[J.] The last blog post was a lot about the challenges we were facing while being on the road for two months at that time. The original idea of this blog was to write about our travel adventures, the lovely places we visit and sharing moments we are enjoying so much. But so far, we have not shared much about Sri Lanka, Taiwan, the Philippines and now Sydney. And already, two more months have passed since the last post and consequently, so much more to write about... This list of places and moments to write about is really getting long and longer!
But... things have changed and I am smiling while typing this: The energy is back! :)
So, what has changed?
While being in Taiwan, and after putting a few changes into action around our travels as mentioned in the last post, we experienced a short period of time where our mood was indeed getting better and we started to relax more. However, something was still not working out and we could not really grasp it at the time when we arrived in the Philippines by mid of February 2016.
We knew, we only had about 2.5 weeks of time in the Philippines before moving on to Sydney, Australia (which was only planned as a short 10 day interim stop-over) and further to Auckland, New Zealand (where we wanted to travel for some time before finally making our way to Argentina). So, arriving in the Philippines, we immediately started to research accommodations, flights and possible itineraries for these places. And it turned out to be no fun. For years, I wanted to see and travel through New Zealand and in my mind, it has always been stunning. And then, the pure thought of having to do the planning for this New Zealand trip felt like too much. I just had no energy. I did not wanted to research anything, I did not wanted to read anything and I did not wanted to do anything. And husband felt the same... So weird.
And overall, so frustrating. I started to doubt all people who were telling us this year is going to be amazing. It simply did not feel like it! I started to accuse everyone having done something similar and having said that it had been the best time in their lifes hiding bad days they must have had as well in their stories and not telling the full truth. I just did not understand what was going on and why this trip so far on an overall level did not feel even close to being amazing...
The only reason that we could come up with at that time was that maybe, because we always knew that ultimately we wanted to visit Argentina, we may have considered all other countries on our way there only as being interim travel stages and for that reason, we could not fully enjoy them. Does not sound too reasonable, but that was all we could come up with. As a result, we cancelled the trip in New Zealand and booked a flight to Buenos Aires with only a 2 day stop in Auckland (because we already had the flight from Sydney to Auckland booked and confirmed).
With no more planning that needed to be done for the next 2.5 weeks, we had the most lazy days in months. There were a lot of days, were the only must-do of the day was the grocery shopping tour to the nearby market for dinner. Some days, I did not leave the surroundings of our apartment at all and just managed to walk to the beach directly in front of our small flat (10m max.) to have a dip in the water. I read a lot and we played a German card game (Skat) with husbands' friend who joined us during our time in the Philippines for hours and hours. That was it. No travelling around, no big day trips to nearby touristy places, no sight-seeing, no nothing. Just doing nothing...
At a later stage, I realised that this was the first 'true' holiday we had for more than a year, with nothing to worry about and really recharging our empty batteries. We were just enjoying quiet days, the sun and the constant sound of breaking waves.
Before we started this trip, someone mentioned to me that I had nothing to worry about as I am going to be on a one year holiday. I remember, that I responded that I do not believe such a trip to be a pure holiday, but only now I am sure that I was right about it. Travelling on a longer than 'normal' time scale is exhausting if you are not used to it. It takes time to adjust to constantly being on the move. It takes time to adjust to not having a home, not having your social network, family and friends around you, living out of a backpack, constantly moving out of the comfort zone and adapt to new cultures and places. In theory, we of course knew about it but really experiencing it seems such a different story. Even our bodies are still reminding us of this: I am currently fighting the fourth flu in four months and husband's stomach is more complaining than having happy times.
After such lazy two weeks, our energy was back. Only during the days in the Philippines, I realized how tired I really was, from the stress and sadness of leaving South Africa, from being not well prepared for the trip, from travelling too quickly. After two lazy weeks, we were walking down the streets in Manila on the last day before we left for Sydney and just enjoyed it. The thought of going to Sydney made me jump up and down, singing yeah-yeah-yeah! Nothing bothered me any more, all was cool, I had myself back and it felt so, so good.
Only now, after four months have past we feel like this trip is going to be awesome. And I know it will be. Only now, I am waking up every day and cannot believe how lucky we are that we have the opportunity to travel. That we are in Sydney, baby!
It took us a few months and some truly lazy days to finally adjust and getting the spirits back.
In addition, we got unbelievable lucky. Feeling like the old me again, I thought about what a mistake we made in deciding to skip New Zealand on our way to South America. But... Ta-taaaah! - Turned out that the flight we booked to Buenos Aires two weeks earlier never got through. For whatever reason, we had no confirmed flight! We never paid for it... So.... New Zealand! You are back on our list and we are coming :)
In the meantime...
