Something that I have definitely considered during the planing stage of my trip, and also whilst I have been carrying out is wondering how much 'down time' I need throughout my journey to make sure that I don't return to England more tired than I left it.
Sounds like a strange concept I know; I have no requirement (aside from catching a flight/bus/taxi) to get up early in the morning, and I'd hardly describing what I'm doing each day as strenuous, but something which has been posed to me is whether or not I'm going to take any days 'off' to just relax.
Having thought it through carefully, I think that there will definitely be oppotunities for rest throghout my stay. Although in the last couple of days I have spent my time furiously sightseeing, definitely getting in my quota of 10,000 steps per day, I feel like when I get to a country like Thailand where where my focus will predominantly on visiting beaches, this seems like the most likely point at which things might slow down and my body will get some rest.
I think we've all been on those holidays where you do so much that you come back feeling like you need another holiday to recover from that one, and in fairness I think that's what this is probably going to turn into.
It's important to reflect and share how my days usually end up panning out, and then perhaps anyone who thinks that I'm spending six months doing nothing (not that I am comparing it in anyway to work) might see that it is still a challenge to make sure that everything is sorted as I am travelling from place to place. Obviously there isn't any set routine of how things work each day, but for a vague idea this might be interesting to learn about what patterns I have set out so far.
Every hotel up until the one I am staying in tonight has offered breakfast, so I usually make the most of the opportunity by grabbing something between 8.30am and 9.30am. In the Philippines when basketball was on, I'd usually head back to my room, watch a little bit of the game, and prepare myself for the rest of the day. At this point I'm usually on the computer checking directions for things and trying to work out an itinerary of how my day will go. I don't make any firm plans but in my note book I usually write down several places (normally located geographically close to each other) that I'd like to try and get to in the day.
I pack stuff up into my rucksack and usually head out before lunch - I usually don't grab any food until later, but often I'll get myself a drink for whatever journey I'm making. In my bag I've usually got my sunglasses, notebook, reading book (just in case I find myself at a loose end in a lovely spot), iPod, wallet and a map. I sometimes take my phone out with me, but it depends where I am as I'm only able to use Wifi.
In my pocket I put perhaps the most used item of all the things I brought with me to Asia which is my camera. I just love taking photos of everywhere that I'm going to. Those of you who have followed the link at the top of my homepage to my gallery on flickr will know this to be true.
Depending on where I'm going or what I'm doing I usually spend 4-5 hours out and about. Some of this usually includes finding a spot to perch and read or listen to the 30-odd backdated podcasts I have to eventually go through. I also usually grab lunch at about 1 or 2pm, normally finding a 7Eleven or some other kind of convenience store.
Usually I'm back in my hotel before it gets dark - most recently I have stayed out a little longer to get some good shots of the sunset, and it was much safer to walk back in the dark in Malaysia than it was in the Philippines.
Once I get back to my room I usually relax for a bit, maybe make a start on my blog or go online to see what's been happening in the rest of the world whilst I was sleeping. By this point I usually have some texts or emails to respond to from the people back home (or in the USA) who still very kindly have me in their thoughts. I tend to head out to dinner at about 7.30pm before coming back to room for the evening. If I haven't already, it's at this point I'll work on my blog or more commonly start planning for where I'm going next.
I use a mixture of websites and online resources to look for hotels and flights, cross-referencing my list of places with the things I've been able to find that are good to do or go and see and after all of that potentially make some plans for further down the line deciding which places I might not have the opprtunity to go to, or things I've thought about that I definitely need to cover whilst I'm in a town or a city. I'm really bad at going to bed early so I usually don't close my laptop and my brain down for the night until about 1 or 2am, and by that point I have been working on so much stuff that I've throughly tired myself out.
I feel like I use my time quite effectively - obviosuly I could go out a bit earlier each day, straight after breakfast for example, but I think if I was out of the house until late on, I'd find it difficult to occupy myself. Sometimes it can be a bit brain taxing looking up flights, hotels and places to go, and because of the way things are working at the moment I've had to do that every couple of days.
