Travelling / Backpacking / Flashpacking the World!

I’m going to start by saying a big thank you to everyone that has had an impact on my travels. A special thanks to: Bob, Christy, Sarah and Niamha, Federico, The Chiang Mai gay boys, Mie and Hoa from Vietnam - and to everyone else that I have met along the way that has helped make this experience unbelievable. THANK YOU.

MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS - Where do I start, there has been so many. These are off the top of my head:-

Pat Pong - Pervert Heaven

Mine and Christy's night out with the Chaing Mai boys to the party for the temple, Unbelievable!

The longest bus journey in Laos, eleven and a half hours to travel 156km. Very slow and bumpy!

No.1, My visit to the landmine museum in Cambodia, the young victims there are just so inspiring.

Ko Pha-ngan - the party island, and not forgetting the 16/11/05 The Full Moon Party. Awesome!

Getting pick pocketed, beating up a lady boy, and then getting chased all over the island. CRAZY!

Spending time with Mie and Hoa. I now know how fortunate I am to be born in England.

The ferry journey across to Koh Tao, where I have never felt so ill. - Horrible!

Falling down a man hole on New Year's day. What are the chances of that happening?

Ko Chang - Snorkelling around deserted Paradise islands. Out of this world!

Thank you again to everyone involved. xx

Before leaving England and although I always new that at some point I would travel, I never realized just how good an experience it would be. When I left England all I knew was that I was flying to Bangkok to go with the flow and see what happens. I honestly didn’t have a clue as to what South East Asia was like, I didn't know any of the history or what the countries were like today, and if im honest I didn't care. It had no direct impact on me or my everyday life so why should I. How ignorant I was. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our own little worlds of luxury, working and having money to buy and do exactly what we want, always having food on the table. If it doesn't affect our daily routine or have an impact on our lives then why would we care what's going on, on the other side of the world. Unfortunately that's how ignorant I think the majority of us are, a big assumption to make, but I believe it to be true.

What an amazing experience travelling is. Over the last 4 months I have done, seen, and learnt so much. Travelling truly opens the mind and the whole experience is just totally unforgettable. I feel like I want to encourage other people to do it, to be able to experience and feel how I do at the moment. It’s such a Buzz. I know that everyone has got different interests in life, and that not everyone wants to travel, but what ever it is you want to do in life, get out there and do it. Don't sit around dreaming about it and waiting for it to happen, make the dream come true. Being born in the West the majority of us have the ability to do that, we have got so much and yet we are so miserable, so many opportunities, so many choices, so much so that we can look into the future and virtually plan the way in which we want our lives to shape out and what direction we want our lives to go in. We take so much for granted, to be able to choose our careers, where we live, cars, holidays or what we want for dinner. I’m by far a religious person but I now realize how lucky we are.

In 20 years time we will regret the things we never done, more than the things we have done, and got wrong.

When you travel you meet so many different types of people that race and origin just don't seem to exist. You meet so many different types of travellers, some of which are just walking around with there eyes closed, others (DICKS) that are here purely to exploit poverty, and others that are just having one big xxxx up and so would be better of in Spain, and I think it’s such a shame because they are just not going to experience what I have been lucky enough to. All the time I hear people moaning about the beggars in Cambodia and Vietnam, or the street sellers which are more often than not very persistent kids, and I find myself preaching to them. You don't have to buy anything or give them money if you don't want to. Just say Sorry, no thank you, and walk away, there is no point moaning about them. Look at us and how lucky we are, to be able to do what we are doing, going from one country to another with probably more money in our money belts than they will see in a life time, and all without a care in the world. Put yourself in there shoes, what would you do for food if you didn't know where your next meal was coming from, where by selling something means the difference between eating and going hungry. Would you not follow somebody up the road in the hope that they will buy something? I think you would. If I can make them walk away with a different outlook on it, which will hopefully be passed on, then my job is done.

The poorer the people - The nicer the people.

