Thunderbirds are go!

I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone, but the hardest part of any long trip for me is booking the flights.

I think the main reason for this is that flights seem so final: no turning back, dates are set in stone, it is The Big Decision.

Then, once the flights are booked and it is a foregone conclusion, everything else seems to slot easily into place. No more worrying, no indecision, no “What-ifs” or “I-shouldn’ts.” Only “I’m going-to’s.”

Where to?

All I knew was that I needed a break, and a long one, I just had no idea where to go or what to do. There is a whole big world out there and the choices are overwhelming.

I had always thought I would stay in Asia.  I like it there, it is familiar to me, and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

One town that has been near the top of my “To go” list for years and was my initial choice is Ubud in Bali.

Ubud is set in beautiful surroundings on the Hindu island, and is well-known as the center of Bali’s art scene and as a yoga and meditation hub. It seemed like the perfect place to relax, take it easy and clear my mind for a few months.

I later read the memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, in which the author coincidentally goes to to Ubud to “find herself”, and it sounded ideal.  But then the critically unacclaimed Julia Roberts movie of the book appeared, and that was a good enough reason for me to scrap the idea. I don’t really want to run into hordes of Oprah Book Club devotees trying to find themselves too.  It would get awfully crowded.

I imagine the streets of Ubud are now filled with bicycle-riding 30-something recently-single, irritatingly self-centered American women, in white cotton dresses, sandals and floppy hats, looking behind every bush for their own mystic medicine man, their beady eyes constantly peeled and claws sharpened to fight off all competition for any dark and mysterious Latin lovers who will whisk them away into the nearest Barbara Cartland novel….

You may think this is a crazy reason not to go, but it has happened to me before.  Not the “Being whisked into a Barbara Cartland novel” effect (thankfully, as I doubt I could deal with all that pink or the testosterone), but the “Book/movie” problem.

After my first trip to Thailand, I read the Alex Garland novel, The Beach, about a traveller in Thailand, and I could relate to much of it. For instance, the Koh San Road hell-hole was eerily familiar, although I sadly did not manage to find any Lord of the Flies–type secret islands during my stay.

I went back to Thailand three years later and stayed for nearly a year; this was during the time the movie of the book was massive, and the country was jam-packed with annoying 20-year-old wannabe Leonardo Di Caprio backpackers. Ironically, these were the exact same backpackers that Garland lampooned in his novel and their numbers were multiplying exponentially in the wake of the movie release.

So I decided against Bali.

Where else could I go?

I wanted somewhere that was sufficiently different from where I am now (a tiny island in the Philippines) and with a few more modern conveniences.  Maybe Singapore?  Then suddenly, one day, a light bulb inexplicably popped on inside my brain – or should a say a series of Broadway show-style lights that spelled out “PARIS” – and these lights refused to be dimmed.

So that was that.

Decision made. Time to get down to it and book flights. But as I mentioned, this is always the hardest part.

The Real Big Decision

Booking flights makes me feel like I am signing my life away. Forget about how easy it is to change flights, that is not even an option for me.

So I generally procrastinate and this is when the initial “going away” excitement dies down and the doubts start creeping in…

• Do I really want to go there?
• Isn’t it going to be a bit dull?
• Can I afford the time/money?
• Won’t I miss the dogs too much?
• Will my business burn down/ the staff walk out/ things fall apart so badly that we get eternally damned on the Travellers’ Bible (Tripadvisor) to the extent that the burning down seems the better option?

Well rather than the staff all walk out, I am sure there will be a collective “Hurrah!” the day I step on that boat, and they will look forward to 3 months of not-being-shouted-at by “Mommy” / “Big Boss” / “****ing *****” as I am (possibly) variously known. Things will go splendidly and everyone will do their jobs so well that I will immediately start planning another trip.

So it was time for me to stop putting it off, to accept my decision, choose dates, take a deep breath, and book the darn flights.

This time it really wasn’t quite so hard. I’m not quite sure why, but I suspect it has something to do with this here blog. After having taken the time and trouble to create it and write my first entry, my decision was de facto already made: I could hardly not go now that I had told the world, could I? And by “world” I mean the 10 people who have probably actually read this blog (Hi mum!)

So, I am happy to announce, My Big Adventure is now officially open for business!

Dates

For any possible visitors and for those who are simply bursting with excitement at the thought of my upcoming musings on the relative yumminess of pain au chocolate at my local bakeries, here are my dates.

My new home in Paris: The Coco Chanel Suite at the Ritz

Tentative plans as follows:

• July 29 – Arrive in the UK, stay in the north, visit some friends.
• August 8-ish – Off to Paris, move into splendid apartment, have amazing time, wander Europe at will.
• Oct 21-22: The Dive Show in Birmingham to exhibit for the first time – hopefully see a lot of old friends, finally put faces to email contacts and maybe drum up a bit of business.
• Brighton for a week or two.
• Nov 8: Back to reality.

Sorted!

Next on the To Do list: Learn French.

Easy.

Let the games begin!