I was very impressed with E and all her travelling when first we met 12 years ago. She'd just got back from two months travelling solo through Laos and Vietnam.
Before that there had been four years knocking around the world, including six months in Africa, travelling down the west coast in the back of a truck. She even had a tropical disease - African River Blindness - that required ten years of treatment. I was impressed by all ofthis. There were also photos of her when she nearly killed herself with dysentery in India after getting hungry on a train and eating two cucumbers some old man had in a bucket of water.
I'd thought myself a bit of a wanna-be when it came totravelling. The desire was there, but it had never really gone liike I'd imagined. I'd had taken myself to Bali (alone) aged 21 as my first overseas trip and had a ball. But then a few years later I dragged a very unwilling partner back and we had a lousy time. I lost my nerve for asia a bit. There'd beed six weeks in Europe when I was in my 20s and then a short trip to Thailand to visit a friend who lived and worked in Bangkok.
Despite my successful Bali trip (I met a few local guys and they showed me around - great fun!) I'd not felt very good at travelling alone. I'm adventurous, but I scared myself any time I tried to get off the beaten tourist trail. In Thailand, aged 31, I remember fronting up in some random town determined to be brave. I took a room in a rather dark, bleak boarding house. And was scared and lonely and didn't know what to do next. I hated people staring at me when I left my room. I felt conspicuous and vulnerable. The next day I fled back to the closest tourist haven. In the end I went down to Ko Samui and took some dive courses which ate up the rest of the trip in a very enjoyable fashion.
But I knew with E it would be different. It's amazing what a difference company makes. And E is scared of nothing.
Our first night of our first trip away together. November 2000. We flew into Bangkok, made a dash across the road from the airport to hail an illegal taxi (not sure why, I think we thought it would be cheaper). There was a mad dash to the station and we boarded a 10 hour long train ride. We arrived just as it was getting dark somewhere along the coast near the ferry to Koh Tao. On the station we met an Aussie girl on a motor scooter. She was touting for business for a restaurant or guesthouse. She somehow managed to get both E and I and our backpacks onto the scooter with her and drove us to a her restaurant. We ate dinner there and then a few hours later we were at sea, sleeping under the moon on the deck of a boat, a mix of backpackers and locals. Now that was travelling!
Later it was Sumatra, sleeping in villages for as little as $0.30 a night (my all-time cheapest room), Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Three months of the best time of my life.
We talked about children then. It was on a bus in northern Thailand. I wanted them straight away. A boy and a girl. E didn't, but agreed in principle. As long as it would not interfere with travelling.
How hard can it be? I said. Just look at all the people who live here. They all have kids. Look at them sitting besides us in these local buses for five or six hours holding babies. It doesn'tlook that hard.
It was settled, then. We even chose names for our kids to be.
But it was more holidays that happened first. Five weeks in Malaysia and Thailand, including a week on magical Koh Lipe in Southern Thailand. We met Gabrielle there, a German woman with three boys, aged 6, 4 and 10 months. No husband. Enormous backpack! We were in awe of her.
There is no pier at Koh Lipe. The ferry anchors in a bay and the longtail boats come out. We all managed to clamber across to the long-tail. It then motored into the shallows and we hopped out thigh deep and waded ashore. I think I was holding the baby at this stage. It was the most stunning beach and Gabrielle was unfazed by it all. She found a room and settled down to look after her baby. Her older boys were in kid heaven. An island with no roads, no fences. After a few days she got chummy with the local policeman and the whole family moved into the police station - it was a bamboo hut on the beach - at some incredibly cheap price. We looked at what she was doing - by herself with the kids for three months - and thought, if she can do that alone, how easy will it be with two of us.
After that trip, my plan was to get pregnant. E said, how about we plan a holiday cycling in Vietnam - you know, just in case you don't get pregnant, so we have something to look forward to... being as we will be so disappointed. Yeah right!
Pretty soon the story was that we were going on this cycling holiday and if I was pregnant, that would be fine too. The plan was mad. No nice organised tour. We had semi dismantle our bikes and box them into cardboard and check them as baggage. We were riding independently, no back up. Just a small day pack each. Lots of packets of rehydration salts. I was not really looking forward to any of it. Thankfully I wasn't pregnant.
We flew into Saigon just before Christmas in 2004. We found a minvan to take us into town and got a a hostel. We carried - dragged - our boxes up a winding staircase. Was it five storey? Felt like it. Then just as I should have been enjoying a beer, I was dismantling the box and reattaching pedals and so forth to the stupid bike (how I came to hate it).
I remember riding our bikes in mad Hanoi traffic and at 4am in the dark silent streets to get on a train to go south. And later packing them into a bus. And then at Hoi Ann, finally setting off to ride.
We ended up doing 600 kilometres, staying in little towns along the way, occasionally hailing buses and throwing the bikes up on top. It was amazing and interesting and exhausting and sometimes quite stressful. I remember riding into Ho Chi Minh City, what a blast. I felt very pleased with myself and very keen never to do it again.Fortunately, within four months of returning to Australia I was pregnant with A. Having a baby put a stop to our travel for almost two years.