1) Update on our electronic travel bug hitting us severely again:
My nine months old mobile phone stopped working the moment we arrived in the Philippines. It underwent a motherboard operation in Sydney and has recovered - while my purse has not yet.
2) I signed up for an online photography course and love it! But leading lines in the composition of a picture tend to hide from my eyes. Sneaky :)
3) I am committing myself to write one post a week. Boom!
But... things have changed and I am smiling while typing this: The energy is back! :)
So, what has changed?
While being in Taiwan, and after putting a few changes into action around our travels as mentioned in the last post, we experienced a short period of time where our mood was indeed getting better and we started to relax more. However, something was still not working out and we could not really grasp it at the time when we arrived in the Philippines by mid of February 2016.
We knew, we only had about 2.5 weeks of time in the Philippines before moving on to Sydney, Australia (which was only planned as a short 10 day interim stop-over) and further to Auckland, New Zealand (where we wanted to travel for some time before finally making our way to Argentina). So, arriving in the Philippines, we immediately started to research accommodations, flights and possible itineraries for these places. And it turned out to be no fun. For years, I wanted to see and travel through New Zealand and in my mind, it has always been stunning. And then, the pure thought of having to do the planning for this New Zealand trip felt like too much. I just had no energy. I did not wanted to research anything, I did not wanted to read anything and I did not wanted to do anything. And husband felt the same... So weird.
And overall, so frustrating. I started to doubt all people who were telling us this year is going to be amazing. It simply did not feel like it! I started to accuse everyone having done something similar and having said that it had been the best time in their lifes hiding bad days they must have had as well in their stories and not telling the full truth. I just did not understand what was going on and why this trip so far on an overall level did not feel even close to being amazing...
The only reason that we could come up with at that time was that maybe, because we always knew that ultimately we wanted to visit Argentina, we may have considered all other countries on our way there only as being interim travel stages and for that reason, we could not fully enjoy them. Does not sound too reasonable, but that was all we could come up with. As a result, we cancelled the trip in New Zealand and booked a flight to Buenos Aires with only a 2 day stop in Auckland (because we already had the flight from Sydney to Auckland booked and confirmed).
 |
| Husband and Friend, White Beach, Puerto Galera, Philippines |
At a later stage, I realised that this was the first 'true' holiday we had for more than a year, with nothing to worry about and really recharging our empty batteries. We were just enjoying quiet days, the sun and the constant sound of breaking waves.
Before we started this trip, someone mentioned to me that I had nothing to worry about as I am going to be on a one year holiday. I remember, that I responded that I do not believe such a trip to be a pure holiday, but only now I am sure that I was right about it. Travelling on a longer than 'normal' time scale is exhausting if you are not used to it. It takes time to adjust to constantly being on the move. It takes time to adjust to not having a home, not having your social network, family and friends around you, living out of a backpack, constantly moving out of the comfort zone and adapt to new cultures and places. In theory, we of course knew about it but really experiencing it seems such a different story. Even our bodies are still reminding us of this: I am currently fighting the fourth flu in four months and husband's stomach is more complaining than having happy times.
After such lazy two weeks, our energy was back. Only during the days in the Philippines, I realized how tired I really was, from the stress and sadness of leaving South Africa, from being not well prepared for the trip, from travelling too quickly. After two lazy weeks, we were walking down the streets in Manila on the last day before we left for Sydney and just enjoyed it. The thought of going to Sydney made me jump up and down, singing yeah-yeah-yeah! Nothing bothered me any more, all was cool, I had myself back and it felt so, so good.
Only now, after four months have past we feel like this trip is going to be awesome. And I know it will be. Only now, I am waking up every day and cannot believe how lucky we are that we have the opportunity to travel. That we are in Sydney, baby!
It took us a few months and some truly lazy days to finally adjust and getting the spirits back.
In addition, we got unbelievable lucky. Feeling like the old me again, I thought about what a mistake we made in deciding to skip New Zealand on our way to South America. But... Ta-taaaah! - Turned out that the flight we booked to Buenos Aires two weeks earlier never got through. For whatever reason, we had no confirmed flight! We never paid for it... So.... New Zealand! You are back on our list and we are coming :)
In the meantime...
1) Update on our electronic travel bug hitting us severely again:
My nine months old mobile phone stopped working the moment we arrived in the Philippines. It underwent a motherboard operation in Sydney and has recovered - while my purse has not yet.
2) I signed up for an online photography course and love it! But leading lines in the composition of a picture tend to hide from my eyes. Sneaky :)
3) I am committing myself to write one post a week. Boom!
No comments:
Post a Comment