I'll start off with a recent reflective piece that I had recently posted on Facebook, and to which I had a lot of kind and positive feedback.
Over two years ago I was dropped off at
the Regina Airport by my Mother and Stepfather, with a one way ticket
in hand....Destination: Nepal via Hong Kong....At the time, I
imagined I was in for the adventure of a lifetime, but also knew I
was wandering off into the great unknown....I remember looking at my
Mother and being thankful for her bringing me into this world and for
the support it would take to send off her first born without knowing
when or if I would ever come back. I was going off to meet one
friend, my only real known variable and security blanket of the
upcoming endeavour, while leaving countless others behind..I was
leaving security and financial safety of a great job with a great
company for the dangers, uncertainness, and thrill of this giant
world, with no real concrete plans...needless to say, I was pumped!
In these two years I've gotten to:
know, loathe, adore, explore, fear, become lost, become found, be
cheated, be robbed, become ill, become jubilant, adventure, escape,
immerse, be enchanted, be mystified, be confused, be enlightened, be
an illegal immigrant, drive, train, plane, boat, motorbike, tuktuk,
ferry, hitchhike, walk, run, fall, couchsurf, hostel, hotel, eat,
dream, and wander in 59 different countries. Incredibly, I'm on
passport number 2 already!
I've climbed mountains, dove in oceans,
wandered along secluded beaches, explored jungles and glaciers, hiked
in forests, investigated temples and ruins, swam in lakes and
streams, floated down rivers, rolled in deserts, been to the top of
skyscrapers, been both lost and found in translation, heard countless
new languages, improved an old language, learned a new
language...I've lived, loved, lost and found...I've been...human.
There's been so many amazing things
that have happened to me throughout this trip, but probably the most
amazing thing has been all the people I've met. I know there are
people who think this world has a bleak future and is filled with
with terrible people, but being someone who has seen a fair share of
it and gotten to know people of all different races, professions,
political, spiritual, and philosophical beliefs, I can certainly
assure you that we are living in a truly amazing special planet, with
a large majority of incredible, kind, compassionate, and astonishing
human beings, and our future is indeed very very bright.
I've met old friends, made new friends,
I've met people I've shared laughed with, adventured with, wanted to
run away from, developed deep and special relationships with, and
people with whom I have developed casual and brief relationships
with. People I can't wait to see again, and people I could care less
if I ever saw again...People I've smiled with, people I've been
angered with....People that have influenced me in both positive and
negative ways....People who have robbed and cheated me, people I've
helped after being robbed and cheated me, and people who helped me
about being robbed and cheated...I've been taken in by complete
strangers...clothed, fed, provided for without ever being asked for
anything in return....I've met people who would do anything for a
stranger, just to show how amazing their country and hospitality can
be.... I've met Politicians, Scientists, Engineers, Teachers,
Community Servers, Law Enforcement, Philosophers, Students, Scammers,
Cheaters, Businesspeople, Blue and White Collared Workers, Retirees,
Professional Travelers...people from all walks of life, all of whom
had something special and unique to share.
To those of whom I've met along the
way, I want to thank you for spending time with me and sharing in
this amazing adventure...I really do hope that our paths cross again
somewhere in this massive, yet small world, and that all of your
future travels are safe and endearing....and to those who are ready
to settle down, I hope you have enjoyed your adventures and are
enjoying your new found lives. You have all meant to the world to me,
and have been my family while I've been so far away from my real one.
To those who have been wanting to head
out and explore, but haven't had the will power yet, just go do it!
Travel is something that is so educational and an incredible
experience you'll never forget.....and if you're uncertain, there
will always be people out there that will help guide you along the
way, and if you ever want any advice, if I can't help you, ten I am
damn sure I know someone who can.
Well with that being said I figured I would put together a list of some of my favourite things from my trip in case anyone was wondering.
Countries visited: 59 - This doesn't include places where I had layovers in the airport, I had to actually step foot in the actual country for it to count
Favourite country visited: Vietnam
Why: The price is absolutely amazing, you can get a decent hotel room with hot shower, air con, tv for around $10 a night...compare that with hostel prices of $10 a night anywhere, and you will get a crappy and hot room with lots of people, and poor facilities. The food in Vietnam is absolutely incredible, full of delicious spices, sauces, fresh vegetables, great meat, and is cheap cheap cheap! The transportation structure is easy, with overnight buses and day buses running everywhere for cheap cheap cheap....See a theme here? Vietnam also offers amazing beaches, incredible mountains, jungles, and for the city slickers, huge cities with crazy sights, sounds and smells.....It is just a freaking awesome place to visit...and did I mention it was cheap? Get your ass there, I know I will go back!
