Six months ago, I thought that itchy feet were a genetic disorder, doomed never to go away, no matter how much I travelled.
I’ve always had itchy feet. I’ve always longed to travel.
But now, after nearly six months of being constantly on the go, living out of a suitcase, not spending more than 5 nights in one place and not knowing where I’m heading next, I can officially report: Itchy Feet Can Be Cured.
I’m ready to go home.
Yes, Real Life has a lot of admin to deal with – bills, work, shopping, washing up, cleaning, hassle. And of course I’m not excited about any of that. But Travelling also has a lot of admin, just of a different flavour – figuring out places to stay, trying to find the right kind of food (three times a day), finding out how to get from here to there with the least amount of hassle and the smallest cost, searching for an ATM that accepts international cards and will give you the amount of money you’re asking for. There’s a lot of inconvenience about travelling – you have to do things now because there’s no option to wait until later (even as I type I’m thinking that we have to go for dinner soon and I don’t have any food on me). When you run out of cash, there’s nobody to borrow from. When you need to get somewhere, there’s nobody to give you a lift.
I’m really looking forward to the ease of being at home. People speaking my language. Food that I recognise. A bit of good old-fashioned stability.
And yes, we will miss the adventure… It has been the most extraordinary adventure imagineable. But I think there are small adventures to be had in real life. I’ll keep you posted on that.
For now, I have to go and pack my suitcase (for the 1657th time), find some dinner, and go to bed early. 4.30am wake-up call tomorrow, for our 33 hours of travel till we reach Cape Town. We’ve just recorded our last video diary, so that will go up soon, and there are a few more moments to share with you.
But this is the Last Real Blog Post. After six months! Crazy…
Everyone told us we would love Argentina, and Buenos Aires in particular, but I didn’t really believe them… Neither of us are city people, and so far on this trip we’ve tried to skip out of most cities as soon as we can. Too much noise / pollution / traffic, not enough charm.
Not so with Buenos Aires. We’re staying in the charming barrio of San Telmo, which is all cobblestoned and run-down-colonial, and it’s full of cafes and antique stores and markets and fresh fruit and bread and meat and cheese. Everyone seems to wake up at 10 or 11am, and it all feels very laid-back and chilled. A real treat after all our travels.
Now that we have a return date (10th of February, even earlier than anticipated because we could only change our flights to that date or the beginning of March, and our budget won’t give us till March), it seems to have sunk in just how far we’ve travelled and how much we’ve seen. Mark and I have been taking it reallllly easy for the last couple of days – the easiest we’ve taken it in months, in fact. We’ll do something in the morning, rest during the hottest time of the day (it is HOT), and then do something late afternoon, early evening, slipping into a late dinner and a couple of hours wandering around the various areas of the city. Of course, the heat has been a problem again (with such temperature-sensitive insulin, why is that not a surprise?) We made the foolish mistake of walking around during the hottest time of the day on our first day here, which deactivated my insulin… Only I didn’t realise till the next morning, when I woke up high and figured out that my night insulin wasn’t working. Which led to a whole day of upside down blood sugar. Bring on a fridge! Please.
The fact remains, though: this is a cool city. There’s the tango, of course, and the steak (simply superb), and the people drinking coffee at every turn, but there’s also a lot of character and charm, and it feels like you can get up close to it, like you can have an emotional connection to it (unlike Paraty, in Brazil, which was just too pretty to connect to). We’ve also had the rare pleasure of a friend for the last few days! Our dear friend Steve is in Buenos Aires at the moment, so we’ve spent the last couple of days wandering around the city, eating empanadas (these delicious pie-like creations), going out for long dinners, and generally talking talking talking. Steve’s also been travelling for months, so it’s been really interesting discussing how we all feel about our travels and our imminent return home.
More on that later.
For now, here’s a taste of San Telmo, where we’re staying:
And if you’re curious about our wonderful stay at the Hotel das Cataratas, right across from Iguassu Falls, here’s a little clip to show you just how close to the falls we actually were!
