So far, so good. We’re 6 weeks in and going strong, with not a hint of travel weariness or being sick of living out of a suitcase or being in a different bed every second night. Both Mark and I have become champions at sleeping in strange beds (hard, soft, long, short, small, massive, pillowy, bricklike) and apart from the odd sleepless night, we appear to be doing well. It’s not only about the beds, though (obviously). It’s about the whole malarkey – the finding out how to get from one place to another, finding a place to stay when you get there, making sure it’s the right kind of place (and within your budget), finding somewhere to eat, taking in the sights, and sometimes, every so often, finding a spot to chill out. I think if we were hardcore tourists, it would be completely exhausting. But we are, for the most part, quite laidback when it comes to traveling.

We’re doing it for such a long time, you see. And I think this is what I’ve learnt, so far: that traveling is a lot like real life. You have days that are hard work and admin, days that you have piles of paperwork to plough through (especially when you’re documenting it as thoroughly as we are!), days when you don’t feel so good and you just want to take it easy, and days when you really just need to chill. The beauty of traveling, as opposed to real life (apart from seeing amazing things and experiencing new cultures, of course) is that it’s easier to be good to yourself. There’s no point in pushing through, no reward from a boss at the end of the road if you get all stressed out and work yourself into the ground. And I think that’s what I’m really enjoying about it… The immediacy. It is all about right here right now. What do you want to do today? How do you feel? What do you hope to get out of the day? Okay, let’s work with that.

It’s something I hope to carry home with me, along with my already-battered suitcase and my taste for lime and black pepper (which I picked up fairly recently, in Cambodia!)

If you’re looking for more up-to-the-minute updates about our travels, videos, photos and video blogs, visit us at Sweet Life – www.justtheplanet.com/sweet-life

In the meantime, aren’t you tempted to take a travel day? A day where you do what you feel like doing, right here, right now?

We arrived in the sleepy seaside town of Ban Krut last week – exhausted, sweaty, a little strung out. Sick of being on the move. 5 nights later we emerged (like butterflies out of a cocoon!) rested, relaxed, happy and calm. We’ve spent the last six days getting enough sleep, swimming in the sea, waking up early to watch the sunrise, eating delicious food, reading a lot and spending real quality time with each other. Most days we had a vague itinerary when we woke up (rent a motorbike and explore the surrounds, walk the length of the beach, do some photographic or writing work), but nothing too strenuous. We left plenty of time for afternoon naps and long picnic lunches and spontaneous swims…

It was a delight! Which was why I was so surprised to wake up on Monday feeling down. Nothing specific, nothing related to traveling or being away from home (I went through the checklist and none of the possible problems rang true). Just a bit… off. Now, my initial impulse was to say, “How could you possibly be feeling down? Look around you! You’re in a beach paradise!” but I decided not to fight against it (what’s the point when you’re already not feeling great?) and spend the morning lying in our little air-conditioned bungalow, watching movies on TV. I gave in to feeling down.

And wouldn’t you know it, a couple of hours later I got up for lunch and felt much better. I think maybe I just needed some nothing-time. Weirdly enough, I remember having a conversation about this exact thing with a friend who asked how we’d avoid burn-out. I said, “If we need to take a day out watching TV we will – no problem!” When it came down to it, though, I actually felt a little guilty… Isn’t that silly?

Of course, not having to move around so much has also made it a lot easier to keep an eye on my diabetes, and get back into tighter control. When you’re hopping between trains and buses and walking unknown distances it’s not a good idea to be too tightly in control, but when you’re in one place it’s easier to make sure my blood glucose readings are closer to what they should be. This also means, though, that I’ve had more lows this week than at any other time during the trip. I hate lows! I’m sure all diabetics do…

So we had a blissful (for the most part) six days in Ban Krut, and then got an opportunity at the last minute to spend a night on Koh Talu Island, less than an hour away – a private island with a low-key resort and a truly inspiring coral regeneration project. I’ll be writing about it soon, I’ll keep you posted. We had such a wonderful time there – snorkeling, swimming, and finding out all about the project (see Mark in snorkeling mode here!)

And now we’re about to catch our train back to Bangkok (no running to catch it this time, thank you very much – we’re going to be very early!) Tomorrow night I head off to Vienna for the Novo Nordisk International Diabetes Media Prize Conference (keep your fingers crossed for me!) and on Friday morning Mark will fulfil a long-held dream and go to Singapore to watch the F1 Grand Prix live (the ticket is a little early-birthday-gift from me).

So it’s an exciting couple of days ahead! I’ll keep you updated when I can…

(This blog was first published on Sweet Life, our Traveling with Diabetes blog).

But I’ve been pretty terrific over at Sweet Life, our traveling blog. Well, not terrific, maybe, but quite good. And combine the blogs with the daily Best Moments of the Day (short video snippets of our best moments each day) and the weekly video diaries, and I think the result is pretty good.

Check out our Best Moments here: http://bit.ly/1amRtW

And our blog here: www.justtheplanet.com/sweet-life

And let me know what you think…

Thanks

We leave this afternoon.

