It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

There’s definitely a difference between going on vacation and travelling.

Going on vacation, for most, means booking an all inclusive resort somewhere in the Caribbean, jumping on a plane in -4° weather and flying 4-5 hours to a sunny destination where everything from the hotel to your excursions outside of it are preplanned.  Leaving nothing to think about except whether to get a piña colada or a strawberry daiquiri as your first (of many) adult beverages.  A wonderful way to unwind, turn off, enjoy the sunshine, and forget about everything stressful for a week or two.

Nothing wrong with that!

The thing is, the world is so much larger than what is easily accessible to us in North America.  It’s also much more foreign, intimidating, and can be considerably more expensive and exhausting to travel.

As humans, I believe that exploring the unknown is in our DNA.  Lucky for us, there has never been a easier time to experience any corner of the “globe” our hearts desire (a little shoutout to all of the flat-earthers out there.)  Depending on your definition of easy, or perhaps your perspective.

On Thursday December 7th 2017, Natashya and I set off for Việt Nam, our first destination of many on a month long trip that will take us all over South East Asia.  My third trip here and her first outside of North America.  Perhaps I glossed over all the hard bits, big upped the palm trees and the infinite bowls of delicious noodles.  The sunshine, friendly people, and inexplicably cheap everything.  I tried to explain how in love I was with the feeling of the unfamiliar, the utter foreignness of it all, the smells, sounds, food, even down to the smallest of details.  I didn’t do so on purpose, solely to lure her in to travelling halfway around the planet with me, I genuinely forgot about how hard it can be on the mind, body and spirit.

When remembering the past, we tend to let go of the negative and embrace the positive.  So, after a cramped and sleepless 10 hour night-flight from Toronto to Istanbul, a wasted pair of travellers, one seasoned, the other new to it all, stumbled off the plane for a 12 hour layover in a land completely, and utterly foreign to us both.  Initially we had planned to lock up our backpacks in storage, hail a cab, and head into the city to visit the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and it’s neighbour, Hagia Sophia.  Thankfully for both of us, especially after being up for well over 24 hours, Turkish Airlines provides their long layover customers with a free hotel room in the city.  After 45 minutes or so of waiting around for the shuttle bus, we were snatched up and thrown into the densest traffic this side of the 401, heavily loaded with frightfully more aggressive than even the craziest of drivers out of Montreal.

New and strange surroundings have a caffeinated effect on me.  More than just needing to be on high alert due to an excessively over braking, tailgating and somehow passive shuttle driver, my brain overflows with new information.  From the vastly different roadways, signs and cars, to the architecture, both new and old, and the people, who look both familiar and distinctively different.

Travelling tends to remove most of the comforts you’ve built up over your lifetime.  With nothing familiar you grasp to find comfort in any way you can.  Lucky for me, this time around, I have my soulmate in tow.  Unfortunately for Natashya, by the time we got to our free room at the Ramada, sleepless and running on empty, there was no other option available but to climb into bed and use the remaining 5 hours to reset her body clock.  Although we still wanted to get out and see some of the city we travelled 10 hours @ 900 km/h to get to, it just wasn’t in the cards.  You have to listen to your body, something I do not do as much as I should do, and I’m glad this time I was travelling with someone who does.

We managed to get in at least two or three solid hours of rest before being hurried back to the airport, just to wait another 3 hours to depart on another 10 hour ride in an even crampier skybus.  Given the choices between Burger King, Poppey’s, Sbbaro and a unbranded Turkish restaurant, we managed to sneak in just a little bit of culture and ordered a “meat cube” turkish pide.  I’m not Anthony Bourdain, nor am I Yelp reviewer, so I’ll just say it was delicious and leave it at that.

Although we are currently Millionaires, at time of writing this, sitting on approximately $2.7 million Dong, I hope by the time the travel bug hits us again, we are flush enough to be able to afford at least business class for these long-ass flights.

Have I mentioned how messed up it is to leave home on a Thursday, and not reach your destination till Saturday evening, with only a 12 hour break in motion?  We watched three sunsets in 30 something hours, what?!  Every time we landed we’d look puzzled at each other, is it still Friday?  What time is it actually, no not now in Ho Chi Minh City, no not in Istanbul time, back home, where we started.  I’ve found it’s easier to play dumb and forget about what day/time it is from where you started and just adapt to it being evening again, only 10 hours later!

I tend to overlook the negative aspects of travel, because beautiful moments tend to dissolve them in a heartbeat.  Overwriting ones memory with rich and awe inspiring textures that can sometimes come out of nowhere when travelling.  One such moment, while flying over Iran as the earth rotated towards the sun once more, held us both in awe and washed away all of the yuck that built up over 24 hours + of travel.  Our faces both glued to the window as we passed peacefully over the snow capped Elburz Mountains, which peaks seemed to almost brush the belly of the plane.  Time stood still, the screaming child and the awkward feeling of the angled seats disappeared as we admired the small cropping of street lights from the isolated villages nestled into the valleys of the mountains at dawn.  That was until we were snapped back to reality when the unfriendly male steward, who has obviously learned to take the shear scale and beauty of our planet from this vantage point for granted, told us we must shut the window shade.  Which we very reluctantly did.

That is until he was out of sight towards the back of the plane, where we pushed the shade back up, and continued to take it all in.

After all, it’s these moments that make it all worth the while.