If my sister was a city, she’d be Valparaiso.
Colorful. Artsy. Messy. A little bit complicated. With a heart bigger than life itself and personality that sparkles as the sun goes down.
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I thought we would have gotten used to bus travel in southeast Asia. We had been on buses that broke down, had our seats given away in front of us, gotten shoved into isles jam-packed with cargo, and had things stolen from right underneath our seats. We have winced as bus drivers wedged, braked, and barreled through oncoming traffic.
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With cuts and scrapes still coloring my body from our first motorbike crash, I was hesitant at the thought of getting back on an unkept scooter to drive my wife on Laos’s crumbling backroads. However, I was even less interested in the alternative of experiencing the Bolaven Plateau from the back of a tuk tuk with exhaust fumes filtering our views of the passing countryside.
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We’ve been looking forward to enjoying southern Thailand and its beaches ever since we first began planning this trip. We envisioned climbing its limestone cliffs during the day and spending relaxing evenings writing and reading on its beaches. We wanted to swim in the warm waters of the Andaman Sea and watch monkeys play in the jungle trees. All from a beach bungalow hut - you know, the ones so often highlighted in our Instagram feeds. And I (Brad) intended to do so as cheaply as possible.
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Sure, I love the mountains.
But I’m not a mountaineer.
I think all of those people you see in the documentaries, losing their limbs to frostbite, sleeping in tiny windblown tents and suffering through negative bajillion below zero temperatures just to stand on top of a summit are absolutely insane. Like they have to have a screw loose or something. But for better or for worse, I married a man who is a little bit crazy about mountains, and so sometimes I find myself agreeing to do things that I would otherwise reserve for those insane folks…like spending two weeks hiking through the Himalayas and eventually to the basecamp of Mount Everest at 17,600 feet.
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