I dropped by John Birmingham’s blog this morning and read his entry on his ‘happy place.’ It’s an imaginary world where he retreats when the real world gets him down. For John it’s his old flat in Bondi – but in a parallel universe where the sun is always shining, the waves are always good and the beer chilled just right.
It got me thinking. As a traveller I have a collection of ‘happy places.’ They’re just not imaginary worlds. They are times and places on the road when things just clicked.
Like Christmas on a rooftop in Lamu with a bunch of travellers, listening to Galliano, drinking ice cold beers and watching the dhows sail by. Or kicking back on a hammock on a steamer up the Amazon. An early morning in Luang Prabang in Laos watching orange-robed monks walking through the misty street seeking alms. A raucous night in a bar in Turkey flirting with English film students. And heaps more.
I suspect you guys have travel moments like that too and was hoping you could post them. I’ve got a deadline looming and I could do with an escape.
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Christmas on fraser Island has to be a favourite moment for me….even if we were stuck for an hour and a half in the sand through the pass near Indian head…..but its a credit to the Australian personality that not only did loads of people help us (prob for the free cold beer we were paying them with) but when we finally did manage to get through and realise that we were holding up about 15 cars on christmas day….no-body seemed to care! “No worries mate!”
I’d have to say the first one that springs to mind would be NYE 1999/2000 sitting on Manly beach with a group of friends from all over the world, drinking cold beers, watching the fireworks going off celebrating the start of a new millennium. Then heading back to Collaroy, chilling on the beach watching the sun come up and thinking I’m in heaven.
The second one would be sleeping in the car on the Stuart Highway (just outside Tennants Creek) having driven no stop from Cairns. We were knackered as could be expected but I remember sitting in the passenger seat trying to sleep thinking this was a stupid idea (we were heading to Ayres Rock) but at the same time, just enjoying the adventure and for once living ‘outside the box’.
Many more great times have been had in Thailand, American and even good o’blighty..
Good post Peter, gets you thinking about the good times all over again.
Roll on Xmas, so I can get back to OZ to see England beat the Aussies in their own backyard and retain the Urn…….Here’s hoping anyway….
Sitting in one of the cafes overlooking the Djemma el Fna in Marrakech is always a good memory…watching the utter madness below while you can just chill out (and have a sneaky beer if noones looking).
Also, Hat Rin on Pha Ngan would have been a nice memory, had i not broken my foot after crashing a moped. Two minutes after hiring it. When sober. In front of about 400 people.
Maybe not then…
Barcelona. Nou Camp. 1999. Manchester United won the European Cup and I was there to see it all happen. It’s been years but I can still picture the pitch, the stadium, the people and feel the magic in the air.
Happy travel places for me tend not to be too far from home – if I’m travelling there’s always something at the back of my mind about where I need to be next or the home comforts I’m missing.
So I’d maybe plump for back in Aberdeen catching up with uni mates. Either the millennium in a wee house in the middle of nowhere a long drive into the countryside with as much beer as we could carry, or last Hogmanay with the Proclaimers shaking the Castlegate in the snow to its frozen foundations. Or maybe the customary hangover breakfast in The Illicit Still that traditionally draws to a close each gathering of the “when Simon’s in town” gang!
I have tons, one of many favourites is being with my uni mates on our year out in East Germany. We were posted in the some of the nastiest places on earth – but we made the most of it. We had NO money and we were broke, but one day we took ourselves off to Poland (we heard the “wodka!” was cheap_ It was freezing cold and snowing but as we arrived the sun was shining and we spent all afternoon talking to Polish soilders in a mixture of French and Italian – brilliant!
In time of sheer desperation, I take myself back to the streets of Havana where everyone is happy and smily and the streets are full of colour and the sun is warm on your skin. Strawberry daiquri’s Hemmingway style – yum!
One of my fondest travelling memories is of arriving in Sydney – it was 3am and we landed at the airport. I was meeting up with friends who were travelling and I had to get to Kirribilli to meet them at a hotel. The taxi driver took me over the harbour bridge and from my window I saw the Opera House for the first time. My first reaction was to smile – then I burst into tears. It was an amazing night, really warm all the neon lights in the back ground and the harbour and the Opera House. I met up with my friends, we bought a slab of Carlton Cold and sat up all night talking. Perfect!
Drinking singpore slings in the Raffles hotel – that was grand and an eye opener!
Camping and travelling around northern and southern Italy with my boo!
Our first holidays together that will always be special. Eating ice cream everyday for a fornight and gaining 10lbs!! Fat knacker! Walking the steets of Venice, driving through the Tuscan hills, swimming of the coast of Capri, camping in Florence with the view of the city below – breathtaking!
Watching teenagers playing the beautiful game in a park in Parma and being totally over the top and animated! Everything I love about Italy.
and my favourite of them all, being on honeymoon in Hawaii with the man of my dreams. We met 4 years ago got married 6 months ago and spent 3 weeks touring America.
