travels and travails

Our getaway-within-a-getaway to Ha Long Bay really couldn't have come at a better time, because Sunday, just the day before we left, various issues and irritations that have been building between Maya and I over the month-plus of this trip so far came to a head. We ended up spending the whole afternoon in a heated, no-punches-pulled, and ultimately pretty painful argument/discussion. Travelling like this is hard - there's the obvious physical, mental, and financial strain - but there's also the emotional strain of being around one other person for 4 months straight and basically 24/7. Little idiosyncrasies and personality quirks that might have been simply annoying in everyday life become magnified, and every adventure and challenge that you need to hurdle together is not only an opportunity to work and grow together but also a chance to mess up, point fingers, and piss each other the hell off. It would be hard enough if you were just travelling with a friend, but in this case, we're travelling with the one person in the world who can make each of us happier than anyone else but also crazier than anyone else, and sometimes it really, really sucks. So Maya and I talked it all out, got everything on the table, and we're doing better now - thanks in no small part to Ha Long. As tough as this journey has been and almost assuredly will continue to be at times, if we come back home understanding more about each other, how to work out our differences, and how to work together better, it will all have been worth it.