Final blog entry & final thoughts...

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Trip Start Jul 30, 2010 Previous
Entry Trip End May 29, 2011

  London, England, United Kingdom
Sunday, May 29, 2011

"The world was once stranger than it is today, much larger, even mysterious, great portions of it unknown, unrenowned and full of hidden harmonies."

Paul Theroux, American novelist and travel writer. Newsweek May 2011

"Well I'm back" as Sam says at the end of Lord of the Rings and so am I. Well, back in the UK if not London. 

Now where do I start? Perhaps at the beginning? Just over two years ago we started thinking about this trip. On a big map of the world we put pins in all the places we'd like to visit. Over time pins were taken out and put in new places and eventually we had a route sorted and then we – well, Claire to be accurate, started booking flights, tours and hotels and all it fell into place.

It really has been a trip of a lifetime. We've been to places, seen things, done things and eaten things – guinea pig springs to mind – that looking back over the year leave us looking back with real satisfaction, surprise and big smiles. Who'd have thought that I would, or could, trek and camp for 4 days?

Would I do this trip again? Yes, absolutely yes. I might make some aspects a little more comfortable and make a much more concerted effort to learn Spanish before arriving in S. America. If we were to repeat this (highly unlikely given it was a 'Once in a lifetime' trip) we might do the trip in reverse by travelling westwards and visiting S. America first before Aus/NZ and S.E. Asia, but then again perhaps not. I do know I'd take less luggage, or at least try to, I'd take a longer lens for the SLR, and fewer T-shirts because if nothing else this is one item of clothing you can buy absolutely everywhere. We’d have liked to have spent more time in NZ – we still have all the North Island to see - and seen more of Australia. Perhaps we should have said 'sod the budget’ more as we’ve ended up the trip not having blown every penny we had. Clearly we haven’t drunk enough.

We've been incredibly lucky with the groups we’ve travelled with and the tour leaders that have guided us thru’ many of the places we’ve visited. We've met some lovely people on our travels and the people that weren't so great have been forgotten.

The messages received on the blog have been great and I’d like to thank everyone who has left comments. A little touch of home is always welcome and sometimes needed as much as the jars of marmite we carried around with us.

Have there been any great revelations or insights that'll lead to major upheavals in our lives when we get back to the UK? No, but that's not to say we've haven't learnt things about ourselves, about other people, cultures and countries. Travelling for this long you can't but help absorb some knowledge and experience.

Over the course of the 10 months away between us we've taken nearly 9,000 photos (easy when you shoot digital) and by the law of averages some of them have turned out okay so attached to this final blog are my favourite 12 (if not necessarily the best) that for me at least sum-up our year off.

So, what’s been the best or worst? Well, I’ve tried to list them all below but sometimes it’s just impossible to choose a favourite. The list is completely arbitary and in no particular order but here goes:

Favourite Country
New Zealand – Amazingly friendly and helpful people. Wonderful landscapes and fabulous vino. Just a lovely place and right at the top of the 'must go back’ list

Favourite City
Impossible to decide between Singapore, Sydney or Auckland. I’d happily, willingly, go back to all. To work, to live or just to visit. Luang Prabang (Laos) also rates highly but I’ll keep that as a favourite town rather than a city

Worst Taxi Car
This one is easy: The Daewood Tico, so beloved in Cusco. An absolute piece of junk. Too small to carry any luggage, too crap to be safe and too polluting to mitigate all its other faults. Malaysian Protons come a close second.

Worst Taxi Journey
There have been so many but one sticks out. The journey from KL airport back to Zoo Negara. We had a woman driver, in a Proton (what else in Malaysia?), who drove so fast in the heavy rain that we aqua-planed for about 50m along the highway. May her licence be revoked soon for the safety all her potential passengers.

Best Taxi Journey
With Maly and his tuk-tuk around Siem Reap and Ankor Wat.

Best Beer
Another easy one: Tiger Beer from Singapore. But this was a close-run contest with Thailand’s Singha Beer and Brazil’s Brahma beer both contenders. Laos’ Lao Beer is worthy of a mention as well.

Best Wine
Hmmm...Cloudy Bay’s Sauvignon Blanc is an obvious choice. Perhaps the Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc? It’s probably easier just to say NZ Sauvignon Blanc takes top spot and whatever you buy is likely to be pretty good.