PS – Remember our crazy experience with the Reincarnated Beatles in Indonesia for New Year’s Eve? For some reason the clip didn’t load properly, so if you’re still curious about them (and you should be!) check them out here.
So here’s the first of our South America video diaries (we skipped out a week of video diaries while we jetted back to South Africa for insulin- and family-time, so we’re now on Week 17).
I must admit, the beginning of our time in Brazil had me feeling a little discombobulated – mind in one place, emotions in another, body somewhere else entirely. I suppose that’s what you get for trying to visit 3 continents in 1 week! And now? You’ll have to watch to find out…
As well as to see some of the truly amazing sights that we’ve been lucky enough to see since we got here.
So this blogpost is a long time coming… I apologise. It’s been a crazy eventful week – as you’ll soon see.
Interestingly, though, it hasn’t been all good or all bad. I suppose that’s like life – some highs, some lows.
First off, to set the scene: When I last blogged we were in Jakarta, the capital of Java, in Indonesia. Mark had a bad cold and we were both exhausted from our long travels to get to Indo and the hectic pace of our last week in Vietnam. From there we went to Yogyakarta, the ‘cultural heart of Java’, on a delightful train (seriously, the best train we’ve been on in South-East Asia). It took about 8 hours, but it was so comfortable the time flew by. We stayed in Yogya for 3 nights, spending a day at the incredible temple of Borobodur – the largest Buddhist temple in Indonesia. For some reason, all the local tourists kept asking Mark and I to be in photos with them! We managed to catch it on film, here:
We spent all day exploring Borobodur (we chose to take the local bus instead of a tour, so we had 2 hours each way sitting next to and chatting with the locals, which was waaay more interesting than sitting in a sterile tour bus). By the time we got back that night we were exhausted, though, so we went for dinner just down the road, and I ordered ‘comfort food’ – fillet of chicken, which I thought would be sauteed, but turned up fried. And dangerous. I woke up in the middle of the night with a nasty case of food poisoning and spent all of the next day unable to move from my bed except to crawl to the toilet, and with honestly the worst headache I’ve ever had. Food poisoning is the devil! I had no idea how vicious it was. It’s the worst of both worlds – headache and nausea. Eeuch.
The next morning we had a bus to catch, at 7.30am. I woke up feeling better, but still weak and now with Mark’s cold (obviously my immune system had taken a hit from the food poisoning). We spent 11 hours in a minibus that day, a minibus with only the vaguest sense of air conditioning and a driver who knew no fear – he quite happily overtook other cars even if it meant bearing down on the wrong side of the road towards a bus! Yikes. Still, we got to see a lot of stunning Javanese landscape (endless rice paddies, lots of farmers, interesting small towns) and actually sitting down all day probably did my cold some good. We eventually arrived in Cemoro Lawang, a small mountainous village near the famous Gunung Bromo volcano, around 7pm that night, and were lucky enough to be booked into the delightful Java Banana hotel. What a treat.
Most people, believe it or not, make this arduous 11 hour journey for just one night. Gunung Bromo is still active (but only smoking) and the thing to do while in Cemoro Lawang is take the sunrise tour:
You wake up at 3am, take a jeep for an hour to the lookout point at Mount Penanjakan, where you can watch the sun rise over the volcano. Then you take the jeep down to the foot of the volcano and walk up to the crater itself. Awesome!
Here’s how Java Banana describe the sunrise:
“Little by little, from a state of darkness, minute by minute, the sun unveils the dawn in Bromo-Tengger-Semeru, in its incomparable beauty. Mount Bromo stands in the middle of the Tengger caldera and greets the morning, welcoming it with its periodic puffing of smoke. Bromo is visibly the most active and the most prominent on the stage of the theatre of Bromo-Tengger-Semeru.”
How could we resist? So the morning after our day of minibussing, we woke up at 3am to the freezing cold, and set off in the darkness to watch the sunrise. It was really exciting, actually, heading off into the great unknown, about to see our first volcano. And the sunrise was beautiful, illuminating the scene from total darkness to total light in a subtle but spectacular way… Mark will post pics soon, I promise.