I have totally fallen in love with South East Asia, it has just got so much to offer, so many amazing people, so much culture and history, but more than anything, so much WOW factor. I absolutely love Thailand, but for me, Thailand is nothing compared to travelling Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

People think of Thailand as a poor country, yes it has got some very poor areas and unfortunately it’s a country where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but in general, compared to some of the other countries in South East Asia, Thailand is a considerably wealthy country. Known as the land of smiles, and it is, but then the Thai's have got a lot to smile about. Their country has been flooded with tourism for the last 30 years and so has got a constant supply of money coming in. Thailand also hasn’t been crippled by decades of war like its neighbouring countries. Unfortunately Thailand is very fast moving and I can't help but think that tourism will eventually ruin the country by taking away its culture and natural beauty. For me though Cambodia and Vietnam are number 1, Laos is amazing but it’s meeting the people of Cambodia and Vietnam that totally captured my heart. After everything they have been through they are the nicest, friendliest, most remarkable people you could ever meet, and it is the spirit, generosity, and honesty of the people that I have fallen in love with.

They have got so little but the little they have, they share. They are so happy and high on life. They have got so much acceptance in their lives that nothing ever gets them down, they just smile and live the lives that they have been dealt. It really makes you realize how insignificant and minor the problems in our lives really are. I’m not an emotional person so when things touch me I remember them, one thing I will never forget is my visit to the Aki Ra Landmine Museum in Seam Reap. www.akiramineaction.com To speak and listen to a 16 year old boy with one leg and a smile on his face tell me how he was in the woods playing with his younger brother and sister, he stepped on the landmine and lost his leg and the blast killed his brother and sister, I was virtually in tears. How can he stand there in front of me, a westerner, with a smile on his face and tell me that without any sort of hate or hostility.

England wasn't involved in the war but we knew what was going on and did sod all to stop it. That is one amazing kid, and it’s rare moments like that, that are life changing experiences. That museum was at the time home to 14 kids, all of which are landmine victims and missing limbs, the oldest is 17 years old. They are truly amazing people, they don't want pity, they just smile and get on with life as if it’s just one of those things. Victims of landmines can be seen all over Cambodia, a large number of which are kids. There are still over 6 million landmines to be cleared.

Princess Diana tried to raise public attention to the landmine situation, so why as a country or a nation are we still not doing anything. We have got so much money and one of the best army's in the World, why are we not helping the innocent victims that today are still being blown up. Instead we are still producing them. England and a large number of other countries signed an agreement to ban the production of landmines, America however would not sign and so today is still producing landmines, as well are we, only under a different name, Anti-personnel weaponry. How crafty is that, change the name and carry on producing them. I guess the big question is, where are they going?

WOW, What a culture shock! A country with quite possibly more dogs, lady boys and temples than anywhere else in the world! A place where everyone is welcome and everything is open and accepted, a land with no taboos or prejudices. Known as the land of smiles, and it literally is, it’s a place where everyone is friendly and more often than not, extremely helpful.

Thailand is a fabulous country and with the amount of times come and went, it kind of felt like my second home. It’s got something to offer everyone, Religion, history, and architecture throughout. The slower simpler more relaxing life of the north where the people are much poorer and friendlier and everything is cheaper. The place for doing trekking, bamboo rafting, mountain biking, elephant riding and visiting hill tribe villages etc.

Bangkok the central, is full of all types of people, backpackers, holiday makers, xxxx heads, perverts and businessmen etc. Bangkok is an excellent place for getting things done and arranging visas and transport to other destinations, it is full of travel operators, cheap guesthouses - high class hotels, food stalls - expensive restaurants, market stalls - huge shopping malls, and not forgetting the hundreds of tailor made suit shops and massage parlours. Bars and night clubs and lets not forget the sex capital Pat Pong.

The south is home to the beautiful beaches and paradise islands where you can do just about any water activity going, or if not just enjoy the sun, sea and sand.

