{"id":1044,"date":"2026-03-30T14:13:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/?p=1044"},"modified":"2026-03-30T14:13:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T13:13:32","slug":"how-did-you-get-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/how-did-you-get-here\/","title":{"rendered":"How did you get here?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Little Simz asks this question, she ends up with a very different song to when Antony Szmierek asks this question. On balance, how I got to be where I am right now leans more to Antony\u2019s go to work, then I did something stupid<\/em> than Simz\u2019s trust me, this music ting is my prophecy<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently Louis Tomlinson also has a song with a similar title but I guess no one has ever heard it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyhoo. The sequence of steps to how I got here is lengthily and thusly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Need vacation, ideally around Eastertime to make best use of Jebus holidays. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Decide to tour the Baltic states, all the way up to the armpit of Finland-Sweden. (They probably don\u2019t call it that). <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Suffer through the worst Berlin winter since moving there a decade ago. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Decide I\u2019ve had enough of cold, want warm. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Decide to bring forward the plan to visit Taiwan from 2027 to 2026. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Book flights on Etihad to Taipei via Abu Dhabi because I\u2019m not made of direct-flight-on-two-months\u2019-notice money.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Make all sorts of plans! Rent a motorbike! Meet Masto friends! Eat stinky tofu (maybe)!<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Watch as a war breaks out in the Middle East. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. Curse as the inevitable email arrives to tell me that flight segment Abu Dhabi to Taipei is cancelled. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. Fume. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  11. Research alternative ways to Taiwan.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  12. Fume some more. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  13. Go to work, then do something stupid. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  14. Switch plans, book to Thailand via, uh, Dubai \ud83d\ude48\n
      \n
    • Masto friends: this is what I meant by rolling the dice \ud83c\udfb2\ud83c\udfb2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Make all sorts of plans! Fly to Laos! Rent a motorbike! Ride Vientiane to Pakse via two or three excursion loops!<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Watch as a continuing war in the Middle East causes fuel price shocks and shortages across the world, increasing the price of fuel in Laos by 50% in two weeks.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Cogitate. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Ruminate.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Have a complete crisis of confidence and consider bailing on the whole Laos thing. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Have a word with myself. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Rent the damn motorbike and figure stuff out on the way. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      So. That\u2019s how I got here, here being a little guesthouse in a village called Thongnamy (anglicised), somewhere due east of Vientiane. <\/p>\n

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      <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      When Little Simz asks this question, she ends up with a very different song to when Antony Szmierek asks this question. On balance, how I got to be where I am right now leans more to Antony\u2019s go to work, then I did something stupid than Simz\u2019s trust me, this music ting is my prophecy. […]<\/p>\n

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      <\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0","_share_on_mastodon_status":"%title% %permalink%"},"categories":[5,19,9,1],"tags":[15,20],"class_list":["post-1044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-laos","category-thailand","category-world","tag-diary","tag-motorbike-touring"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/toottoot.eu\/@thatmanmatt\/116318312407196591","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1045,"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions\/1045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/travel.thatmanmatt.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}