Finding Comfort in Adventure Travel
Comfort has become an interesting concept for the Vamos Kigo team. Backpacking on a budget, there are certain things we knew heading into our adventure we’d largely need to do without – nice hotels, dinners at incredible high end restaurants and closets to hang our clothes! While these things have indeed been left behind, we’ve quickly come to realize that we don’t miss them too badly.
If our room, bed and bathroom are clean…we’re happy. Incredibly delicious meals are found on the side of the streets…we’re happy. Our backpacks hold everything we need and are easily carried wherever we decide to go…we’re happy.
Surprisingly, there are a few things we’d never given much thought to, that although life goes on without, we truly miss when they’re gone and feel great comfort when they’re back – Internet, hot water and our kigos! While we are well aware that our phones and computers have always been constant companions, much of their use was for business, entertainment and fun. Now, when wifi is down or our computer goes on the fritz, it means disconnection from our family and friends as well as our travel research, reservations and directions. While we’re not immobilized, we definitely feel restricted and uneasy.
Hot water may seem like a funny one, but after eight hour days wandering around mountains, cities and beaches, our wind down priorities consist of shower, food and a nightcap. Taking a relaxing shower under warm/hot water is starkly different than taking a freezing shower, shutting the faucet on and off between shampoo, conditioner and soap because you’re too cold to stand under the water! If you don’t believe this is a big deal, take a cold shower for two weeks, let us know how you feel half way through and then on the first day with hot water again. You’ll be amazed at how much you missed it.
And then there are our kigos. With almost two solid weeks at various beaches, we’re sure it’s no surprise that we were in flip flops a good bit of the time. We could definitely feel a difference! Spending the past week back on the city streets in our kigos, our bodies are thanking us. Protected from the elements without any rubbing or stubbing, we immediately sensed the elevated comfort in our knees, leg muscles and the bottoms of our feet.
Bangkok has restored our Internet, hot water and kigos. It has also snapped us out of laid back island living, energizing us with its tuk-tuk’s, wats, water taxis, New Year’s Eve celebration and continued fabulous food. What a way to ring in 2012.
How – and where – did you ring in the new year?
Stay tuned for our next kigo adventure!
