The first day of our writing class on this trip, I stressed two attitudes essential to traveling: courage (as in consciously choosing to take a risk every day) and flexibility. Travel is unpredictable, plans change, and you have to roll with those changes.
Well, today was the day. We left the Avani resort, headed for the airport and two short airplane flights – the first a hour an hour long hop to Ha Noi, the second, a short flight to Laos, our next country, our next destination.
Over our last sumptuous over-the-top breakfast, Judy pulled me aside to tell me that Quynh had just called her to let her know our second flight, the one to Laos, had been canceled. Instead of 10 AM, we wouldn’t be able to leave till 6:50 PM.
We waited to make the announcement until we were all on the bus. We gave people two choices: when we got to Hanoi, they could take a taxi into the city for three hours to shop and wander or they could stay and do a writing workshop with me the airport. I’m designing that right now – it won’t be a typical writing class: more like eavesdropping on conversations, making up stories about people, describing unfamiliar food.
