LIFE IN ISOLATION 7

Today I came across a post I had started to write after returning from a trip to Hong Kong a few years ago. Reading it took me back to a world that seems so far away now, when I had a full time job and was travelling all over the place for work. Some of the places I've been to over the last 10 years include China, Hong Kong, Turkey, India and the US and I got used to travelling up to 4 times a year for between 1 and 3 weeks at a time. A lot of my trips, were made up of stops in multiple places with the only time 'off' being on various modes of transport between destinations, although I still remember writing emails on the train between China and Hong Kong, ready to send on wifi once I reached the hotel. Reading this was a reminder of a really exciting time in my life when it felt like the world was my oyster but at the same time I can feel the frenetic energy in what I've written. The pace of life at that time was relentless and couldn't be further from where I am now.

I am home! After 3 weeks, 4 flights and 3 countries, I am finally home. Back to listening to podcasts and eating vegetables, back to Hulafit classes and working in the garden (if the rain stops). Back to English chocolate! (and unfortunately back to lemsip an echinacea to fight off the aeroplane germs I picked up along the way).

I LOVE travelling. Sometimes I think I'm the most myself when I'm on my own in a foreign country, eating alone, getting lost down back streets or working out the foreign equivalent of the London Underground.

BUT having said that, travelling for work whilst amazing, is exhausting. Imagine, a 12 hour flight to Hong Kong, clearing customs and baggage, a 20 min taxi to the train station, waiting around for 30 mins, clearing customs again, waiting 20 mins more, then boarding a 2.5 hour train to China. Arriving in China and clearing customs AGAIN before walking 10 mins to the hotel dragging no less than 40 kg of baggage behind you in 28 degree heat (at 9.30pm) because experience has told you that it's not worth the argument with at least 3 taxi drivers who don't want to take you on a 5 minute journey despite the heat and the luggage. By the time you check in and shower you're physically ready for bed but starving and wide awake because it's still day time where you've come from, so instead you take your laptop down to the hotel bar order some overpriced pasta and a glass of wine and do some work ready for your 9.30am pick up the next morning. If you're lucky you're sleepy enough by midnight. If not it it's few episodes of CSI on your tv which seems to have about 50 channels but only 4 in English and none that show anything less than 10 years old. And that's just day one.