1. Oct 27th Finally, another Adventure

It’s hard to believe that its been over 3 years since my last big adventure.  For me, time seemed to fly by during this global pandemic.  Like many others, I used the lockdown for self improvement, but the jury’s out whether anything worked.  I ended up gaining a few pounds which I attribute to my son working for a boutique candy manufacturer and sometimes he would bring home end cuttings of those delicious toasted coconut marshmallows.  I couldn’t resist.  Despite all that daily walking I did (and still do) my caloric intake ended up greater than what I burned off.  I tried to play lots of music but it’s not that much fun to play by yourself.  When the lockdown was reduced, it was much more enjoyable to be able to play music with others and made me realize what a gift playing music can be.  

I think that my perceived risk of covid is reduced to a point where I’m comfortable with travelling again.  Although I spent most of this past summer away in my RV going from one music festival or camp to another in BC, Alberta and Washington State, it’s not the same experience.  I’m ready for an adventure of different cultures, foods, flora and fauna, languages, geography, history and such.  

I did say no to my travel buddy, Judith, to a proposed Sri Lanka trip in the early spring because of political and global unrest.  But her idea of touring Cambodia and Laos in the fall seemed reasonable so plans were set in motion.  As travel partners, we have complementary skill sets.  Trip organization and planning is her specialty while I’m just a willing participant.  But I like to document the trip for my records which has a side benefit of keeping my family and friends up to date with the trip.  I’ve been blogging all of my major travels and it’s fun to go back and look at them.  Admittedly the last few days of my blog trips never get finished.   By that point, my sleep deprivation has caught up and I need to set my priorities…And then when I get home and rested, I get busy and the need to finish just disappears.  

I have attached a link for the travel summary which gives the highlights of where we’ll be going.  Judith and Victoria’s Trip at a Glance.  Judith worked with an agent with Selective Asia, a travel firm based in the UK to design the trip.  Usually he’s been great at designing our past trips that have been excellent, but this time, the seat booking on our flights was missed.  He did scramble and was able to put us in a couple of seats together and I hope they’re in the premium economy section that we paid for…  Hopefully this is the only issue.  We’re used to having these trips run pretty smoothly.  

I’ve managed to pack what I think I’ll need for the next 4 weeks of my life.  

Here’s a picture of all the crap I feel I need to take.  I am more successful at packing if I lay everything out first and then pack. I divide the stuff into clothing and shoes, toiletries, camera gear.  

I love packing cubes - they’re the best thing for staying organized because we’ll be staying at 14 different hotels during this trip…  The hard part is remembering which cube you put your stuff.  It takes me a few days to figures out which cube is holding a particular item…

All that stuff fit into three bags one of which I’m using as my purse.  The big bag will be checked through.  I couldn’t believe that it weighs 45 lbs.  I think one of the flights we take in Laos has a 40 lb baggage limit so I may need to juggle some items.  

My sister Sylvia’s partner Russ is driving me to catch the 1:00 ferry on Friday and my sister Patsy is picking me up.  I was originally going to stay at my daughter Jennifer’s place but a scheduling conflict resulted in Patsy coming to my rescue.  Judith is already in Vancouver hanging around with another mutual friend Susan.  We all worked together at the TD Bank from 1988 to 1990 and its a friendship that’s lasted even though there were long stretches (like 20 years) where we didn’t correspond much.  We’re all getting together Friday for dinner at the Poor Italian Restaurant (owned by former TV news anchor Tony Parsons) as well as Patsy and Jennifer as I thought it would be a good opportunity for them to meet Judith.

One more sleep!