In a little less than a month I will be stepping off the plane in Yangon, Myanmar. I cannot wait! And I have to say that there are great many reasons why this is so. I am really looking forward to learning a great deal more about photography from Steve McCurry as he is the reason I am going to Myanmar in the first place. http://www.stevemccurry.wordpress.com
I am a tad intimidated as well – the guy is the uber photojournalist – but that just means I will work smarter I think! I likely will learn a lot from the other “students” in the group as well. Stands to reason they will be as good as or more likely better than I right?
Of course I love to travel, no surprise there but I must confess I will be happy to shake off Toronto and the cold as well. In defence of my home town, my enthusiasm for distant shores has little to do with the people at home. I had such an incredible adventure in India that virtually any homecoming would be a bit of a let down, but then I walked into major dental surgery, complications and a massive bill to add insult to injury. Never mind how necessary! The balance of my time seems to have been consumed with all the maintenance details and duties of life and again necessary but not what  I want my life to be  about.
Some of my details have been hilarious in a kind of pathetic way. My TV watching has gone down enormously and the cost has not, so I thought of trying Netflix and Apple TV Â – the internet is so slow that Apple politely told me that it would take 12 hours and 47 minutes to download a 44 minute show and would I perhaps like to try again later? Why ever not?
I also thought I’d have a try at one of the online dating services, made up a pretty nice and accurate – I thought – profile. It is a bit like fly fishing; delicate manoeuvres, tetchy process, cold and uncertain, and then you end up throwing them all back anyway! Of course I am quite ambivalent about the whole idea so perhaps NOT a good candidate.
Now I fully understand that I AM whinging and deserve NO sympathy nor am I asking for it – not really, just sort of setting the scene.
So Myanmar, then Vietnam and Cambodia with my Travel Buddy Barbara. We will spend a couple of days on a junk sailing Halong Bay and tour around the temples of Angkor Watt – two things that are very high on my bucket list. I hope to make some good photos to share with everyone! I also hope to visit a friend of mine I haven’t seen in years who relocated to Phnom Penh and has a young family there.
So lots of interesting people, places, things and experiences coming up!
Smith the Traveller 
Once again the green-eyed monster raises its ugly head as I contemplate your journey – reading your blog will be fun and I’m glad I’m on the list. See you for lunch. Sharon
Just throw you head back, laugh out loud, leave the worries behind and have a fantastic trip…
Hi Kim and thanks for the new post on the traveling Kim Smith… It sound like another incredibly great adventure and I think you are doing very well with your photographs. Keep up the good efforts. A bit of news from my side of the world: I will be leaving Rome on Dec. 31 as I am completing my five year commitment to service here. Although I expressed a preference to return to Peru after Rome, I was asked to consider a second option, that of being the secretary of our new one-year old province of Latin America and the Caribbean, and also to be responsible for the provincial house, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. I did say, YES, to this alternative and so I will be going into yet another new life adventure and trying to get a handle on the Portuguese language which I understand quite well but neither speak nor write it and all provincial correspondence goes out in Spanish and Portuguese! I will take some transition time in Canada in January and need to get my Brazilian visa which I cannot get here as a “sogiorno” does not count as proof of residence!
Are you off in another part of the world during January? I will be arriving in Toronto via Alitalia on New Year’s Eve at 19:15 and my brother, Doug , will pick me up. I will be in and out of K-W area and Waterdown and from the 12th till 18th I will be making retreat at my favourite spot of Lake Marie, just outside Elmira. If I manage my visa, I will fly out of Toronto on Feb. 3 to arrive in Porto Alegre on Feb. 4 and quite a new adventure will then begin. Many blessings as we move closer to celebrating the feast of Christmas…God-with-us.
Take good care of yourself. Yvonne
El Jueves, 12 de diciembre, 2013 2:28 A.M., Smith the Traveller escribió: WordPress.com Smith The Traveller posted: ” In a little less than a month I will be stepping off the plane in Yangon, Myanmar. I cannot wait! And I have to say that there are great many reasons why this is so. I am really looking forward to learning a great deal more about photography from Stev”
Fantastica avventura, Kim! Scoperte degne del tuo carattere fantasioso, avventuroso, VIVO! Grazie di esistere Kim e auguri di BUON THANKGIVING DAY!