Travel Misadventures by Gigi Pandian

JENN McKINLAY: One of my very favorite people to connect with at writing conferences is the super talented Gigi Pandian. She's smart, funny, adventurous, and a brilliant word smith, but also, she shares a deep and abiding love for Elizabeth Peters, aka Barbara Mertz, with me. Read yesterday's post for more on that. We are reader soul sisters, for sure! Now here's Gigi to tell you more about her (mis)adventures in research and writing.

GIGI PANDIAN: “Misadventures” is a much more appealing word than “nightmares” or even “hassles,” isn’t it? That’s my story and I’m sticking with—even though my latest misadventure involves breaking my ankle while exploring an off-the-beaten-path Cambodian temple.

Ugh, I know! Perhaps the most unexpected part of that experience was that it didn’t end up ruining the trip, but quite the opposite. Instead of cutting the trip short, we relied on more people to help us get around, and in the process met wonderful people who we otherwise never would have met.

And by forcing me to slow down, fracturing my ankle had an additional unexpected benefit. With my leg propped up with an ice pack in Phnom Penh at the Raffles Hotel Writers Bar, I wrote a draft of my locked-room mystery story “The Cambodian Curse,” about a seemingly impossible museum heist of a Cambodian statue, and I figured out the treasure in The Glass Thief—the new Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery that’s out today.

I don’t know about you, but I love traveling for the same reason I love reading—to take me to destinations more surprising and wondrous than I could have imagined. Travel is an adventure, and that’s why we embark on trips that take us out of our comfort zones. It shouldn’t surprise us that it involves unexpected snafus—or twists, as we’d call them if we were reading about them.

I admit it. I don’t always find life twists as fun as the ones I read about. (Roberta—I’m thinking of you when you lost your passport in India!) As my ankle swelled from apple-size to grapefruit-size on our 2-hour car ride back to Siem Reap from the temple of Banteay Chhmar, I was not a happy camper. We were only halfway through our trip. Should we stay?

By the time I pulled out my notebook that sweltering evening, we decided to treat it as an adventure. I’m a writer, after all. I better have a good enough imagination to turn an injury into an adventure. I’d sprained my ankle before, which is what I thought this was at the time, so I knew how to get around with an injured foot. I iced it, wrapped it, and put it in a brace. We were already halfway around the world in a country I’d never previously visited. We were staying. 

How could I not? None of my research compared to history and culture coming alive. Especially in a country like Cambodia that’s been through so much strife, from French colonialism to the bloodshed of the Khmer Rouge. Many of the historical Buddhist and Hindu temples from the thriving Angkorian Empire are only now being cleared and excavated. Banteay Chhmar, the Angkorian temple where I broke my ankle, is currently being excavated, so it doesn’t have wooden steps and walkways for tourists. Over the course of several hours, we only saw half a dozen other visitors, and only two of them fellow Westerners. We had a marvelous guide to show us around (thank you, Mr. Pel!), but still had to step carefully. By the end of our day there, I got sloppy. Which my husband still won’t let me forget—he’s the one with a bad foot, so he was far more careful than I was. I took my mobility for granted. Oh, the things we take for granted!

Of course I’d rather not have broken my ankle, but I’m still glad I went on the trip. Some of my travel misadventures have been more fun than others—being trapped in the Louvre during an art heist was definitely better than having to sleep on the cold floor of an Italian train station after missing a connection—but in spite of how much I adore being curled up on my couch with a good book, what I gain from understanding and experiencing more of the world will always pull me out my front door again.

What misadventures have you encountered on your travels? Did you still think it was worth it?

THE GLASS THIEF is out today! In the latest installment of the multi-award-winning and USA Today bestselling series Publishers Weekly calls “everything a mystery lover could ask for,” historian Jaya Jones travels from San Francisco to Paris and Cambodia to solve two impossible crimes before a killer strikes again and a priceless treasure vanishes forever.

The book just received a *starred review* from Library Journal! “Charming and eclectic characters populate this Indiana Jones-esque adventure, which comes highly recommended for

fans of locked-room mysteries in the manner of Agatha Christie and Elizabeth Peters.” 

p.s. Gigi is hosting two virtual book launch parties today to celebrate, one at 7am Pacific Time for early birds, and one at 7pm for night owls:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/GigiPandian/events/

USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author Gigi Pandian is the child of cultural anthropologists from New Mexico and the southern tip of India. She spent her childhood

traveling around the world on their research trips, and now lives outside San Francisco with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over the garden. Gigi writes the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, the Accidental Alchemist mysteries, and locked-room mystery short stories.

Sign up for Gigi’s email newsletter to receive a free Jaya Jones novella and Accidental Alchemist recipe card downloads: http://gigipandian.com/newsletter/