It was also FREEZING, unbelievable seeing as we were so boiling hot the day before! From the sunrise vantage point we headed down to the base of the crater, and walked right up the rim, so we could look inside the volcano belching sulphurous smoke. Pretty darn incredible. Take a look:
We spent the rest of that day resting and recovering, and trying to find an alternative route to Bali, so that we wouldn’t have to do another 11 hour minibus trek! We ended up taking the train for most of the way, but it still took us over 11 hours… You can read all about it here, it was a really difficult day.
So there you have it! Our most eventful week ever. We had ancient temples and volcanoes, food poisoning and colds, all-day minibus journeys and diabetic drama. What more could anyone ask for in a week?
Well, some peace would be nice. I’m feeling worn out, to be honest. This week we plan on taking it easy. Having some down time in Sanur, where we are now (on the coast) and then heading inland to Ubud. I’ll keep you posted, I promise.
Yesterday was so awful that I feel the need to get it off my chest, before I catch you up on Our Most Eventful Week Ever (capital letters intended).
It was without doubt the worst diabetic day I’ve had since I came out of hospital post-diagnosis.
Before I begin, let me explain some numbers, so that what I say makes sense to you:
Non-diabetics (normal people) have blood sugar between 4 and 7. Diabetics should always aim for below 10 – 7 is the magic number, but I’m happy anytime I test in the 8s too. Between 10 and 12 is high, over 12 is really high, over 16 is dangerously high and I start panicking. I’m hardly ever over 16 – it means something has gone very wrong (i.e. my insulin isn’t working).
Yesterday, Thursday the 10th of December, promised to be a somewhat challenging day before it began. We woke up in Cemoro Lawang, the mountainous village not far from Gunung Bromo, the most famous volcano in Java, Indonesia. The plan was that at 9am we would catch a public minibus down the mountain to Probolinggo (1 hour), then catch a train to Banyuwangi (5 and a half hours), then catch a ferry to the port of Denpasar (45 minutes), a bus to Denpasar city (3 and a half hours), and a taxi to Sanur (20 minutes), where we would finally be in Bali and wouldn’t move for 5 days. That’s what was keeping me going: the thought of staying put for a few days. I’ve had a cold all week, so my blood sugar has been slightly high the last few days (I blamed it on infection and simply took more insulin). All in all, though, I was feeling strong.
Everything went smoothly till I tested my sugar two hours after breakfast (we’d just boarded the train) and found it was 15.9 – crazy high considering I’d taken slightly more insulin than usual at breakfast, because of my cold. I thought maybe I was going high because it was so hot (SO hot, like sitting in a humid oven, and we’d been waiting on the platform for an hour) and took another 3 units of insulin, which would definitely take me down to below 10. So far, not too worried.
Two hours later, I tested to see if the insulin had worked (you have to wait 2 hours for it to get into your system).
It hadn’t. I was still really high – 13.4.
So I deduced that the heat had killed my insulin, and took a fresh pen from the cool pack in my backpack. Not too worried. Fresh insulin would sort me out in 2 hours. I had a small lunch, took a generous injection, and waited.
2 hours is a long time to wait when you’re not feeling too well and not sure what your blood sugar is going to do.
When I tested at 3.45pm my blood sugar was 18. The highest it’s been since I came out of hospital over two years ago and figured out carbohydrate counting. The 2nd pen had obviously also been heat damaged, and wasn’t working at all.
And this, dear friends, is when I freaked out. Because if an insulin pen that was in my cool pack wasn’t working, that means that all the insulin pens in my cool pack might not be working. I’ve been as careful as possible with my insulin, but as you know it was left out of the fridge for 2 days last month, and most of the places we’ve been staying in lately haven’t had fridges, so it’s been going in a communal fridge. The weather is so hot here that to take it in and out of the fridge probably doesn’t help, and I’d come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t as effective as fresh insulin. But if it wasn’t working at all that was dangerous. Really dangerous.