I've been trying to keep a little bit ahead of myself so that I know where I'm going next, what hotel I'm staying in and what time my flight is. Then when I get to the next location I can rinse repeat the formula. This gives me a lot of flexibility over stuff, and even though I'm only sorted with my schedule two or three days ahead, it allows me to change things quite easily if I need to. It also makes me really think about what I'm going to do, and not just be on autopilot from the plans I've made previously.
Going back to the original premise of this post, today has been one of those days when I have allowed myself to take it a bit easier. It was time to move on again today waving good by to the Sabah region of Malaysia, and saying "Hello" to another part of Borneo, this time the country of Brunei which lies directly in between the regions of Sabah and Sarawak.
I'm only spending a short amount of time here, just two nights, it's more of a stopover on the way to the rest of Malaysia. I felt that considering Brunei is landlocked in the middle, it might be worth ticking off another country on the world map.
My flight from Kota Kinabalu this morning took off at 8.50am, landing in Bandar Seri Begawan - the capital of Brunei forty minutes later. Maybe due to my location, or the number of flights that go between the place I needed to get from and to, there was a choice of an early flight or one twelve hours later which wouldn't have left me much time to do anything today, and would have also meant spending lots of hours after the hotel having checked out at 12pm.
As it turned out, I would have to wait at the airport in the city anyway as my hotel room wouldn't be available until 1pm, but I managed to occupy myself by going to some of the shops in the departures lounge and also by changing some money into Brunei Dollars.
It works out at just over $2 to every pound so I took out enough for a couple of taxi rides, a downtown visit tomorrow and also food / drink.
I had about a million forms to sign when I came through customs, and also had to help some Indian people who couldn't read or write to fill out theirs so it was about 10.00am by the time I collected my bag and went through customs.
I found myself a seat and pitched up for at least three hours, and soon found that it was going to be an Internetless trio of hours as there was apparently no working Wifi in the airport. I managed to entertain myself writing postcards and also some reviews of the hotels I have been staying in, and eventully about 12 I decided to go and get myself some lunch.
The two choices were Burger King and KFC, with the King winning because I have already had fried chicken on this trip. It was actually quite reasonably priced - along with Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, I think Brunei is definitely one of the most expensive cities I will be visiting so therefore it was a pleasant surprised when it worked out to be just less than three pounds for Bacon Double Cheeseburger meal.
About an hour later and it was about time to make my way to the taxi stand, so I went outside and grabbed the first cab I could find. I read somewhere that there are probably only about twenty taxis in the whole country - if that's true, I'd say at least half of them were deployed at the airport.
It took about fifteen minutes before we arrived at The Traders Inn which is where I'm staying for the next two nights. It's on a bit of an industrial estate, but there are shops and restaurants here which is going to be very useful.
I checked in, went to my room and am quite impressed with my surroundings. The room looks a bit dated, but it's large - has everything I need and seems to be relatively quiet. I wasn't in the mood for venturing too far today, deciding instead to take it a little bit easier, but I walked five minutes down the road in each direction mostly looking for a bus stop which I can use tomorrow, but also just to get my bearings. The helpful people in reception pointed me in the direction of the nearest supermarket so I went inside and brought myself a drink and some snacks.
For anyone who's never been to Asia before, and maybe worried by the fact that it is so different, so far my experiences in the supermarket bring home that the world really is getting smaller, and there is less and less to fear with each passing year. Not only is there a rather large supermarket which sells basically everything you need, it was like being in one of the big three back home as there were plenty of products by Kellogs, Nestle and even a section (which I wish I'd got as picture of) which was basically Waitrose Essentials Range. It was surreal to see from 10,000 miles away.
I spent the early evening working on what I'm going to do tomorrow, and then tried to upload some of the many throusands of pictures I've taken in the last couple of days, and also make sure that my youtube page is up to date.
As I mentioned, you can now access it, using the links at the top so feel free to go there as many times as you like and enjoy my content - I like sharing it with you. One of the many restaurants on this block of shops served as my location for dinner this evening as I order a delicious meal of Butter Chicken which I thought would be curry but actually turned out to be rice with chunks of chicken with shreds of chicken thrown on top and a tasty sauce to pour on top.
I'm not sure how well I'm doing with my food bucket list so far, but I definitely think I have been testing my fair share of internatonal cuisine whilst I've been here.
Easy
Lionel Richie (1978)
No comments:
Post a Comment