It's so odd. When planning a trip with a friend, you both have tasks that come naturally and are not even discussed until you sit down to do some planning. Once you decide on the destination, one person scopes out flights and fares, the other starts looking for places to stay. You trade information, trade opinions, toss around ideas of what to do and when, what to see and how, where to venture off the path and why. In a few weeks you have have defined the upcoming trip, at least the beginning and the end. The middle happens when you are there, it unfolds as the two of you bring your unique perspective to the wine hour each night and train schedules are discussed and car rentals and inter-country flights.
One of my favorite moments of travel was in the early 2000 time period. Tom and I had taken the train from Rome to Capri, stayed a night, went to Napoli, didn't want to stay so we took the train across the strait to Sicily. He had been there before, I hadn't. We arrived in Palermo at night with no place to stay and started walking. A rather large hotel was in front of us, we went in and got two rooms. The two rooms were creepy, but it was late and so we stayed. The corridors of this hotel were long and narrow and all I could think of, all night long as I tossed on my twin bed cot (seriously!) was that they were exactly like the corridors in the movie "The Shining." The mantra took over: "Red Room, Red Room." Corridors of blood.
We left early the next morning and found more suitable digs, but honestly, I can still see those hallways. But that isn't what I wanted to tell you. We hung out in Palermo for a few days and decided to take the train to the airport and rent a car and drive around. We caught a bus, in the pouring rain, to the airport with grim weather forecasts looming, huge storms, hotels closed (it was either December or January, so the heart of winter) and on the bus, me sitting in one place, Tom in the seats in front of me (god forbid we sit next to each other!), Tom turns around and says the five magic words: "Want to go to Paris?" My response was instantaneous: "Fuck, yes! Let's do it." Totally spontaneous, totally unplanned. We spent hours in the airport in Sicily, I had to call my daughter who was working in SF then to get some names of hotels to call (this was before Internet, of course) and we landed in Paris around 11:00 at night, with a bottle of scotch and just enough money to pay the cab driver. We spent a week in Paris, it was one of the best weeks ever.
All that is to illustrate the need to just go. Just go. I know a lot of people can't fathom that, and that's OK because we all have different travel levels. I know people who get more pleasure (almost) in planning the trip than in actually going on the trip. (I cannot understand this mentality but I accept it.) I know people who must stay on the path and cannot deviate from it. We all know people who take three suitcases for a week stay..... in other words, there are all kinds of travel styles and all of them are OK. But this whole planning a trip ALL BY MYSELF is sort of redefining my travel style. I am planning more, which is a change for me. From what I have read, the country I will be visiting almost demands some advance preparation because the roads are crappy and renting a car isn't a great idea. So planning some itineraries is what I am doing now.
But first I had to decide where to go. South America was enticing but it's summer there in my winter. Same with Australia and New Zealand, although I gave great thought to those places. Africa, no. Egypt, sure.... duh, no. Ireland was a big contender. It still is on my list, but not this trip.
Southeast Asia never held much of a lure for me, too hot, too crowded. Thailand, Myanmar, Bali, Cambodia, Laos, they all sound vaguely interesting but not enough to get me there. But for some reason I have always wanted to go to Vietnam. Hot, crowded and crazy, perhaps. But it is to Vietnam that I am going. Alone.
Details to follow because there are many. Stick with me, and if you have any advice, I am taking all I can with me. Advice takes up no space in my tiny suitcase and is not yet prohibited by TSA. Bring it on.
More tomorrow.
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