It started with an offer we couldn’t refuse. A cruise line we’re familiar with offered complimentary pre- and post-cruise land packages for a Mekong River cruise. Hmmm… Vietnam? Cambodia? The Mysterious Far-East? Let’s go!
What’s So Mysterious about the Far-East?
To westerners, just about everything. Eastern languages don’t have Latin or Germanic roots, so they sound strange. Customs, food, and beliefs are different. And westerners don’t learn about far-eastern history in school the way we learn about American or European history.
Since we’re going to be in the neighborhood, we’re going to spend extra time in Vietnam by adding a visit to Hue. And since we’ll be flying in and out of Taipei, we’ll spend a few days there, too.
This trip will entail quite a bit of effort. So why do it? Maybe a better question is, why travel at all?
Consider This…
Think for a moment about those gigantic AI (Artificial Intelligence) computers. They’re fast and powerful, but what makes them work is that they’re fed – and then trained on – massive amounts of raw data.
Developers feed them staggering amounts of data. Maybe every news article ever published on-line. Add the complete contents of Wikipedia – in multiple languages. Add thousands of books, fiction and non-fiction, magazines, instruction manuals, and research papers available in a digital format. Etc.
The more diverse and complete the information fed into it, the better an AI computer can perform. It can “think better.”
Like it or Not…
Our brains and AI computers have a lot in common. When we travel to unfamiliar destinations, we experience new sights, smells, tastes, feelings, and cultures. We’re feeding our brains fresh data.
When our brain thinks, it draws on its stored data, just like an AI computer. A well-traveled brain, drawing on its expanded data set, thinks a little bit differently than it used to. Not intentionally. It just happens.
If there’s any validity to this comparison, then traveling to new destinations expands our minds, allowing us to “think better.” It’s good for us.
That’s one reason to travel. And if you think traveling is fun, that’s probably an even better reason.
Here’s the Itinerary
Our itinerary looks like this: Fly to Hanoi via Taipei, spend two nights in Hanoi, travel to Ha Long Bay and spend one night on a boat out on the bay. Then fly to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Spend three nights in Seam Reap, then board a boat on the Mekong River.
Spend seven nights cruising east on the Mekong, making stops in small towns along the way. Disembark and spend two nights in Ho Chi Minh City, AKA Saigon. Fly to Hue and spend four nights there. Fly back to Taipei, spend three nights there, then fly home.
In Hanoi, we’ll meet up with friends who we’ve traveled with before. The only time we see them is when we travel together, which isn’t often, so it’ll be fun to see them again.
We have our visas for Vietnam and Cambodia. Airline and hotel reservations have been made. We’re ready to go. So let’s go!
To be continued…
Notes: The cool image at the top of this post is from istockphoto/bestdesigns