Worst Wine
A stunningly awful 'red’ wine in a Mexican restaurant in Santa Cruz (Bolivia). So bad it couldn’t be finished. Might have been Chilean probably Bolivian, can’t recall the grape but the taste still haunts me.

Best Beach
More difficult than you might think, the beach at Bubbles in the Perhentians probably takes top spot but the beach on Isla Isabela (Galapagos) was stunning although not so good for swimming. The beaches around Buzios (Brazil) are worthy of mention but Bubbles still wins this one.

Best Breakfast
Perhaps unsurprisingly the best breakfasts were at the B&Bs we stayed in whilst we were in Australia and New Zealand but if I was to pick one place it would be the Tara Guest House in Newtown, Sydney that daily laid on a mouth-watering and belt-busting breakfast. Outside of Aus & NZ Abracadabra in Búzios included champagne with its breakfast and that’s no bad thing.

Worst Breakfast.
Oh there have been so many. The home-stay in Cusco was grim; dreadful decafe-instant coffee, stale bread and unidentifiable fruit-juice.  But one place lingers like a tape worm. The Phetsokxai Hotel in Pakbeng (Laos) was beyond bad. The coffee was so strong, so concentrated the spoon stood up and the orange-juice was salty, yes salty. Best not ask how that came to be.

Best Airline
Qantas. Would have loved to have been patriotic and said BA but our one flight with them just wasn't as nice as our flights with Qantas, so the Aussies get top spot.

Worst Airline
LAN, the weak link in the One World Alliance. After booking flights not one remained unchanged and do LAN inform you? No, not all the time. Bad, bad, bad despite the modern fleet of A319s.  The thing is South Americans, well mostly Peruvians, are actually proud of LAN and think it’s good which probably says more about the lack of competition in the market than anything else.

Best Airport
Going against popular consensus I think that KL is a bit better than Changi. Auckland Int'l is also very good.
 
Worst Airport
This is a flip of the coin between Lima and Quito but I think Quito (due to its unhelpful ground staff, inaudible PA system and lack on information boards in the domestic terminal) wins, or should that be loses this award. Rio was surprisingly disappointing for such a rich and aspiring country with a tiny and poorly-stocked duty free, no places to eat or shop and a lounge in dire need of a refit since the 1980s.

Nicest Immigration
Christchurch in New Zealand and then Cambodia ("You from Big Ben country!")

Worst Immigration
Probably Quito in Ecuador. Miserable and unfriendly.

Best B&B
This is almost impossible. All the B&Bs we stayed at whilst in New Zealand were really good. Comfortable, friendly, helpful and with great breakfasts. The one in Auckland, 23 Hepburn, especially sticks out as does the Tara Guest House in Sydney so between them they share this award.

Worst B&B
Not really a B&B as such but since they offered beds (albeit on slabs of concrete) and a breakfast (of sorts) and they deserve a mention the dorms in the Bolivian salt flats was about the worst place we stayed.

Best Hotel
Abracadabra in Buzios, RJ, Brazil. Lovely little place with great views over the bay and champagne for breakfast. Way too nice to be part of any group tour, thankfully.

Worst Hotel
There have been quite a few that could qualify for this but three stand above all the others. The un-named dump in Chiang Kong (the Thai/Laos) border where it was dirty, uncomfortable and insect-ridden. We slept in our sleeping bag liners rather than on the provided sheets  In Malaysia, on the Perhentians, the 'Yellow House’ haunts me still. The 'Yellow’ was for the stains on the bed-clothes. No running water, the tap was broken and unfixed and you couldn’t use the air-con in case there was rain. At the other end of the scale is The Ablemarle on Isla Isabela (Galapagos) because it promised so much but delivered so little.

Best City from the air
Sydney

Ugliest City from the air
Most towns and cities look a bit grim from the air but this one goes to Cusco. It might be surrounded by mountains which look quite picturesque but the town is a dump and that can be seen from the air.

Best Food
Malaysia, then Thailand. Brazil’s BBQ restaurants also deserve an honourable mention

Worst Food
Bolivia – Beans and rice with everything, including chips.