FOOD:

Thai food for me has got to be the second best in the world, second only to Italian. All the food is so good including the insects which are definitely a must. There is so much variety and so many different things to try, so many different tropical fruits and vegetables along with the different spices and all the different flavours. So good! For me though it was the curries, green, red, and yellow, the spicier the better.

Definitely an early bird country, the cockerels make sure of that. People are up at sunrise and in bed by dark, mainly due to a lot of areas having no electricity. Apparently Laos is 15 years behind Thailand, No way, it’s a lot further behind than that. Laos is a country where if you wanted to you could just totally lose yourself and just relax, the way of life is just so slow, chilled out, and so far behind.

Being next to Thailand I was expecting it to be very similar, how wrong could I be. With the exception of Vientiane and Luang Prabang it is totally, totally undeveloped. I met very few Laoasian people that could speak good English, if any at all. In general the people, especially the girls are extremely shy, which at times can be very annoying when trying to ask or order something when all they do is giggle and nod their heads. In Laos you quickly learn that nodding your head does not mean the same as it does in England, patience and a smile are the key along with a lot of pointing and remembering that these people are not used to tourists like they are in Thailand. The country itself is like nothing I have ever seen before, it’s just so mountainous. You can drive for hours at a time and see nothing other than spectacular mountain scenery and the odd little wooden hut or village in the absolute middle of nowhere, more often than not on the side of the 1 and only road and on the edge of a cliff, it’s crazy. Everywhere you go you see animals wandering around freely, normally in the middle of the road.

Outside the main cities in Laos, ‘roads’ means dirt tracks, bumpy dirt tracks that spiral up, down, and around mountains. None of the roads are straight due to the vast mountains and jungle, therefore what should be short journeys, seem to take forever. A beautiful Country, and the long bumpy journeys worth every minute. I would love to visit Laos again in 10 years time to see just how much it has changed.

FOOD

Not that great really, they eat all sorts of weird and wonderful things, none of which I was prepared to try, chicken heads and feet, pigs testicles, and buffalo intestines, No Thanks. I ate mainly from the street stalls although we did have some restaurant meals too, all of which were much the same, very plain and bland. Meat in comparison is very expensive in Laos and so most meals consisted of rice and vegetables, they’re not big on sauces or spices in Laos so in general the food is pretty boring.

When you walk into a night club and the sign on the door reads:- NO FLIP FLOPS, NO GUNS. It says it all. An absolutely amazing but crazy, crazy country where just about anything goes! With the exception of the major cities Cambodia is very poor and very undeveloped. It could be said that if it wasn't for Angkor Wat and the killing fields there really isn't any reason to visit. How wrong could that statement be, the people are absolutely amazing. The quality of English spoken in Cambodia is superior to that of Thailand, which on it’s own is quite remarkable when you think that Cambodia's doors have only really been open to tourism over the last 10 years, Thailand has been flooded with tourism for the last 30+. All the men in Cambodia, especially the cyclo drivers, are for some reason ‘wanna be’ cockney's and Ali G fanatics, which is quite funny when they start reeling off their rhyming slang. I think that every bloke I met in Cambodia, after telling them I was English, they all said, Lovely Jubbly Mate, there quality. And the girls work all the hours under the sun, for one reason, to pay for English lessons, they all just want to better themselves.

Dollars talk in Cambodia, with them you can do just about anything. Drugs are offered openly in the street by just about every bloke/ cyclo driver, and although supposedly illegal, smoked or taken openly in just about every bar. For about 50 dollars there is a shooting range, which is probably more like somebody's back garden, where you can fire rocket launchers at cows and horses, or you can throw a grenade into a penn of chickens, How mad is that, AND NOT TO BE ENCOURAGED.

In Phnom Penh, believe it or not, there is even a place that you can go to, and pay to be killed. You even get a menu to choose which form of death you would like, ie. to be drowned, shot, electrocuted etc, and after the act has been carried out your body is some how disposed of. How xxxxx up is that, like I said, anything goes.