We were only due to arrive in Sanur after 10pm. If the next insulin pen didn’t work I wouldn’t be able to eat anything until we could find a hospital or emergency room that could sell me insulin. We’d have to buy insulin to last the next 3 weeks. Who knows if that wouldn’t get heat damaged too – Bali is having its hottest summer ever known.
But on top of all these fears racing around my head was one clear question: Were we idiots for trying to do this? Was 4 months too long to travel in sub-tropical climates with diabetes? Was I being really stupid and careless with my health? For the first time since we left home, I felt scared. I wanted to go home.
But of course I couldn’t. I had a ferry to catch. Two hours later, on board the ferry to Bali, I checked my blood sugar again, and Hallelujah, Praise Every God in Heaven, it was fine. Totally fine. So now I’ve found a magic insulin pen that still works perfectly. I need to test all my others so that I don’t have another yesterday happening to me again in a hurry.
When we finally arrived after 11pm last night, I was completely exhausted and hollowed out. I can handle travelling with a bad cold and stuffy head. I can handle a 14 hour journey. I can handle high blood sugar for 8 or 9 hours (although I’d rather not have to ever again, thank you very much). But a 14 hour journey with a bad cold and high blood sugar is too much for me. Being that high is so awful. I couldn’t stop crying, my head felt full of clouds, my body felt weird and hot, and there was no sense of balance in me, no rational thought to cling to. I honestly haven’t felt scared of being diabetic since I got my eating plan and got it under control over two years ago. Yesterday was the first time that I really felt the weight of my condition.
Poor Mark was wonderful. Calm and soothing and practical, figuring out how we could get to a doctor or a hospital as soon as we arrived, and not getting freaked out by my constant tears.
And now, today, I feel shaky. My blood sugar is fine and I’m eating really normal food to keep it that way. I’m going to test the other insulin pens over the next two days and chuck out anything that doesn’t work, so I’m pretty sure this won’t happen again. Yesterday, of all the days of this wonderful trip, is one day I would not want to repeat. Not for anything.
We’ve been on the road for 3 months already, can you believe it? Crazy… I can’t decide whether that feels like a really long time, or whether it’s gone in a flash. A bit of both, I guess.
And now, today, we’re leaving Vietnam! Off to Indonesia. We arrive at midnight today, and are VERY open to suggestions about where to go and what to see…
First, though, as promised, I wanted to tell you about one of the highlights of our trip so far – a two day one night adventure in Halong Bay. Wow.
Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, about 3 and a half hours from Hanoi (one of the main cities in Vietnam). There are hundreds of tourist boats that ply the same old route, but we were lucky enough to get on to the Red Dragon, an all-wooden Vietnamese junk, made in the style of a 17th century pirate ship that took us on a unique route with only one other boat! Incredible.
We set sail into the wild blue yonder, and immediately fell in love. It’s just amazing stuff – huge limestone karsts (like islands jutting out of the ocean) as far as the eye can see, hundreds and thousands of them fading into the horizon, accompanied by nothing but aquamarine water. It’s the kind of sight that’s so beautiful you don’t really know what to do with it, so your brain quickly gets used to it.
We stopped mid-afternoon to go kayaking around and through the islands, and we were on the kayaks as the sun set, turning the water from aquamarine to orange and pink and finally silver, as the moon rose just behind the junk.
Then it was time for a feast on board, and much laughter, and finally a cup of tea out on deck with Mark, watching the moon make a silvery path on the water. It was one of those moments that I’ll remember forever.
The next morning we woke up early and headed off on bamboo boats to see a floating village – a group of fishermen who live year-round on the water, on a cross between houses and boats. Fascinating stuff. The Red Dragon company is doing a lot of outreach work in their community (building a school and starting an eco-friendly initiative to remove the rubbish from the area), which was really interesting too. But mostly we lay on deck and soaked up the beauty.
Here’s our Best Moment from that day, you can see I’m a little giddy! It was truly one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done.
Not only an alliteration, but a surprisingly authentic experience.
