I love how much I learn when I travel. Almost every day there’s something else that surprises me, something I didn’t know or had never done before.
I just learned that ‘plankton’ means ‘those who wander’ in Greek! I guess we are plankton - and plankton must be smart to be so smart to survive and thrive while being so vulnerable. Much like tourists.
We almost never go back to a place we have visited before. But we did make an exception for our beloved island of Langkawi in Malaysia. Years ago, when I did author visits to international schools in Kuala Lumpur, we asked teachers what their favourite holiday destination was. And we were told ‘Langkawi!’ It took us years to actually get there but it was love at first sight. Langkawi is gorgeous, with friendly people, and inexpensive enough to spend a good part of winter on the beach.
We don’t do winters anymore.
Yes, winter can be cozy by the fireplace, with fleecy pj’s, furlined moccasins and a good book. But in winter it’s cold outside, it rains and rains so we don’t want to walk. We can’t do much if any gardening. And sometimes we even have to shovel snow on Salt Spring. But this time we ended up on a white beach in Malaysia…
It’s a long way from Vancouver to Kuala Lumpur, but our flights were worse than normal. First we flew to San Francisco. There we waited for the flight to Hong Kong. It boarded on time but then the pilot announced that strong headwinds made it impossible to cross the Pacific Ocean straight for Hong Kong. Instead, we had to follow land: Canada, Alaska, Siberia and China… But it was all worth it.
