Travelling Dilemmas

Day 34: Xi'an (CN). In the days before Karen and I decided to place our careers on hold to enhance our quality of life and to fulfil our travelling dreams, I used to be a successful manager for a major international retailer. One of the things I used to preach to my team was the premise that 'the only bad decisions they could was to not make a decision'. And here I sat – hesitating, floundering, procrastinating! I just didn't know what to do next.

Karen and I were chilling out on the well worn but comfortable sofas of the excellent Shuyan Hostel. Having made the move south to Xi'an in the search of warmer weather we were now trying to work out where to go next and had enlisted the help of some of our fellow travellers: “Go to Chengdu – you'll be able to hike the mountains to see the panda's”, one of our friends suggested. “No, Lhasa's were it's at – you can ride the highest railway on earth – 5,000 meters up!”, said another. “I wouldn't bother with that – Lijiangs is the place for travellers – head for the province of Yannan”, added a third.

The truth of the matter is China is such a massive country. You can quite easily travel this spectacular, culturally diverse country for a year or so and still end up wanting to see more. With all the opportunities that lay before us, we were in danger of falling in to our old habits and manically racing around to cover as much territory as possible. Fortunately Karen pulled us back from the brink, “Don't forget it's about quality not quantity”, she said with a smile. Of course she was right – this trip was about taking time to understand the people and the culture and we could only do that if we took it nice and easy.

At that moment, I also remembered David's 2nd law of management: 'If you're unsure of what to do – trust your gut instinct'. Earlier in our travels, Karen and I had talked of following a route through China that meandered around a line we had drew on the map connecting Beijing to Hanoi. So that would be our route. This time around there would be no pandas, no mountain railways and no travellers Mecca. But it didn't really matter. From what we had seen of China so far every bit was amazing - every town a fascinating experience, every person a source of enlightenment.

Karen shifted around on the sofa to face the travel desk. “We've decided now”, she said to the incredibly patient JieJie. “Two soft sleepers on the overnight train to Chongquing on Monday. Bottom bunks if you can get them, please”.

Wobble over. Our travelling plans were back on track.