I think it's about time I do a bit of writing on the philosophy of travel. not in a general sense, or an ethical sense, just in the sense of what I think about traveling. In general. Specifically, I'm going to write a series of posts on why I travel (or at least I say it'll be a series, but really I'll write the things I actually want to write about first, then quickly fizzle out). Here we go with part 1, which I'll call:

The part where I do whatever the ***k I want.

Let me describe to a great day I had a few weeks back. I woke up in Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand. I thought to myself, I'm tired of this town, let's move on. So I got up, packed my bag, paid for my room and walked away. An hour or so later, I'd walked to the bus station in Chiang Mai. I was going to Laos, and my guidebook said I could take a bus to Chiang Rai, where they had buses to Chiang Khong, where I could cross the border. Sounded simple enough. I get to the bus station, look around, a random guy sitting down asks me where I'm going, I say Chiang Rai, he says "I think they're the only ones who go there, points to a desk selling tickets". I thank him, stand in line for 10 minutes, and get a ticket (133 baht) for a bus leaving in 5 minutes. I get on and go. 4 hours later, I'm in Chiang Rai. I walk off the bus, look across the bus station parking lot, and there is a bus sitting there that says Chiang Khong on it. I walk on to the bus, sit down, a lady walks up to me, writes 65 on her hand, I hand her 65 baht. I lean out the window and buy some chips, sticky rice, pork and a coke from some lady who had all these things hanging from a pole. 3 bone-rattling, nauseating, scorchingly hot hours later, I was in Chiang Khong, where I paid a guy 20 baht to drive me to the border on his scooter. I checked out of thailand, I hopped on a small boat for 40 baht, I paid Laos $36 and walked into town. spent 20 minutes or so deciding between the 10 guesthouses in town, then enjoyed a Beer-Lao and plate of fried noodles while watching a mediocre sunset over the Mekong. I slept on a mattress on the floor that night, and paid about $3.50 for it.

So what's the point of that story? Why was that a great day? Because I woke up, decided to do something, and did exactly that. With no plans, no real idea if it would work, only vague instructions from a 5 year old guide book. It's really impossible to overstate the satisfaction of that. That's why travel is great, because you can decide to do whatever you feel like doing, and often actually do manage it.
It doesn't always work out like that. I woke up this morning and was going to buy a ticket to take the train to malaysia tomorrow. No dice. sold out. Maybe I should have planned further ahead, but what's the satisfaction in that. You have to be fully prepared to accept the consequences, make any compromise, bear any burden. It's a small price to pay for total freedom. So tomorrow, I'm going to wake up, go to the bus station and see about getting myself to malaysia. Maybe I'll get there, maybe I'll end up sleeping on the side of the road midway down thailand. maybe I'll end up right back here, a complete failure. I can live with all 3 of those. That's travel.