sabatical or holiday
I started with this trip saying that it was a sabatical. But what is exactely a sabatical... I don't want to give definitions but I do get the feeling that my trip will be a sabatical...
So far I have had 3 weeks of holiday. I could do that every year, no problem. But what I've noticed that I take more time for myself and just go with the flow more than usually. Most of you know that I'm not such a reader. Since I've started my travelling I already finished 3 books. I like to read about local surcomstances. About Thai people, the way they think, they react. In a normal holiday you can never get much inside information. Now because I take my time, meet a lot of different people and read about the same people, I sometimes understand them better.
Realizing that after my first 3 weeks, I still have 6 to go is a strange feeling. It gives me an opportunity to explore thailand and later Vietnam and its people better now after my first weeks of relaxing and getting used to being in completely different surroundings.
Sometimes it can be good to be in a different situation, I think that is the only way to open your mind for new thoughts and idears. I've never been away for longer than 5 weeks and that was 15 years ago... After that I started working pretty fast and was used to go on holiday for 2 weeks maximum. So eventhough for some people 9 weeks doesn't seem like a sabattical, for me it is a completely different situation than I am used to.
All in all I have the feeling that I was right and that it is a sabattical and "not just" a holiday, but I can tell you this for certain after I come back.