Craziest party: Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. I attended my second Oktoberfest, and this time I had a little more disposable income compared to my first trip in 2007, which is good, as you definitely need it. I would go to Oktoberfest every single year, without a doubt...the food, the beer, the music and dance...and the people...are just incredible! If you want to stay in hotels, it's a good idea to book well in advance, but you can also do things last minute like I have in the past, and it seems to work out...for cheap accommodations, check out "The Tent" hostel and campground...reasonable prices, facilities, and last minute accommodations were available. Also, get into the spirit, buy yourself some Lederhosen or a Dirndl and become Bavarian for a few days...so fun!
Honourable mention: Tubing in Vang Vieng, Laos
Best country for girls: Poland.....I travelled through there by myself but met a group of 4 guys, and needless to say, we all had a very very good and fun time. Polish women are smart, friendly, and don't have that coldness that one associates with Eastern Europeans. Plus, the Polish men have a bad attitude towards the women which causes the girls to really like foreigners, so if you're nice to these girls, they will be more than willing to spend some time with you....
Best food: Someone once asked me if I could have a perfect eating day from my trip, what would I eat. Well, I came up with this answer.
Breakfast - I would start off the day with a big delicious bowl of Pho soup with a Vietnamese coffee in pretty much any city in Vietnam, although I think that Hoi An probably had the best Pho I ate.
Lunch - would be a grilled tuna steak from a restaurant called Chez Pancho on the Island of Utila in Honduras (this was a recent addition to my list, as previously I would have said a bowl of green curry from one of the markets in Thailand, but this fish seriously kicked ass, I ate it 5 times in 9 days I think).
Dinner - would be a Chicken Korma that was served at a restaurant called Moondance in Pokara, Nepal....full of taste, a cheap price...and just damn goood!
Since I'm often going out, of course there is often need for a:
Midnight snack - and this is where the Kasekainer in Vienna, Austria fits the bill, for 2 euros, they are cheap, and damn delicious...I was eating about 2 or 3 of them per day when there!
Honourable mention - Fish tacos on Zicatela Beach in Puerto Escondito, Mexico, Fez Burger in Queenstown, New Zealand (best Burger in the world), Reindeer steak in Bergen, Norway, Cevapcici in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Tacos Al Pastor at El Huequito in Mexico City, New England Clam Chowder at Legal Sea Foods in Boston, USA, Roasted Duck Breast at a small cafe in Paris, France, Any of the Sri Lankan curries, the food in Penang, Malaysia, and the food at the central food market in Singapore, Singapore
Craziest Experience: Bungee Jumping in New Zealand, I'm terrified of heights, so jumping off a 134 m (440 ft) high suspended platform over a canyon seemed like a perfectly logical idea right! Bungee Jumping!
Honourable Mention: The mini van ride in Albania, driving a taxi in Nepal
Most beautiful sunrise: Lago Atitlan, Guatemala....about a 3 to 4 hour bus ride West of the Capital Guatemala City.....this sunrise is well worth the 4:45 am wakeup and subsequent hike to view it...simply incredible.
Most amazing views: Hiking in the Fjords of Norway....absolutely stunning scenery, relatively easy hiking, and well maintained and posted paths
Cheapest Country: Have to go with Vietnam on this one, although Nicaragua, Laos, and Nepal all are quite cheap as well
Most expensive country: Norway by far....downtown Oslo, a beer and a relatively small chile con carne cost me $45 US ouch! For ease of comparison, a Big Mac meal from McDonald's will cost you around $20 US...ouch ouch! Needless to say, I'm glad I had friends that I could stay with to save on accommodation costs!
Longest time spent in one country: 2.5 months in Colombia. What was supposed to be a month long visit just kind of dragged on and on...between waiting for a visa, and just generally enjoying the amazing hospitality and fun of the country, I stuck around a lot longer than I usually do
Shortest time spent in one country: 3 hours in Liechtenstein....being the 6th smallest country in the world, needless to say, there wasn't a lot to do there, and it didn't quite offer the amazing views that San Marino, the 5th smallest country in the world, offered, so I didn't spent quite as much time there
Longest travel day: Going from Sarande, Albania to Sofia, Bulgaria, which was approximately 26 hours via buses and taxis....up at 4:30 am to catch a 5 am shuttle van taking me to some city in the middle of Albania where I wandered around aimlessly trying to find a bus to Macedonia, until I was able to find another shuttle van which could only take me to the border, which I then walked across, and grabbed a taxi to the nearby city, where I then took a night bus to Bulgaria, arriving in Sofia around 7 am....I was also ripped off by my taxi driver there, as the ride should have cost 5 euros and the asshole fixed the meter and charged me 25 euros....
Items stolen:
- Sleeping bag in Malaysia airport
- Shampoo and conditioner in Vietnam airport (yes seriously...who does that!)