Best Restaurants
We've been to quite a few really good restaurants during the last 10 months. Koto in Hanoi and Friends in Phnom Pehn both stand out not only because of their great food and excellent service but also because they both give back to their communities. Both take kids off the street and train them up, educate them, give them a profession and create opportunities that they’d otherwise never have. That the food in both places is so good is a bonus. 

'Blah Blah Blah’ in Kuching (Borneo) is a must-visit. In Hoi An we found Dong Au (Hai Ba Trung St) which was just top notch. Cradle Mountain Chateau’s in house restaurant was very, very good – try the Wallaby. In Lima we found two excellent restaurants  La Trattoria di Mambrino (Miraflores) and L'Eau Vive (Central Lima).

Best Street Food
The Hawker Centres in Singapore are always good but I’m not sure that they qualify as ‘street food’ anymore. The stalls in the Ramadan Food Market in Melawati (just outside Zoo Negara in KL) were incredible and the vendors friendly and amused at these westerns who were joining in on their feasts. The Alpaca skewers off the Plaze de Armas in Cusco were also very good and unusually for Cusco didn't poison me!.

Place most like to live
Sydney, Singapore or Auckland

Place least like to live
Bolivia. Anywhere in Bolivia!

Best Pizza
Pizza is a global dish. It’s available everywhere you go even in Bolivia. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes bad and sometimes just strange but anywhere in Asia or South America you’re never too far from somewhere claiming to make Pizza. Our best Pizza: Hobart in Tasmania. A simple Margarita, light and fresh and totally unexpectedly good.

Most pleasant surprise
Two really: Firstly seeing a wild Orang-utan in Batang-Ai and secondly meeting up with Mark in the Perhentians.

Best Swimming/Snorkelling
No surprises here: Bubbles in the Perhentians. Then the Galapagos.

Saddest Sight
The orang-utans in the cages at Zoo Negara. The cages were small, the apes big. Not a good combination but without decent funding and more outdoor space there was little the zoo keepers could do.

Best walk/trek.
It has to be Machu Picchu doesn’t it. After 3 nights camping and 4 days walking it can’t really be anything else. That said the walk we did around Hazzards Bay and Wineglass bay in Tasmania was also memorable if for no other reason than the drenching we got.

Scariest Plane Ride
The flight over the Nazca lines was pretty hair-raising. Small plane, lots of thermals and lots of turbulence. Flying thru’ a lightning storms on route to Penang, Malaysia, watching the tips of the wings light up each time they were struck was also pretty scary and an experience not to be repeated.

Best Travel Companions
Obviously Claire, that should go without saying but as I said at the top of this blog we’ve been very lucky with whom we’ve travelled with but these people stand out and in chronological order: Laura on the Orang-utan project, Gareth on the Turtle project on the Perhentians, Larry & Alan whilst travelling thru’ IndoChina and Lena, who we travelled with from Lima to Rio. Thanks to all for being such good travel companions.

Most missed aspect of the UK.
Actually not that much. In 10 months no real home-sickness and certainly no doubts that taking the time off was the right thing to do. Of course there are some things I have missed such as Marmite (altho' we managed to buy some in Malaysia and NZ), Top Gear and Match of the Day. The day to day news I've always been able to catch-up on via the internet (thank whoever for the BBC) and I've been able to download R4 comedies on the iPod to keep me sane.

Favourite Cocktail.
For Claire this will be a Caipirinha but for me I think it’s probably the Pisco Sour (from Peru)

Favourite Ancient Ruin
Ankor Wat (and other temples) in Siem Reap, Cambodia and Machu Picchu. Probably two of the highlights of the whole trip.

Best Volunteer Project
Two projects share this accolade: The WOX great Orang-utan project and the HOPE Turtle project in the Perhentians. Both projects were richly rewarding and hugely enjoyable so thanks to Katie & Maz of WOX and Dan & Jimmy at HOPE. Hopefully we made some small contribution to the two projects.

Favourite Quote(s)
For each of the blogs I’ve written I tried to find a quote, a song lyric or something that means something to me at that point. For some entries I’ve not been able to find something but most of the time I've usually found a line or two that better expresses my thoughts than I could do and that’s what I think I’ll finish this blog with.

1. "The world is a book, those who do not travel read only one page." ~ Saint Augustine (354-430)

2. "Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings

3. "Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs." ~ Susan Sontag

~~~ The End ~~~


 

  

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