Our bags are packed, our tickets are confirmed, we’re outta here!
I can’t quite believe it…

For regular updates, check out our Sweet Life blog, and to find out exactly what we’re up to, you can watch this little video we made:

http://bit.ly/3YGoog

I’ll still be popping back here, though, so come and visit!

Byeeee….

We move out tomorrow, and then spend three heavenly no-packing-up, no-million-things-to-do days at my brother’s, so I’ll have time to spend with the baby (my neice), which makes me very happy! And time to unwind a little, and catch my breath. I feel as if I’m extremely tightly strung at the moment. I had forgotten how stressful moving was!
Now combine moving with trying to plan 9 months on the road… Yikes.

I also just wanted to say, in this brief moment of respite in between boxes, that I’ll still be popping in here now and again, but that my main bloggy emphasis will be over at Sweet Life (once again, for those who haven’t been paying attention! www.justtheplanet.com/sweet-life)

It’s such an integral part of our journey, the personal perspective, that I don’t want to dilute it by writing on two blogs at once and splitting myself in two. That said, sometimes I’ll think of something particularly suited to this blog (I’m sure) and I’ll write here too – so don’t stop visiting, please.

It’s funny, throughout all this extremely busy, frantic, preparation time I’ve felt stressed at the amount of work to do, but by no means stressed about the upcoming journey. I’m ready for it. It’s such a lovely feeling…

I hope you’ll come follow us and join in the journey!

One woman in New York has decided to wear a uniform (a little black dress) every day for 365 days, to raise funds for children’s uniforms in India. It might sound skanky, but she actually has seven identical versions of the dress, and she accessorises them so incredibly each day that it looks like a different dress every single time. Extraordinary!

Check it out: http://www.theuniformproject.com/
Doesn’t it make you want to dress crazier?

(And for more frequent blog posts, be sure to head over to Sweet Life – my travelling blog).

It’s getting exciting…

It came up because of the behaviour of a certain friend (remember when I asked for your advice about friends here?)
It’s one of the friends I’ve been slowly growing apart from, and it’s pretty closely linked to the post I wrote before, about how I always expect friends to be as present for me as I am for them. Now that I got that great advice from all of you, I feel a lot more comfortable about not letting it get to me as much. Which is why I could look at the situation from a distance and see the stark truth: I have a code of conduct, and the reason I’m so disappointed in this friend is because she’s not behaving the way I think she should be.

Isn’t that ridiculous?

Even more surprising for me is the fact that, although I think of myself as a very honest person, my code of conduct includes quite a few ‘put a smile on and be gracious’ clauses (is this because of my Catholic School Upbringing?) I think if you’re exiting a friendship, you should exit with grace. That you should be as polite as possible. This has definitely got me into hot water before – I remember distinctly becoming friends with a vegan guy in college (who quickly proved to be a lot weirder than I could have anticipated!) and promising that I’d bake him a vegan cake for his birthday. By the time his birthday rolled around we weren’t really friends any more, but I still baked him the cake, because I’d promised to! He was rather confused.

Still, I think it’s possible to do things in the nicest possible way, don’t you? Although that does conflict with a phrase I love from my practical philosophy class: Tell the truth pleasantly, not pleasant untruths.

What do you think? Make it nice and gracious, or be totally honest and risk hurting someone’s feelings?

It’s still dark outside, and rainy, and it seems as if most of Cape Town is still fast asleep…. I have a cake baking in the oven (for our Indoor Yard Sale tomorrow – we’re selling off anything we don’t love for R2, R5 or R10) and, just for now, it seems as if all is at peace with the world.

I had a tough day yesterday. A check-up at the dentist (my worst thing to do!) revealed that my last dentist was a monkey, and that I had to have EIGHT fillings (my absolute worst thing to do!) I got five of them out of the way yesterday afternoon, but I was filled with dread all day about it. Silly, isn’t it? An hour and a half procedure, but from 10am to 5pm I was dreading it.
I’m going to get the last couple on Tuesday, but all of a sudden it seems more manageable… I’ve conquered the beast (of fear), I think. I also came up with an ingenious trick – I took my iPod in with me and listened to Oprah and Eckhart Tolle in conversation, and that took my mind off what was going on inside my mouth!

Today, though, everything seems much clearer, and calmer. And it feels like the end of an era. I was just standing on my balcony, listening to the rain, and it occurred to me that in a little less than a week and a half, I won’t be standing on that balcony any more. We’re packing up our lives, and the familiarity we’ve known for the last year and a bit, and venturing off into the unknown.

And it is WILDLY exciting. I’m so ready for it. But at the same time I would like to say a fond farewell to this life of mine, because it has been a good one. Living in Cape Town with my man, eating good food, watching lots of movies, taking long walks around the reservoir, chasing our dream… It’s been wonderful.

But now it’s time to end. It’s the end of an era.
Have you ever felt like that?

Check out this hilarious and wonderful website – http://www.thewonderofwhiffling.com/
It’s the website of a new book all about extraordinary words and phrases in the English language, and I think it’s simply delightful.

Here’s an extract: