The Not-So-Intrepid Adventures of a Wimpy Princess
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in an absolutely divine, blissful, perfect resort in the Maldives. We have one of those dreamy overwater villas you see on social media, and I am slowly sinking into a state of boneless reverie. My days involve snorkeling, gazing at the horizon, and dawdling over lunch. I can’t even be bothered to read, because I don’t want anything to distract me from being one-hundred-percent present. Is this much luxury obnoxious? Yes. Do I feel bad about it? Only for the first five minutes. Then I adjusted.
I wrote this essay a few weeks ago, before my brain went on a coconut-scented vacation.
The Not-So-Intrepid Adventures of a Wimpy Princess
Before we left Doha for Dhaka, I was feeling a bit anxious. It was an all-too familiar feeling: the anxiety of the unknown. I fretted because we were going to Bangladesh, which I had built up in my head as a daunting, difficult place, teeming with people and poverty and disease (the last reported natural transmission of highly lethal smallpox was in Bangladesh; the fact that it was almost fifty years ago seemed irrelevant. The fact that I know where small pox ended is just … weird). During the flight, I had a little talk with myself, and I remembered that I know how airports work. I know how hotels work. We will maneuver through whatever we find, then we will check into our room, and nothing—but everything—will have changed.
I was right. The airport was airport-ish. The hotel was lovely. I’ve previously written about how insanely nice the people were. And we didn’t get smallpox (or cholera, or dengue fever, or leprosy, or any of the other dire illnesses that my imagination sees in every crowded place).
A reader commented that we are intrepid travelers, but when I reflect on our experiences in Bangladesh (and a bunch of similarly off-the-beaten-path destinations), it’s hard to think of myself as intrepid. Lee and I long ago relaxed into the comfortable embrace of the global travel industry. There are minor differences of culture and sophistication, but once we got beyond those, we realized that our days are actually ridiculously easy and predictable.
We eat breakfast, which someone has made for us. We work for a bit, then go out for lunch. I like to shop for snacks. We both like to eat snacks. Occasionally we go on a tour of some kind. Sometimes we visit things like museums or temples. We like to go for baby hikes. We always walk a lot. And that’s about it.
When we checked into our hotel in Kathmandu, the refrigerator wasn’t cooling properly; we reported it to the front desk, and someone came up to our room to adjust it. The next day, when the bathtub faucet only had a trickle of water, I showed the housekeeper, and she called engineering to have it repaired. A couple of days later, the bathroom light switch got stuck, so we told the hostess at breakfast, and by the time we got back to our room, it had been reset.
If there had been any sort of significant problem, I’m sure we’d have been cheerfully moved to another room, probably with a great deal of fretting and apologizing and offers to help with our bags (I know, because this has happened more times than I can remember).
We haven’t yet had to replace an air-conditioner, or repair a leak, or paint a room, or aerate a lawn. We haven’t had to clear a driveway of ice and snow. We haven’t had to call the fire department after a lightning strike. We haven’t had to get quotes to repair hurricane damage. We haven’t had to call a wildlife specialist to deal with a tiny little rodent problem.
I mean, we have done all those things—back when we were ‘normal’ people with a house in the ‘burbs. Traveling, living in hotels and temporary apartments? Way easier.
When I was a child, my dad used to say that his idea of roughing it was the Holiday Inn. Well, this apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Occasionally, rarely, the hotel housekeeper will show up at some ungodly hour like 9 am, and when I express slightly imperious surprise, Lee says, “Really? Princess is complaining about the daily maid service?”
Excuse me while I adjust my tiara.
The most intrepid thing we do with any regularity is ride in taxis without seatbelts, in cities where drivers turn across traffic by just plunging into the oncoming lane—yes, that’s a driving technique. In Dhaka, I heard Lee mumble, “I just need to not look.”
Really? I stopped looking years ago. Princess is definitely not intrepid.
Take care,
Lisa
P.S. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share. If you have feedback, I’d love to hear it. And if someone forwarded this to you, thank them for me, and go to https://bookwoman.com/ to subscribe.