Advertisement
Published: August 18th 2007
Oh, the Hamptons
Bridgehampton PoloI am four weeks away from take-off day, Friday, September 14, when I leave for Hong Kong with a one-way ticket I bought. I will be staying with my cousin Sandi, whom I have never met, for the four or five days I am there. From Hong Kong I will be flying to Bhutan, a small kingdom nestled in the Himalayas. I will actually be flying to Bangkok on September 20 for the evening to catch my early morning flight to Paro, the only city in Bhutan with an airport (it opened for the first time in 1989). I will be there until September 30 when I fly to Kathmandu, Nepal to meet up with a tour group to trek around Nepal and Tibet...I finish up October 14. From there....who knows. Wherever I want to really. The idea would be to go to Beijing, maybe Shanghai, the Yunnan Province in southern China, into Laos, Cambodia, and fly over to India (all of which I would hope to get done by December 14 when I would fly to South Africa to begin my volunteer work). However, I am not going to stick to any plan...just go wherever I want. I've already began thinking that instead of India I will go to Africa (Botswana) sooner and travel there making my way down to St. Lucia, SA where my first volunteer stop will be (second stop - Cape Town, SA). I am volunteering with an organization called African Impact, which I found on my own and then later came recommended by my friend Shreya. The first month I will be raising awareness about the importance of wildlife conservation and the second month I will be at a woman's shelter.
I've been getting amazing great tips and ideas from my friend Jon since he just finished up his travels of over one year, and Gilligan who just has fascinating suggestions and I've pretty much been doing everything he says, so if something goes wrong or if I forget something, I can blame him!
It's a rainy Friday night and I am in the Hamptons - almost a complete 180 from the places I will be traveling to. I don't think I will miss this at all.
There are so many thoughts running through my head and I don't think I can truly convey it all, but I expect that this six-month excursion will be life-altering and I am looking forward to it. I am looking forward to time to myself and meeting tons of new like-minded travelers and seeing cultures that many of you reading this probably never will. It will be an incredible experience to connect with local people in the regions I am traveling to. It's one thing to see the sights and landscape in the movies and pictures I've seen online, but it will be another to see it in my own eyes...just to take all that in I can only imagine will be quite overwhelming, but in the best way possible. It may sound ridiculous but I am so hungry to see the world, and I think I always have been and I feel fortunate that I have the means to do it. Pfizer made it very easy and comfortable for me to take six months off.
I plan to spend the next four weeks preparing and spending as much time as I can with friends and family. I have plans nearly every day and night before I leave - crazy busy and I will certainly embrace the quiet and the infinity amount of time I will have once I am gone. I hope you will all stay in touch and live vicariously through me as I travel and try to keep this blog updated. Emails will always be a welcomed way to say hello, so please don't hestitate! I would love to hear from you!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.12s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 22; qc: 93; dbt: 0.0839s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Mom
non-member comment
Who would have thought...
What can I say to my daughter? I am so excited for you and proud that you have evolved into such a wonderful, smart, clever, terrific, sensitive woman. I know you will missed by many friends and family, and I can't begin to imagine what it will be like not to hear your voice every few days. I will certainly miss our many phone conversations; thank goodness for email. Daddy and I wish you all the great things that come with a trip like this. See you in Africa.