Mark and I were more than a little sceptical, on our arrival in Sapa (the mountainous town right in the north of Vietnam) to go on a hillside village tour. It just seemed too touristy, too much like going to look at humans in a zoo, you know? Nobody in South Africa can go to a real working village (as far as I know), and the whole thing made me feel a little uncomfortable.
But then we saw a really interesting photographic exhibition, where they gave young girls from the local H’mong (the biggest tribe) cameras for a month, and then published the photos as an exhibition… Fascinating! Scenes from their home, work, friend and family life, and it made us want to find out more. So we signed up for a full-day tour, entirely unsure what to expect.
What we got was a 12km (at least!) hike through some completely unspoilt countryside. We were lucky enough to have booked through the Tourism Office, not a tour company, and as a result our group of six headed off on a different route, far away from the madding crowds. It took us a while to clear the crowds, though, and I could see how a whole day of that would drive me mad.
For the next four hours, we walked up and down narrow rocky paths that led to and through three different villages, over rivers, through rice paddies (literally through – I have the muddy shoes to prove it!) and alongside some truly spectacular views (take a look by checking out our Best Moment of the Day from that day). Extraordinary stuff. Our guide was a local Vietnamese man born and raised in Sapa, and could answer all our questions about the area (we had a whole heap of questions because the day before we’d gone on a shorter – although still strenuous – hike to a different village and a waterfall, and hadn’t been able to answer any of our ‘I wonder why?’ musings). To accompany our guide, six H’mong women tagged along, equipped with large baskets on their backs. Baskets full of things to sell. We were a little wary at first, but our guide assured us they would try to sell to us at lunch and if we weren’t interested it was no big deal.
I believed him.
For the next four hours we chatted to the ladies about everything from marriage to kids to daily life to the surrounding landscape, and they wove us small trinkets from ferns – hearts, horses and a crown of ferns for lucky old me! I felt like a fairy princess. The walk was hectic but fun, it felt like we were really getting into the heart of the stunning scenes we’d been looking at for the past few days.
And then we hit lunch. And a horde of about twenty women started hard selling us their wares. Our formerly friendly, very chilled walking buddies suddenly switched on a flood of guilt tripping, crowding us as we sat down to lunch and pushing their items into our faces. I totally understand that selling is necessary, especially after they’ve spent hours walking with us (we didn’t ask them to, but it was a treat). However, Mark and I have a strict souvenir buying policy (we don’t buy anything. If we’re ever tempted it has to be TINY, and all their goods were pillow cases and shirts and tablecloths. No good). Eventually we ended up ‘tipping’ the lady that had accompanied us, and we all parted ways with a bad taste in our mouths.
The problem, as I see it, is that the situation has been blown out of proportion. Five sellers to six tourists is not good maths. Not at all. I think what happened is that a random seller chanced upon this being a good way to sell (through personal connection) and now far too many people have cottoned on, and shrunk all the potential out of it. It’s a pity, really, because until that point we’d really enjoyed the tour.
After lunch we walked for another hour or so, and then collapsed (quite literally). Five hours is a lot of walking!
Diabetically, I was fine. I took very little insulin at breakfast and went high two hours afterwards (the usual testing time) but seeing as I still had another 2 hours of hardcore hiking to do, I let it slide. I tested again before lunch and I was totally fine, and then took slightly less insulin for the rest of the day, knowing the impact it would have on my blood sugar. I still ended up waking at 5am with low blood sugar (I thought I would), but seeing as we did all of nothing the next day, that was quite all right!
Well, not quite nothing… We looked at some beautiful gardens up in the mountains, had a good old-fashioned sleep in, and left Sapa for Lao Cai, and then the overnight train to Hanoi. And then! One of the ultimate highlights of our trip. I’ll tell you allll about it tomorrow, I promise.
It happens, I think, when you’re travelling this much.
Here’s our latest video diary to find out what’s raising my blood pressure (but hopefully not my blood sugar!)
I realised today that I usually only blog when things ‘happen’ – not when everything is going smoothly.
