"road routine"
Thursday, November 27th, 2008started by the tired parent, finished by the one who was up early stoking the fire!
Luang Prabang, Laos
We have been asked, “So how do you guys manage to travel around with a family AND maintain a blog?”
Back in NZ we had a regular gentle rhythm to our days – but travelling around, that has not been possible. At first we thought we would at least have three meals a day, which would provide some loose structure, but even that has proved an unrealistic ideal with unscheduled morning teas, afternoon teas, snacks and fruit samplings, not to mention special treats that it would be rude to refuse. Some days we eat so often the shorter members of the party have forgotten whether we’ve had lunch or not. Other days lunch doesn’t happen until 2pm. Mealtimes can not be counted on for continuity.
So here is what a typical day looks like for us:
We get up when we are ready.
We go to bed at some time.
That’s it! Can you tell I am in need of the second point above???
Nah, actually there is much less to it. Or is that more? Sounds like we couldn’t organise ourselves out of a paper bag, let alone keep from losing some kids eh! You wanna know the truth? We’re really sitting back in NZ and making up adventures each day to “write home” about. Easy-peasy!
Seriously, we are travelling with little kids, so that means two things – they need and usually get an afternoon sleep; secondly, they go to bed earlier than us adults, so there is some distraction-free time each day for us to journal and sit at the computer choosing which experience of the day to capture for posterity’s sake. Of course, the older kids do not sleep as early as the little ones – in fact, some nights they barely beat us to bed – and so a portion of each day’s “downtime” is spent chatting with them, playing games, and helping them with science or maths and correcting journal entries, but then they can be ignored I mean do what they want follow their interests. It’s not like we have TV or books (OK, so we have ONE!) or can go out for coffee together or get together with friends for a meal….and for the past three weeks we have had only limited and now non-existent internet at our accommodation.
When we had wi-fi, it was dead easy to write a post and publish it on the spot, uploading some pictures and checking email all at the same time. Since that luxury disappeared, we have typed at home and then done the rest of the process at an internet cafe – less convenient, but not impossible. As you may have noticed, some days four posts appear – that generally means we were unable to get a connection for a few days. We use that nifty little “timestamp” feature to keep our writings chronological, even if the rest of technology is not keeping up with us!
postscript inserted: on the day we first tried to publish this post there was no telephone or therefore internet in Luang Prabang all day – and on a day when we really wanted to see what is going on in Bangkok with both airports apparently being shut down with some anti-government protest.
and the next day we couldn’t get connected either…….
third time lucky
As for the writing itself, blogging often is actually just a rewriting of something we have already done in our journals (it is also a good discipline to keep uploading and sorting through photos as we go, rather than letting ourselves get days behind). We have journalled on an aeroplane, at train stations, by candlelight at remote hilltribes, floating down the Mekong…..these entries often find their way to our blog in some form or other.
The other thing is we have different responsibilities on the road. We are not required to clean the places we stay at, until our current stop we had been unable to cook for ourselves, Rob does not disappear to work for ten hours each day, there are no meetings or appointments.
Finally, there’s some advice we gave ourselves before leaving: just try to do one thing each day, go slowly. Problem is, we haven’t really taken that advice. If you’re in a pokey little room in a guesthouse somewhere on a main road, it’s nice to get out morning and afternoon, even if it’s just for a walk around the block to find food. And in those little rambles we keep seeing things we don’t want to forget! So we return to the tiny room and jot it all down.
We’re just living, eating, writing, enjoying. Not much to it at all!
rayres