"the last time i saw you"

It would be impossible to think that one could love every single place in the entire world. Although I frequently claim to, and usually only write about the places I really do recommend and love, there are a whole lot of places that just didn’t really do it for me.

The thing is, I could never say that I hated a place, nor could I say I’ll never go back. It’s just not my style. In the same manner that I’ve never really had a bad date (interesting dates, definitely, but never a really godawful one), I like to think that I’m generally pretty easy-going and can make the best of a bad situation. But, just as I politely sipped my pint of beer on those mediocre dates, realising I would rather be at home watching Better Call Saul, there are a few places I’ve been to that I realised I’d rather move on (or go back to my room to watch Better Call Saul). I completely recognise that, in a lot of these situations, I was lonely or sick or in a weird place in my life or I just didn’t meet the right people – my so-so destination might be your favourite place in the world. I am also in no way not recommending these places, just acknowledging that I haven’t had the best time in every place I’ve ever been, contrary to what this blog might promote. So, in no particular order, here are a few of the places I didn’t love.

Over the last year and a half, my degree and my job have taken up most of my life. I have sadly had to let this blog slip behind a little bit, which breaks my heart. I love writing blog posts. Sometimes I go back and read old blog posts for inspiration for the book I’m writing, and once in a while I feel really proud of what I’ve written. A lot of the time, however, I cringe. I’m totally guilty of doing some really lazy travel writing. Lock me up and throw away the key, because I have definitely described a city as a “fascinating blend of the ancient and the modern”.

So, mostly out of sheer self-shaming (in the hopes that I never blog/write using these words again… or at least minimise my use of them) here are the words I think are overused in travel writing and travel blogging.

I’ve been sighing a lot in London lately. I often talk about how much I love this city on this blog; I wrote a whole post about why it deserves every bit of that love, just over a year ago. In that post, I cited the things to do, the galleries, the people, the restaurants, the markets. And I still stand by every word of that post. From Broadway Market to Saatchi Gallery, to afternoon tea and early morning raves, I’m more in love with this city than ever.

But we all know what love is like. It starts off like fireworks, all oohs and aahs, lust and passion. If we’re lucky, that feeling stays for a while. If we’re really lucky, that feeling stays forever.

On our last day in Yangon, we went in search of food near the market. Tired and overwhelmed from wandering in and out of the maze of stalls, we wanted to find a place where we could sit down. As it was the middle of the afternoon, however, many places seemed to be shut. We rode our bikes into a parking lot, and noticed an unmarked restaurant to one side, so pulled up to see. There were no walls; it was just a cement slab with a wood roof over it, but there were a few wooden tables and red plastic stools, and a small kitchen to one side. Nobody else was there.

“Do you want something to eat?” A middle-aged man with a mustache and kind eyes approached us, speaking in perfect English.

We met on a sweaty night in the middle of Hanoi, high up on a balcony full of backpackers. In the middle of the balcony was an old bathtub full of ice; staff members from the bar kept refilling it with bottles of beer, trying to keep up with the raucous crowd. For some inexplicable reason, everyone was wearing pink sombreros, and the place was filled with kids barely old enough to drink, sunburnt, be-hatted, throwing their heads back in drunken laughter. And then: I saw you.

The stigma of blogging has definitely subsided over the last decade, as so many people are online in some way, whether through blogging or social media. What used to be a strange phenomenon – writing and posting on the Internet for a bunch of strangers to read – is now quite common, and, in some cases, expected (for a business or magazine, for example). But I also realise that I feel differently about blogging than most, because my entire life is about blogging or writing in some way. Not everyone feels the same way that I do.