to travel? Neither, it was my family that inspired me. 3. How is your life different from what you thought it would be? I thought I'd be living in NYC, working for "the man". Instead, I've been living and travelling overseas for the past 3.5 years, having the best time ever! |
 | 4. Why is your life beautiful? I've been able to have new experiences and meet amazing people. 5. What advice would you give to newbie backpackers? Don't think about what you're going to do after your trip, think about while you'll do while you're on your trip. 6. What makes you laugh without fail? Family Guy |
 | 7. What are you most proud of in your life? Finishing university. 8. How has backpacking changed you? I'm more laidback and I see things with a different perspective. 9. Where would you like to travel to that you haven’t been to yet? The African Continent. |
 | 10. What’s the strangest experience you’ve had traveling? Don't remember exactly, but the other day I took a really nice overnight bus in Turkey which kept stopping every 3 hours for a rest break. And we weren't allowed to sit in empty seats even though half the bus was empty. *Please follow Steve and his travel adventures at http://backpackerreport.com |
 | 1. How do you define a successful day? Great question! For me, not much has to be accomplished for a day to be successful. I don't need to "do" or see anything. If I have managed to do something that I didn't know how to or haven't done before - like find food in a new location or learn a few new local words or have good conversation with someone I've never met before, I find that I've had a good day. |
 | 2. What book or film inspired you to travel? I don't think one in particular, although I read the book Around the World in 80 Days a few years ago and found it fascinating and completely against my travel principles! The main character is traveling, literally moving from place to place, merely to prove a point about time and distance. Luckily, as travel always does, he finds it has some unexpected effects on him. 3. How is your life different from what you thought it would be? I think I thought that I would meet someone and settle down, or find a job that I wanted to make into a career, and I haven't yet, although anything is possible! It's forced me to be really independent, which is both challenging and growing. I appreciate it. 4. Why is your life beautiful? Because there is so much beauty in the world! I know how incredibly lucky I am, to have the ability to travel, and the opportunity to make the choices that have led me here. Not everyone has that opportunity. I also find beauty in simple things, which is something travel has taught me. It might be in the way that a spider makes its web, or a parent smiles at their child. You learn to appreciate the little things. 5. What advice would you give to newbie backpackers? Don't try to do everything at once! Start small. When you reach a new destination, let it guide you in what to see and do. If you don't do everything that you wanted to, don't stress! It gives you a really good reason to go back. 6. What makes you laugh without fail? Really bad English translations. I appreciate so much that they bother to translate at all, but as I studied English at university it's something that particularly sticks out to me. I would never laugh at a person trying to speak English with me though! I enjoy the way that people use language to service their needs, so I always find these translations interesting. 7. What are you most proud of in your life? A few things, not necessarily travel related. I was the first person in my immediate family to graduate college, which I paid for myself. I had also visited every continent but Antarctica by the time I was 20, which I think is kind of impressive. In the 7th grade I got the highest mark on our geography test about India. I've never forgotten it. |
 | 8. How has backpacking changed you? I've learned to be a lot more accepting of other people. Cultures, philosophies, lifestyles. Everyone exists differently. I would probably be a lot more narrow minded without all the exposure that backpacking and travel in general has given me. 9. Where would you like to travel to that you haven’t been to yet? I really want to go to Central Asia, like Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan. I don't know much about that area or many people who go there which is part of what intrigues me about it. I also want to spend some significant time in South America and improve my abysmal Spanish. |
 | 10. What’s the strangest experience you’ve had traveling? In Morocco earlier this year my friend and I were meeting up with a local we had met on the bus. We started walking together, then some friends (of our friend) picked us up and stuffed us in their backseat. There wasn't much room so my friend had to sit on my lap. Then, this vehicle dropped us off on the side of a really random road where we again waited for a ride from a different friend. We honestly had no idea what was going on, and it was a lot of trust to put in someone we had met less than 24 hours before! Our end destination really wasn't that exciting, a digital cafe, but we had fun together and laughed a lot which is always worth it. It all sounds totally sketchy (kind of was ... don't try this at home kids!) but ended up being totally fine in the end. It always is. *Please follow Kristina and her travel adventures at http://alaskaandabroad.blogspot.com |
MY RTW PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:
One of the larger luxuries of traveling without a time limitation is being patent with the weather. Looking ahead, I’ve noticed that the best overall forecast for the week–tubing down the Nam Song River–falls on Thursday, which happens to be exactly 21-months of backpacking round the world, and the most popular activity that Vang Vieng is known for. While the weather is not rainy, but has been a bit overcast and cooler than the first afternoon of arriving, I’ve decided to explore the town by walking the streets. As I’m milling past souvenir shops and the countless guesthouses that tend to all have the same inviting lounge areas with large flat screens, I can’t help but notice that they are all playing the exact same show, Friends. Later, I realize that this is the DVD of choice at the moment and plays on a continuous loop and on occasion gets replaced with the next disc in the series. My sluggish pace with no destination in mind has me wandering down to the banks of the Mekong River with the enormous limestone cliffs that backdrop this amazing location. Walking out on one of the more stable wooden bridges I’ve seen, suddenly, I hear a racing motorbike coming at me on this narrow bridge that I foolishly thought was for pedestrian crossing only. You would think that by now I would be a bit more comfortable with the idea that if there is any type of surface, people will attempt to take any means of transportation across it?