FOOD

We found that there was a lot of very good western food in Cambodia, and if im honest that's mainly what I ate, by the time I got to Cambodia it was nice to have a little taste of home. I had a couple of Cambodian meals which were ok, but from some of the local food I see, it looks and smells disgusting, and so with good western food on offer I wasn't prepared to try it.

Home to what has got to be the strongest coffee in the world, on the rare occasion that you’re lucky enough to get fresh milk, you pour it in and the coffee stays the same colour. It’s like Italian espresso coffee only 10 times stronger. Vietnam is a spectacular remarkable country with truly amazing people. For value for money and quality of accommodation it’s got to be the better out of the 4, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia are cheap, but what you get for your money just isn't the same. Vietnam for me was by far the easiest country to travel in, there is a rail line that runs down the length of the country, but for 20 dollars you can you buy an open tour bus ticket valid from Hanoi - Saigon and vise versa, and stop off anywhere you want along the way. The bus always drops you off at a hotel, which you don't have to stay in but from my experience and all the other hotels I looked at, in general they did seem to be the better ones. Every hotel doubles as a tour operator, so you can book all your tours and sight seeing events through them. You can literally go from place -place, hotel - hotel, tour - tour and then move on, it couldn't be made any easier.

Despite years of war Vietnam is a beautiful country, so different to what I was expecting, and there is so much to see, so much history and culture and not forgetting the thousands and thousands of motorbikes on which the Vietnamese transport just about anything, things that we would struggle to get in a car, Unbelievable.

What I also found quite unbelievable was the fact that the Vietnamese people seem to worship the Americans, I couldn’t get my head around that one, but then like the Cambodian's say: It’s better to be friends with your enemy's than at war with them.

FOOD

All good, had a couple of dodgy tasting meals but all the rest were spot on.

Lots of sea food which I love and have never eaten so much of. And not forgetting the beautiful extremely good noodle soup.

Malaysia was so, so different to what I was expecting, it was so much better.

So much cleaner and westernized than Thailand. Unfortunately I only spent a week in Malaysia so I just stuck to what I considered to be the highlights, although I could have easily spent a lot longer there, and if it hadn’t of been for the fact that it was the wet season on the east side of the country I would have put back my flight to Australia. Malaysia has definitely got a lot more money and economical stability than Thailand, but is still just as cheap. The people are so friendly, helpful, and polite, so different to what they are in England, but then I guess money can turn people into Arseholes.

The people are not so in your pockets or in your face like they are in Thailand, they just leave you alone to get on with whatever your doing, but then if you need help or directions etc they will go out of there way to help you.

FOOD

Lots of really good Indian food in Malaysia, lots of Chinese food too but it’s a lot more expensive and the portions are smaller, so for me it was Indian all the way, Beautiful.

Singapore is a health inspectors wet dream, it is spotless. The first things I noticed were:

1) How really expensive it was compared to the rest of South East Asia.

2) That the people were not as friendly, probably because the country as a whole is a hell of a lot more westernized and the people are a lot better off.

3) How much harder it was to meet people (other travellers ) most of which for some reason seemed miserable and ignorant, don't ask me why, maybe because for a lot of them it is the end of there trip, who knows?

If im honest I haven't really got that much to say about Singapore, it’s a nice clean country and that's about it. There really isn't that much to do there and so unless you have got a large bank balance and like shopping there really isn't any need to spend any longer than a couple of days there, it’s more a case of just having a look and the experience of it all. Once you have checked out the city area, had a little trip down the river, and had a Singapore Sling in Raffles you have pretty much covered the highlights, there is also a zoo to check out, but that is literally it. If I go there again it will be purely to get a connecting flight. Once you have experienced it, that's it.

FOOD

You can eat pretty much any cuisine you want in Singapore, at a price. It’s full of seriously posh expensive restaurants. Personally I just stuck to the cheap and very nice Indian food.

6 months I have been on the road today. How do I feel?

