If I’d learnt one thing from travelling (sic), it was that the way to get things done was to go ahead and do them. Don’t talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens. From The Beach by Alex Garland
I am in the unique position of being halfway around the world from home. I work nine months of the year and have three months off, to be taken as I see fit. Staying around Truk for vacation is really not an option. Onshore accommodations are shockingly expensive and sub-par, as is everything else around here. Besides, change of scenery is a priority after three months of solid work in one area. So, get on a plane and go somewhere. When spending that kind of money on a plane ticket, I want to be gone for a while, so I have settled on month long chunks of vacation time. Where to go? Home? I’ve been home all my life. Part of the reason I came out here was to have access to the Pacific and the Far East. There are over ten thousand islands out here, and I only have so much time, so I figure I need to get started seeing as many of them as possible.
By what criteria does one choose a destination for a month long stay? Internet, word of mouth, magazine and book research would be the most intelligent and prudent methods. Never having the good sense to count prudence as a virtue, I have developed my own vacation planning method. I choose a place whose name is bewitchingly exotic, check to make sure airfares and living expenses aren’t disproportionately outrageous, and take Alex Garland’s advice: book a ticket, pack a bag, and it just happens. So far this method has found me in Bali. I liked Bali, as you can tell from past entries. So I’m going next door to Lombok, the next major island over. Lombok. Sounds equally exotic, no? They have a group of small islands called the Gilis off the coast, supposed to have good diving. I’m going there. Hopefully with better communication results than my last trip, which marked an unfortunate dip off the blog radar.
This whole choice of travel destination according to how exotic the name sounds could be a good thing. Mozambique, Tunisia, Madagascar, Stalingrad, Tanzania, Umbria, New Caledonia, Knossos, Gstaad, (I can’t even spell it, it must be exotic), Munich, Bolivia, Tasmania; they all have a certain ring to them. If anyone has advice on any of these locales or maybe wants to check them out, or has a bizarrely spelled, funky sounding travel proposal, by all means, let’s hear it. Beyond that, thanks for tuning in and Happy Easter.
