I remember ten years into my third marriage I wrote up a schedule of the highlights of ten years together and what I noticed is that for two people who claimed to love travel, we had not been traveling nearly enough. The reason is that we both travelled so much for work, it was hard to sit and plan travel for leisure. Here ten years later, because that was the year 2000, I find that travel is on my mind a lot and although I had gotten started on my wandering journey before meeting T – she has married her love of travel with mine and together all we think about is where to go next. Being with a European it is a given that you will find yourself on European soil at least once a year – as Flower told me, “we need to just be on the continent once a year.”
I came across this article in the Huffington Post on the places to see before you die when I was looking for something else (it’s missing India which is high on our list and perhaps Bali again):
The first time I awoke in a tent on the plains of East Africa, I felt as if a sixth sense had been awakened. The electric feeling that lions and leopard roamed nearby, and that I had entered their wilderness reminded me that man has not always lived so removed from nature. On safari or in deep wilderness, man’s primal compass gets switched back on; it’s a sensation that should be felt by all. I have found visits to the monuments of ancient civilizations such as those in China, Cambodia, Egypt, Italy and Greece, equally astounding, in part because I was able to tour them with historians who helped to put their significance in context. Standing in the shadow of the pyramids at Giza, my Egyptologist reminded me that the ancient Egyptians had built the monuments because they believed in their eternal life. “And whatever your beliefs may be,” she pointed out, “they did gain a form of eternal recognition because even centuries later, people come from around the world to pay homage to their work and beliefs.” The Forbidden City in Beijing, Angkor Wat in Siem Riep and the Roman Colosseum are all massive reminders of how fleeting our time on earth is and how individuals can leave an impact, a lesson that lasts a lifetime and is worth making a trip to understand. Here are some indelible journeys:
I see that China is on the list. If you get around to that place, perhaps you’d do well to check out a book I read recently, “Lost on Planet China” by J. Maarten Troost. He’s an amazing writer, and this travelogue is not only laugh out loud funny but makes you feel like you’ve been there traveling with him all over China without having to go through the travails of actual travel. If you haven’t heard of it, you should go here http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Planet-China-Understand-Comfortable/dp/076792200X and read a sample section.
I think I read that in one of your posts and I have been to Hong Kong, Tsingdao, and Shanghai, but I’m definitely interested in seeing more of China and was hoping to have gone to Beijing but those plans fell through. I don’t know if you watched all those Chinese movies – Farewell my Concubine, Raise the Red Lantern – but they were so evocative that I just longed to see that China – instead I think I have visited the most Westernized cities in China.