"I'm bored with this town already," I heard from three different people in Luang Prabang. "There's nothing to do. Only one street and some temples."
Towns like this Luang Prabang are the kind I love. Because they're the kind of place you can slide into gently, take your time to feel your way around. In Luang Prabang I found myself celebrating Buddha's birthday with a family picnic in the local temple, I wandered the market in the early morning, I talked to the curator of a photographic exhibition who showed me a photo of himself as a young monk, and one day when I'd walked the other side of the Nam Khan river, I ended up at a wedding dancing with drunken dads and wicked old ladies.
(Lao sound systems are LOUD. It took me a while to get the ringing out of my ears after that. Or was it just the effect of the whisky? It certainly took me a lot longer to walk back than it had to get there...)
I spent a week in Hampi. Just walking, biking, climbing mountains, watching the elephants get their bath, seeing the landscape from different viewpoints. Sitting in the Virupaksha temple courtyard, watching pilgrims come to the temple.
I spent a month in Orchha. For most people it's a day trip, but I stayed, and took side trips, going to Gwalior, Chitrakut, Sonagiri, Datia. I walked around, I made friends, learned to play karrom, drunk ridiculous amounts of sweet milky chai all morning, made friends with a Korean who was learning to play violin, Indian style, and ran my own street gang of local urchins who showed me all the best stepwells.
I rather like Bishkek. There's not a lot to it, but people are friendly, there's a good market, a great craft beer bar, a women-run brewery, a German beer hall, it's all walkable. There are parks with odd sculptures, and a whole load of old grave marker steles outside the national museum.
I like Bari. Ages ago, I spent a week there, using the railway line to get to all the great Romanesque cathedrals of Apulia. I got a free lift to the amazing Castel del Monte, Frederick II's hunting lodge in the hills, because the hotel owner was visiting a friend there; we had the whole place to ourselves. I was even invited to go down to the harbour early morning to see the fish catch (and ate part of it later on). Maybe not top on everyone's list but I love it.
Mechelen, former capital of the Netherlands. Dire Dawa, described as no more than a transport hub by most guidebooks, where I saw the epiphany play, danced and sang hymns, ate the best Indian food in Africa, talked about New Delhi with my hotel owner, heard trains hoot in the night.
Girivi is nowheresville, Georgia. Go much further and you're in Russia. It's a rough grid of a couple of dozen compounds and guesthouses. But it has better wifi than the rest of Tusheti put together, lovely scenery, beautiful walks, a clear river tumbling over huge red pebbles. In the morning you can watch the sheep flowing out on to the mountainside like snow, and in the evening they come back, with the dark, thin, shy cows. I wish I'd had more time to hang out there.
True, some cities are just very boring. But more towns, particularly the smaller towns, have some charms, and have a life of their own. It's worth settling down for a bit. Difficult, perhaps, if you only have a couple of weeks - easier if you have three, easier still if you have a few months. But worth doing.
Because the restless whistlestop tour gets boring, after a while. And you see ten monuments, a market and a couple of airports, but you don't get a feel for the country.
I can't recommend a boring town for you. But you'll know it when you find it. It's the place, or just a neighbourhood in a city, where you make a couple of friends, you stay an extra day; where someone tells you about a really nice place just up the road, or a quirky little place to visit, or you manage to find little places that aren't in any of the guidebooks, or you just spend all morning at the same little cafe peoplewatching.
It's the place where you just want to take life as it comes. It's the place where, instead of just visiting, and rattling around it like a pea in a big box, you actually find your place, a lifestyle just the right size for you to fit. You find a routine - a swim in the freezing river in the morning, a sunset walk every evening, playing karrom under the peepal tree or drinking craft beer in the same bar.
These places are waiting for you. You just need to keep your mind open to them.
And keep your schedule open enough to take the opportunity.
