Travel life continues Even As posts fall behind....

Here is the reality of it.  We are traveling up Myanmar’s Ayeyarwaddy river, sitting on deck of the 13 hour “express” boat, for which we had to wake at 4:30 to catch.  

Its OK ‘cause I was already up since 2AM with a bad travelers belly, the second such occurrence in the last 3 days.

When I woke Zuki she was in a cranky mood.   Its probably the lack of sleep, since our “splurge”  hotel with pool in Bagan, land of the temples, has serious plumbing issues causing our room to sporadically fill with methane gas, the smell of sewage gagging us, which we were trying to alleviate into late last night.  The idea of another long travel day ahead isn’t helping either.  
She sleepily berates me for arranging it, stating that I was blatantly taking advantage of the fact that they (ie the kids) didn’t complain on our last 10 hour bus trip, only 5 days ago.  

Luckily the boat is surprisingly comfortable with working toilets and 3 deck levels with indoor and outdoor seating and only a handful of other passengers because at $40 a ticket the super budget travelers and the locals opt for the bus ($7), whereas the high-end tourists take a flight.  The views of the landscape as the sun rose were spectacular and continues to be as we pass villages, mist covered pagodas, and exotic fishing boats.  

Honestly normally we don’t plan so many big travel days so close together.   We enjoy finding a place to hunker down for a week or two but sometimes finding a place we want to stay at for awhile isn’t always easy.  It can’t normally be determined from simply reading a guide book.  Getting advice from fellow travelers is sometimes more helpful but each person, couple, or family has different ideas of what merits a longer stay.   Its more of a feeling or simply one personal connection that makes a place click.

When traveling in a country like Myanmar, with its limited infrastructure, on a budget there is simply no way of getting around long travel days as moving from one place to another via ground is just long.  We have been running around too much lately and I am feeling worn down and crazy. 

It is not helped by things like Zuki actually biting Yoda earlier in a disagreement below decks or the argument that interrupted me just now regarding how many apples each kid already ate and who gets to eat the last one.  

I am suppose to be sitting here writing about our time living with the Massai in Kenya at Christmas. 

 It falls in the arena of one of the “highlight of our trip”.   We loved it.  There are wonderful stories and pictures to be shared.  If only I could just pause this trip I would have the leisure to present it properly.     

We watched National Geographic during our down time at our “splurge” hotel since we haven’t seen a English playing TV in months.  There was a show which features an ex-guardian angel rider taking couples out into the wilderness for intense experiences to bring to light relationship problems so that they may be addressed.  This morning amidst the arguing, sicknesses, general difficulty it dawned on me that our trip is remarkably like that “intense wilderness experience” for our family, but we don’t have a guide.  On the positive side I think we have worked through a lot in the last 7 months, and there are definite periods of being-in-the-grove right before another bump or mountain.  

And maybe that is it. 
Maybe it is as simple as that. 

Currently traveling deep in Buddhist country, surrounded by images of that serene face of Buddha, it clicks. 

Life is suffering, continual ups and downs created by our attachments.   Those hills and valleys are not going to go away but perhaps I can learn to be less affected by it all.  

Coming soon (hopefully) Blog post:  “Life with the Maasai”

Author's note:  (This was actually written 3 weeks ago but due to poor WiFi I am just posting it now)