201 Street

I have been very lucky in life and I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunities to travel quite a lot. I always write in my traveling journal and I always make notes on the maps that I use to get around. I’ve found that the notes, journal entries and photographs of the places I’ve visited help me to remember better. Last year I spend several months in Asia and I was able to spend quality time in several countries, rather than just hop from one to another.

My map of Philippines is quite worn. I used it to get everywhere. There are food stains on it and some stains that I have no idea what it is. I wrote in my journal quite a lot. One thing that I remarked on quite a bit was the attitude of the people. Most seemed very pleasant and welcoming. I would like to visit there again simply because of the people.

I spend a month in Malaysia also. I used several maps to keep from getting lost and all of the maps of Malaysia are stained and worn. I feel like the older my maps look, the more I saw of the country. I wouldn’t want to spend all of that time and money to visit another culture and find that I didn’t see much of it.

I would have to say of all of the Asian countries that I spent time in, Thailand was my favorite. My once crisp and nice Thailand map is not crumpled, stained and there is writing all over it where I took notes of the places that I went to.

I don’t think that I would be able to remember those countries and my time spent in them as well if I did not have the entries from my journal, the pictures that I took there and the maps that I used to get around. I never go anywhere without all three of these things.