Welcome to Australia, a flat, dry, humid, fly, insect infested land where a large Mc'Donald's meal is cheaper than a salad roll from a bakers, and where 2 litres of coca cola is cheaper to buy than 2 litres of water. In 20 years time the government will be wondering why the chubby kids of today have turned into fat obese adults with no teeth. America in the making!

South East Asia made me realize just how lucky I am to be English, Australia is making me realize what a beautiful country I live in and that there really is no place quite like home. Don't get me wrong im having a good time and enjoying what I am doing but the way I feel at the moment I could quite easily get on a plane tomorrow, fly home, start work the following day, and think nothing of it. Could I have done that leaving Asia. No Way.

The best piece of advice I was given before I left home was "Do not rush Asia to get to Australia" The Dude was spot on! I don't think I rushed Asia but xxx I miss it. Trying to explain to people who haven't been there what's so good about it is just so hard, you need to see it and experience it to believe it. It’s just so different, it’s got so much character, and the feeling you get when you are there is just incredible, it’s so alive, so electric. You know you’re alive when you’re in Asia. Some people don't like different or the unfamiliar, I loved it.

Australia from what I have seen so far is a nice country, but that is it, that's all it is. I think it’s so over rated. I feel like im just going from National park-National Park, Nice beach-beach, sunset - sunset. What is so special about it? You just go from one nice place to another, taking pictures of so called amazing views and scenery. Personally I think the writers of the travel books should get on a plane and check out North Wales, Devon, Ireland and Scotland, That is what I would call amazing views, and I haven't even started on Europe, what about Prague, Italy, and Switzerland. Apart from the size, weather, and wildlife, it is so like home, so normal.

With the exception of diving with Great Whites in Adelaide, and the Great Barrier Reef, what is there here that I cant do at home? What in Australia apart from expensive adrenalin thrills, like jumping out of an airplane is really going to get my heart racing? What here is really going to make me think? And what here is going to touch me in such a way that it stays with me forever?

In 6 months not once have I felt homesick, and apart from 1 phone call from my Mum, not once have I spoken to anyone from home. With that said, I’ve noticed that over the last week or so I have actually for the first time since leaving started to think about my life back home. Not about my close friends so much, true friends will be there forever. But more about silly things like work and how my not so little apprentice is getting on, I miss the team, about the boys and the team spirit in the boxing gym and about my little sister behaving herself ha ha.

So what has caused me to start suddenly thinking about home? Is it the long journeys and time spent travelling from place to place? I don't think so. In Asia Christy and me did some seriously long slow bus journeys but not once did I think about home. If we weren’t chatting or reading Christy would have his Ipod in and I would just be sat there staring out of the window taking it all in, lost in thought about all the amazing people that I was lucky enough to meet, and the stories they had to tell. At the moment Australia just isn't giving me anything to think about like Asia did, it’s just so normal and feels so easy. To me travelling is what I did in South East Asia, this just feels like a long holiday.

With all that said, this is my dream. For as long as I can remember I have dreamt about travelling Australia, not Asia or any other country, just Australia. The trouble with dreams is that unless you make them reality, dreams is all they will ever be, and you will never know any different. So at the moment Australia doesn't seem to be what I thought it would be. That doesn't matter to me because South East Asia topped anything I could have possibly ever dreamt about Australia. That doesn't mean that I’m going to give up and stop following the one thing that I have been dreaming and talking about doing for so many years. It won’t be, but even if Australia turned out to be the worst thing I have ever done, no matter what, I will see it through till the end. By the time I leave Australia I will be able to say that I have pretty much been around the whole country and only then will I truly know what I think of it. At the moment I’m looking at this as a once in a lifetime opportunity, realistically, from what I have experienced here so far I can honestly say that I cant ever see myself coming back, and so what I do now is what counts. When I leave I will have no regrets about rushing, missing something, or leaving early, and it will be time to start chasing another dream.

Old people generally don't regret the things they have done. They regret the things they never done!