Let's Go Home

It turns out that there is a time to go home...

Our trip through Asia was fabulous, and as I look back on everything, there isn't much I would change, but travel does get tiring and I'm ready to go home.

It turns out I learned a few things.

1.  Even though each country in Asia is different, much of Asia is also the same. Buddha statues abound. Karst mountains are beautiful, but start to feel the same after seeing them in China and Thailand, so I skipped them in Halong Bay. Did I miss out? Probably so, but a lighter wallet and two previous karst adventures crosses them off my list.

2.  I miss the diversity of the United States...both in food and people.

3.  Travel is fabulous, but for me, the next time I do a big trip, I want to go with a few more people. Traveling on your own is indulgent, easy, and a huge learning experience, but it's also a little lonely and hard to do everything by yourself. My weakness was at the end of the day. I managed to get us everywhere, see and do the things we wanted, but at the end of the day, I needed someone to take over on dinner...someone who wanted to find great places to eat and new foods to try...when I was too tired to see to that last detail--and one that I very much missed.

4. I used to want to go on a big around-the-world trip, hitting every continent and crossing off all the UNESCO World Heritage Sites or exotic excursions, but now I think a good solid three months at a time is a better way to go. Maybe as I get better at this, the time will expand.

And finally, here is my Top 10 List of Favorite Experiences:

1.   Snorkeling at the Surin Islands 
2.   Hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge
3.   Loy Krathong Festival
4.   Hiking from Jinshanling to Simitai on the Great Wall
5.   Angkor Wat, Ta Prom, all the ruins at Siem Reap, Cambodia
6.   All of our biking experiences
7.   All of difficult experiences I had in learning how to travel, which made me a better traveler
8.   All of the interesting people I met
9.   Riding an elephant
10. Caving in Taman Negara

Interestingly, I think most of my favorite experiences were a little off the beaten path. Not completely hidden gems, but sometimes the harder treks, or the tours most people don't take, or the moments you weren't really expecting to be fabulous.

One moment I seem to remember with great fondness is watching the sunset at Siem Reap. One of my guidebooks suggested watching the sunset from a specific vantage point. We were tired from the heat of the day, but climbed a hill along with a bunch of other guidebook reading souls and found a perch on some ruins. I wasn't quite certain what we were really looking for, and to pass the time, I struck up a conversation with a young man who was on the last leg of his round-the-world tour. He and his girlfriend had mainly toured South America, and he regaled me with tales of Angel Falls, Easter Island, the Galapagos, and more. After awhile the crowd fell quiet and I realized everyone had their cameras out. I pulled mine out and saw what everyone had been waiting for. The sun was a perfect, tiny little disc just above the horizon and the sky turned into ribbons of color. I shot picture after picture, experimenting with different angles until the sun set and darkness seemed to fall rather rapidly. Was it the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen? Probably not, but somehow it was just a remarkable moment and I was there to take it in, in some little corner of the world.