One of the larger luxuries of traveling without a time limitation is being patent with the weather. Looking ahead, I’ve noticed that the best overall forecast for the week–tubing down the Nam Song River–falls on Thursday, which happens to be exactly 21-months of backpacking round the world, and the most popular activity that Vang Vieng is known for. While the weather is not rainy, but has been a bit overcast and cooler than the first afternoon of arriving, I’ve decided to explore the town by walking the streets. As I’m milling past souvenir shops and the countless guesthouses that tend to all have the same inviting lounge areas with large flat screens, I can’t help but notice that they are all playing the exact same show, Friends. Later, I realize that this is the DVD of choice at the moment and plays on a continuous loop and on occasion gets replaced with the next disc in the series. My sluggish pace with no destination in mind has me wandering down to the banks of the Mekong River with the enormous limestone cliffs that backdrop this amazing location. Walking out on one of the more stable wooden bridges I’ve seen, suddenly, I hear a racing motorbike coming at me on this narrow bridge that I foolishly thought was for pedestrian crossing only. You would think that by now I would be a bit more comfortable with the idea that if there is any type of surface, people will attempt to take any means of transportation across it?
Growing up in Colorado I’ve learned to appreciate and even look forward to the changing of the seasons, however, whenever I see that the temperature is below freezing in Denver, I cannot help but smile and be thankful for having the opportunity–in many ways–of chasing the endless Summer. I know my friends that are dealing with this very situation will want to strangle me, but I have to be honest when I say that I most definitely do not missing scraping off my car, shivering while driving until the heat brings blood flow back to my hands, layering up to go to the grocery store, or battling the horrendous drivers that are obviously from California or Texas. I thought that my streak of failing to experience actual snow falling was going to come to an end when I was in Korea from mid-October until mid-November, but I was fortunate enough to escape just two-days before the first snowfall there. So the dream continues of possibly backpacking for nearly two-years continuously, without experiencing both snow and a traditional North American Winter. I will say, that I do miss snowboarding quite a bit, but I suppose to supplement this activity surfing in Bali next month will just have to suffice. Yes, my early birthday gift to myself was found when I was trying to figure out where I might head after the first of the year since I would need to do a visa run. Originally, I was hoping to find a cheap flight to Myanmar (Burma), but was surprised when there was a round trip flight from Singapore to Bali for less than $120. This made things much easier, since I will already be closer to Malaysia than Bangkok, where I would have had to wait in BKK for several days while my visa for Myanmar (Burma) or even Vietnam was being processed. This is one of the more tricky things to deal with traveling South East Asia (SEA), constantly looking at visa run options and what the neighboring entry fees or visa restrictions may be. Plus, the timing works out perfectly as my friend Rommel, who has been living and working in Singapore since 2011, has invited me to crash at his place for the week upon my return.
My nightly indulgence has become the gluttonously delicious, and I’m sure extremely healthy, banana with peanut butter and chocolate crepes that are sold by an elderly woman directly across the street from my guesthouse. Typically, I don’t have a big sweet tooth, but these have become an essential part of my diet, and just another reason why I need to get out of Vang Vieng before I’m the first backpacker to acquire diabetes from an overindulgence of sugar and condensed milk.
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