Buddies

Four weeks, four questions, few answers

Week 6: What is it like to travel with me?

It’s been a while since I last updated you all on my whereabouts. We need to get back to Koh Rong, four weeks and 2,500km away from where I am right now.

I don’t think I mentioned it earlier, but I havent’t been alone on this trip until the past two weeks, and this makes a huge difference in basically everything. Travelling alone is my thing, it’s my natural state, it’s my default way of travelling. If I tell you I’m somewhere that’s not home, you probably won’t be able to guess where I am, but you can safely assume I’m on my own.

The main difference I can point out is that travelling with someone else means you’re at least partially in charge. You’re not the only one to decide where to go, what do do, where and when to eat. Travelling with someone else brings a different energy to what I’m used to and it’s not all bad. It’s actually quite nice to see a familiar place through the eyes of someone who’s never been there, and who can notice things I didn’t see before.

As to what it’s like to travel with me, I don’t really know. I like to think that I’m adaptable and easygoing, as long as you let me have coffee in the morning.

Week 7: Should you hire me as your holiday planner?

Last winter, I was tasked with planning an entire two-week holiday across Cambodia, for my family. I didn’t volunteer for it but quickly realized I was in position where I was probably the only one with enough knowledge and experience to do it. It was also very obvious that freestyling this trip the way I freestyle my solo travels was a recipe for disaster. I definitely couldn’t afford to guess how the group would react if I told them we didn’t know where to sleep in three nights, or how we would reach our next destination.

When I look back at the spreadsheet (duh) I put together for this trip, what mattered for the group is now obvious: centrally located hotels, multiple food options, shortest possible travel times, and a schedule that balances activities and free time. Nothing out of the ordinary if you’ve ever planned a trip for a large group, but these were criteria I don’t really think about when I travel alone. And for the things that didn’t go as planned, there wasn’t any catastrophic failure. Just things that I knew didn’t need to be planned in advance.

So, can I plan and organize a two-week itinerary across Cambodia for a group of eight people and keep everyone relatively happy? I guess so. But don’t mistake me for a local tour guide. While it was my fourth time visiting the country, I’d still need much more research and time here to really help you explore the country in-depth, past the main landmarks. But I can show you where my great-grandather’s house is, if you ask nicely.

Week 8: Is this the only way?

According to the initial plan, I was supposed to be back in Berlin by this time. I actually had a return flight set to take off on February 27th, but instead, I decided to extend my trip for a few weeks and flew to Hong Kong for absolutely no valid reason, except that I didn’t want the trip to end. That’s probably one of the things I’ll miss the most whenever I return to being employed: being able to extend a stay abroad while I’m there, for any period of time, without having to ask permission to anyone. Being the only one in control, who gets to decide.

I didn’t get to stay in Hong Kong the last time I was in the region, and now, I had a full week ahead of me to see and explore what it had to offer. However, the excitement and curiosity tied to a new place I’ve never been before were somehow overshadowed by one idea: I’m back to being on my own. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy visiting Hong Kong, but travelling with someone else, followed by travelling with a large group actually made me miss travelling alone.

So I got to walk and wander around Hong Kong for a few days, and really liked what I saw. I liked the contrast between the very busy center of the city (which is Mong Kok or Wan Chai, depending on who you ask) and the quietness of the coast, just half an hour away. A short bus ride takes you from a bustling and energetic city to a peaceful seaside village, and I discovered that completely by chance, without even researching it. I just checked a map and decided to go south.

Do I actually know anything about travel? Is this how you’re supposed to travel? This way of travelling, alone, without any itinerary or plan cannot be the only way, as I’ve been proven in the past month. But it just happens to work great for me.

Week 9: How do you get that groove back?

I’m now in Taiwan, almost at the exact same time as during my previous trip. After spending a few days in Taipei, I got on a bus for Jiufen, where I’ve been stuck for the past couple of days. Nothing dramatic, just uninterrupted pouring rain since the second day I’ve been here.

Nobody really stays in Jiufen for more than a day. It’s not that far from Taipei, and you could easily leave the captial early in the morning, visit the village in a two hours, and get back to Taipei in the afternoon. But I chose to spend three nights here, probably because I just wanted to slow down.

This rain break made me realize that over the past month, I’ve been moving significantly faster between places, compared to what I would do alone. One or two days here and there may not seem significant, but when you add them all up, it completely changes the pace of the trip. Travelling with others got me to unconsciously and constantly think about the next move, the next stop or the next thing to do. Now that I’m on my own, I finally feel like I’m settling back into my own rhythm.

And it feels good.