Bangkok To Krakow

Not long to go now. We’re packing up our house getting ready to stay with our parents before our farewell trip to New Zealand next week. TV, washing machine and fridge, all gone. All of the accoutrement’s of stability traded in for a backpack each and a duffel bag. This feels different to simply moving to another house, packing up our things, only to set them up again in a short while. The finality is actually quite refreshing. Now the task of squeezing our mountain of travel clothes, books and gadgets into a couple of back packs and a duffel awaits, crossing our fingers and toes that it all fits!

Limbo, what an uneasy place to be. Neither here nor there. We’re floating in that space where everyday routine and ritual is becoming a memory right before our eyes.

I don’t think it is the new that frightens us, but rather the place between the old and the new. The place of anticipation. The place of uncertainty. The place of real and imagined fears, with no rails to grasp onto to break your fall. Stability fades away and you are left standing there, anticipating the new. Then before too long we will embrace it, stamp our mark on it as routine, and we will have a new way of being as a travelling family.

When we decided to head off on our adventure, Madzia and I were both heavily ensconced in our jobs in “The Matrix”, more commonly referred to as the IT industry. Although Madzia was somewhat of an anomaly as a software developer who had no interest in technology in general, I have been enamored with electronics since Wizard of Wor on the Commodore 64 in the early 80’s. So it is only natural I was assigned the task of technifying our journey.
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When Zofia asked us to chaperone her on her Wizards tour at first we were taken aback. We didn’t realise that there were wizards of the female sort. She assured us that there were with talks lined up in Luang Prabang, Angkor Wat, Dubai, Shiraz and Gaziantep. How could we refuse our little wizard and these exotic locations!

But seriously, taking a 7 month old baby on a 7 month trip must make some wonder whether we’re just a little bit crazy. Made us wonder that too… for a little bit. When the first thing the midwife said was ‘She’s got travellers feet!’ we knew were on the right path in following our dreams!

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Where to begin? In the kitchen or the office? With stuff to keep or stuff to sell? Reduce, reuse or recycle? Let’s start at the beginning… Six months ago we started the process of deciding what to do with all our stuff. Being on the move for the last 10 years we didn’t really have that much. However there was enough to have us question our attachment to things and the clichéd sustainability of a consumer society, which naturally progressed to thoughts on the source of our happiness. Books and blogs are dedicated to these subjects so we’ll skip the brain dump and cut straight to our experience.
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We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
Always a little further: it may be
Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow,
Across that angry or that glimmering sea,

White on a throne or guarded in a cave
There lives a prophet who can understand
Why men were born: but surely we are brave,
Who take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells
When shadows pass gigantic on the sand,
And softly through the silence beat the bells
Along the Golden Road to Samarkand.

We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.

by James Elroy Flecker

What is BangkoktoKrakow.com? An online journal of our preparations leading up to our departure, and the experiences we encounter on our journey overland from Bangkok, Thailand to Krakow, Poland. 8179 Kilometres, 201 Days, 7 Time Zones, 4 years of Musing, 2 Dreamers and a Baby!

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