MONTH 13 ... GEOFF
G. THOMAS
F
or the would-be traveller of today, a
number of trusted websites will provide answers
to every possible question. Some of the
information on these travel forums will be out of
date, and some will be downright false, but if we
ask the right question of the right people then
we’ll generally find the answer we were searching
for. Whether we’re concerned about the
availability of fuel in Siberia, crossing borders in
Southeast Asia, freighting a motorcycle into
Columbia or the finer points of cultural etiquette
in Bhutan, everything we’ll ever need to know is
available at the click of a mouse. This research is
all part of our planning process, a process that
becomes easier every year, but there’s one
important question that seldom seems to be
asked, a subject that all of us ignore, or at best,
actively avoid: What the hell are we going to do
now?
For the best twelve months of our life, our alarm
clock has been the cockerel or the muezzin’s call
to prayer, our only boss has been the changing
of seasons or the Captain of the dhow who’d
covertly whisked us from Jebel Ali to Mumbai.
During our time on the road we’ve successfully
avoided fifty-two consecutive Monday mornings
and with every mile the view from our office
window has changed. And, although we’ve made
countless new discoveries along the way, we’ve
still returned home with far more questions than
answers.