So today I would like to say: I am one happy diabetic. I have had pretty much perfect blood sugar for the last couple of days (really, no highs, no lows, just an even keel) and I feel really healthy and well. I’ve got lots of energy, I’m sleeping really well, I’m eating as well as I can (although we’re battling, again, to find another with even a semblance of wholewheat in it!) and I’ve had a couple of days of ‘forgetting’ I’m diabetic. Of course I don’t ever really forget I’m diabetic, but some days it’s so easy that it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
I love these days.
I think part of the reason my blood sugar has been behaving itself so well is because the weather has changed. Does that sound crazy? I don’t think it is… A couple of diabetics I know have said they notice a link between hot weather and topsy-turvy blood sugar readings, and I think I agree with them. Just think about how you feel when it’s hot outside (I mean really hot, midsummer heat wave hot, as it has been the last few weeks). Sweaty, tired, thirsty – it must have an effect on blood sugar.
Midway through our stay in Hoi An the weather shifted from unbearably hot (unable to go out between 11am and 3pm hot) to cool and drizzly. Lovely! And now we’re in Hue, 3 hours further North, and it is COLD. Wintry! Amazing. I didn’t think it was possible. I’m enjoying it today, because I’m indoors and it’s cosy and warm. Yesterday, though, wandering the streets of Hue and trudging over the Perfume River, I was not such a happy chappy…
(I think this is my sarkiest Best Moment of the Day ever!)
PS – If you’re looking for an easy way to look at all of our videos, I’m very happy to say we’re now to be found on ICYOU (Intensive Content for your Health) – a health video website. Check it out here!
Okay, well, perhaps not quite first impressions – we have been here 10 days by now! But some impressions of Vietnam…
* We were told to be on our guard about scammers and tricksters, and expected to be harangued at every turn. So far, hasn’t happened.
* That said, people are out to make money here, so you have to be aware of that and cleverly sidestep it (for example, you can buy train tickets directly from your hotel, and they tell you the only other option is to go to the train station outside town and buy your tickets from them. Turns out there’s a tourist railway office just around the corner, and it’s US$8 cheaper each to buy from them! But nobody’s going to tell you that, obviously).
* The people here are a lot less wowed by foreigners – in Cambodia and Thailand we felt like we stood out a lot, whereas here the Vietnamese seem much more confident in their own country, and don’t seem to feel the need to kowtow (is that how you spell it?) to foreigners. There’s hardly any English signage anywhere – finding our way around is quite an adventure!
* Things run well here. We’ve been in Ho Chi Minh City (the old Saigon) for the past five days, and we’re amazed how different it is to the other capital cities we’ve been in (mainly Phnom Penh and Bangkok). Traffic is ridiculous – more on that later – but there are wide sidewalks, rubbish is swept away and picked up, and people take charge of their property. I like it!
* Traffic is ridiculous. Completely and utterly insane. For the first day, I stood paralysed on the pavement because I was too scared to step off into the mass of scooters, motorbikes, cars, taxis and buses. Absolutely terrifying. Eventually you just have to step off and trust that they will weave around you, but try remembering that when a bus is heading towards you at full speed! Eek.
* The food is great. Ho Chi Minh is kind of a melting pot of all of Vietnam, so it’s a bit of a hodge-podge menu, but the national dish (pho noodle soup) is light and delicious and fragrant, and there are all kinds of other delicacies to choose from (including spring rolls every way you look, yum!)
* It’s busy here. Reallll busy. We’ve been in the city a couple of days, and have been taking a few hours each day to explore and get lost and found and make a personal map of the city for ourselves. Thank goodness we’ve had the time for this! I think if we only had one or two days it would just be totally overwhelming, but to take it in bite-sized chunks it’s good fun. I’ve actually really enjoyed Ho Chi Minh.
And now! Tonight we catch an 11pm train northwards, to the beachside town of Danang for two or three days, and then into the historical town of Hoi An… I’ll keep you posted!
PS: On the diabetic front, nothing to report. Isn’t that lovely? One of the main things I love about cities is that they have supermarkets, which means I can buy normal food, which means my blood sugar is more stable. We’ve also been walking around so much that I’m getting a good dose of blood-glucose-lowering exercise. Great stuff!
