8 months ago, in an insignificant day of January, I bought a plane ticket to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The reason I did it, frankly, I do not know.
I was on the couch, in pajamas, perhaps I could type on ebay "Betsey Johnson" and thus quell my need for blowing the bank account, but it was not my desire to compulsive shopping.
Fortunately / unfortunately, was much more.
It is a thrill that runs under the foot, a slow and constant itching subsides only when the Boeing begins to push up the track.
That day, the evil thrill was given a name and a space temporal: Borneo Project, August 2010.
Some friends helped me to extend the route, giving me advice about the timing and the most beautiful places to visit. The planning of the trip begins to fill with exotic names, almost unpronounceable, and photographs of those already there, they fill my eyes: ancient forests, caves, tribal peoples, rivers and trails, temples, palaces of crystal.
Plan a tour in Kuala Lumpur, and then transfer in Sarawak, the heart of Malaysian Borneo. Trekking in national parks in the region and then via the Batang Ai, to know the Iban people. A few days on the river with them and then again in the city, another plane and then a bus ride that lasts all night. It landed on the China Sea, a marine park in one of the most beautiful in the world: Perhentian Island.
slowly acquires its texture, is more real, closer and closer.
This time, unlike previous years, travel alone.
It was not a choice or something spiritual, but a matter of chance.
In recent months I have often wondered if this trip was appropriate or not, and if they were really up to. In a couple of occasions, maybe a little discouraged by those who did not approve my travel solo, I was about to leave. "All in all," I said "I do not have to prove anything to anyone."
Yet that was not the point, just needed a lot more courage to give up a life experience so intensive, rather than starting one.
Still I find little support to my project. Most of my friends and look lost and puzzled as the story of my travel itinerary, and then change the subject with an embarrassed smile, almost making me a favor.
I smile back, stroking my project for the umpteenth time.
Only a few, a few days at the start.
Airline tickets, vouchers, booking, contacts. Everything is ready.
wait to hear the plane off the runway and only then the rest will have found my thrill inseparable.
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