We spent 7 glorious days in beautiful Maui – drinking, eating, surfing and falling in love all over again (slushy but true) we couldn’t wait to get to NYC and get back to normal
Watching England beat Australia in the last Rugby world Cup(sorry Peter)having drunk 1 Chang beer too many in a bar in Kho San Rd brings back happy memories.And for a more cerebal moment,watching the sun rise over Mount Sinai was pretty special too
Camping in the Egyptian desert – pregnant with a worm, mind you. Playing cricket with a team of gardeners in rural Slovakia.
Happy places leaping to mind now that I am living in a place called Honolulu that without a doubt I will remember as one happy place once I have moved away?
Countless ones… from walking down Sutherland Ave. feeling on top of the world for living in London, to watching boys playing cricket on a roof top in Jaisalmer whilst falling deeply in love, via the splendour of a practically deserted Venice in perfect weather, watching a human beat box strolling down the streets of Santiago de Cuba, with a shortcut to sitting at the cave in Muang Ngoy coming to terms with the beauty of Laos and back to India but this time quietly enjoying the timelessness of Ladakh on an Enfield..
And all those place in between!
Tibet Cafe in Zhongdian, Yunnan, China.
It was a nightmare getting there (nearly died a number of times) and then almost immediately regreted going. But then I found the Tibet Cafe, with a handful of other ‘hard’ travellers all huddled around the stove warming their hands and drinking hot tea.
Great place where we all shared fun travel stories and appreciated each others company to the max.
There is something about being in a hard to get / little visited place with other travellers. You get on and talk to each other in a way travellers in ‘easier’ destinations, for example Bangkok, will not.
When it comes to travelling Hard times = good times
Bit of a tourist cliche but drinking cava on the roof of La Pedrera in Barcelona whilst listening to great African band … and skiing powder in Utah for the first time. Magic! And walking into La Plaza de la Catedral in Havana for the first time – blew me away.
Sunrise over the Breakaways. Not the biscuits might I add, but the relatively small range of hills in South Australia about 1 hr North of Coober Pedy – strange town but well worth the visit – on the Oodnadatta Track. Nothing beats the feeling of being perched in a cove just over the edge of the lookout-point cliff, protected from the chill early-morning breeze as it whistles harmlessly over your head, gazing out across the desolate moonscape as wandering hues of purple, orange, red and yellow replace the blackness of night. It could empty even the most cluttered of minds.
It feels natural, normal, almost primordial just to sit there and immerse yourself in the land. The closest I’ve come to that feeling anywhere else is in the hills at home (when its not raining) The Munros, the islands, the West Highland Way……There are times when everything else in the world seems to plae into insignificance and all that counts is the moment – a shared experience with the land, the wind and the sky.
Travel memories are invaluable, you cannot put a price on them. They are the product of an adventurous spirit, an open mind and a collision of coincidence. Like women they require attention if you want to hold on to them (that’s not an insult by the way, for all the women reading this) Memories can slip away so easily when you’ve been home for a few months and the cold grey reality of a bleak town seem to sap your re-discovered zest for life from right under you, without even so much as a warning…..routine is ruthlessly efficient. So to treasure them is important, a happy place is essential.
a tiny little bar/cafe on the north east point of Bali called Bobbies. same sign, same frontage, same staff & same food for over 15 years now. been going there since i was a kid & the memory of it never fails to relax me & remind me there is a place like paradise not far from here.
i know Bali’s not cool anymore, but i dont care, that place is magic.
A fav memory for me is sitting on the seawall in the early hours of a Sunday morning, watching the sun rise over the River Crouch in rural Essex, feeling very tired but happy, with the person I love sitting next to me. Sloppy I know but true.
gooly gosh were do you start!. a few things come to mind especially one night in koh samui were i got totaly wasted with the chef of swiss chalet restaurant.we drank a full fridge worth till 5am and watched the moon shining over hat lamai,amazingly he started cooking breakfast at 6am for the other guests!!!. i retired to my hut!,and had breakfast at 2pm!. travelling through malaysia on train,3rd class,enuff said,you know the one,no windows and all that. and having chicken thrown through the window by some irate local because i wouldnt buy.i think it was kampar station so beware folks!. had so many highlights in oz, fishing in the atherton tablelands with a crazy guy called pete from braintree,camping at ayres rock and thinking that because its 30 degrees during the day that the nights would be warm! oh how wrong was i!,i could go on for ever here,but i must mention seeing darren gough be the 1st englishman to take a hat-trick at the sydney cricket ground jan 2nd 1999 i do believe. the atmosphere that day was amazing,and never forget the knees up at the coogie bay hotel that went on late into the night,how i got home that night is beyond me but i did wake up with a childs bike in my room,so i guess i must of biked to clovelly! up that hill!. a recent memerory is seeing the sun rise over the albanian mountains,a truly stunning sight. thats all for now but im sure theres plenty more happy tales that i could tell you,keep up the great work pete.