- Portable hard drive in Cambodia
- Money and wallet in Kuta, Indonesia (not a good idea to walk alone at 5 am while drunk, but I did fortunately find the wallet and all the cards were still in there)
- $50 at a music festival in Cartagena, Colombia
- Swiss Army knife somewhere on a bus in Cambodia or Vietnam
- Watch stolen on a beach in Koh Phi Phi, Thailand while skinny dipping (not the best idea)
- Bottle of cologne at the Havana airport (they say to not put anything valuable in your checked luggage, as the baggage handlers will go through your items and steal your shit, beware!)
- Baseball hat in Puerto Escondito, Mexico
- Cheap sunglasses in Nha Trang, Vietnam
Favourite travel group: The SE Asia crew...anywhere from a month to 2 months of a group of people full of life, laughter, travel spirit, and shenanigans....5 Irish, 2 Brazilians, 3 English, 2 Dutch, 4 Canadians....so much fun
Honourable Mention: Gael, Ingo, Wes, guys I met in Eastern Europe
Favourite Nightclub: Kitsch in Krakow, Poland...5 floors of awesomeness, open until 5 am week nights, 7 or 8 am weekends...amazing...unfortunately, a few months after I left, the stairwell collapsed! http://www.krakow-poland.com/blog/2011/11/Stairs-Collapse-In-Kitsch-Club
Best city for nightlife: New York City....it's called the city that never sleeps, and that's for a reason...you can find something to do every single night of the week there, and it will be packed and fun.
Worst city for nightlife: Kathmandu, Nepal....lucky to find a place open past 12 am
Most beautiful beaches: The Yucatan in Mexico...with places like Playa del Carmen, Tulum, and Cancun, the beaches have beautiful white sands, gorgeous blue water, and are actually kept clean
Worst travel injury: Bruised ribs from surfing in Nicaragua....hurt like hell to do simple things like laugh, cough, bend over....also took about 4 weeks to properly heal..damn!
Best Skyline: New York City....honourable mention Panama City, Sydney Australia, and Singapore
Ugliest City: Managua, Nicaragua...seriously...terrible and ugly city....maybe if I spent some time there I would find something enjoyable about it, but I doubt it
Most polluted city: Kathmandu, Nepal....when a giant river running through the city is actually dried up and filled with trash, that's not a good sign, not to mention the terrible air quality that made breathing labourous at times
Funniest story/night: Probably my first night in Phuket, Thailand. I wrote about it in the Thailand blog, so I will just cut and paste it here. Keep in mind that I had just arrived in Phuket, was pretty tired, my bank card wasn't working as it was blocked (which I found out later on), and I was meant to have a quiet night in..as per usual..things got a little crazy as I had met some French Canadians and hit the town with them
- "we wandered towards a place that had the cheapest happy hour beer prices around (50 baht compared to an avg. price of 100 baht), and settled down onto Bangla Rd. I hadn't really planned on much going on during the evening, so I actually didn't have a lot of cash on me and had left my cards and most of my money back at the hostel, thinking I'd be returning for a quiet night, but alas, that didn't happen. After spending most of my cash on the cheap beers, we wandered over to a pub called the Kangaroo Bar, and were sitting there for awhile and then I noticed some cute girls looking over in my direction. The Frenchies were pretty involved in a discussion, so I wandered over to the table where the girls and two guys were, and started chatting them up. It turns out they were all Austrian, but the guys weren't actually with the girls, they had all just met. I ended up hanging out with them for awhile, but then the guys were leaving, but the girls wanted me to come with them on the town.
They had never been to a ping pong show, so I said I would go with them...the one girl kept flirting with me a bit, but I wasn't too sure what was going on. So we find some guy on the street who takes us into one of the ping pong bars, and we find the beers to be ridiculously expensive (300 baht), and I have only 100 baht on me, but the girls decide to pay for my drink. Then I sit there in between the two of them and we wait for the show to start, and wait and wait and wait. Finally a girl comes around and says we have to pay more money to see something, and at this point, it just seems like a rip off, so we decide to leave. We get outside and the girls figured they wanted to go to a club, and I remembered a good club from a few years back called Seduction, so I took them there, and they continued to buy me drinks...great girls! So eventually the one is really flirting with me more and more and then we start making out in front of the other girl, who gets quite upset over this and leaves the club in anger. I ask my girl what the problem is and she tells me that they're actually a couple....sooo I'm in quite a bit of shock over this! So we continue to make out and have another drink, and she says we should leave, so we head out and she recommends we go down to the beach.
So we get down there and start fooling around, and them some random Thai dude (well I think he was Thai) just came over and sat right by us and was just watching...it was so odd, and I mentioned to her that he was watching us, and she just didn't care. Crazy Austrians! So we continue to just have some fun, and then go for a little swim, and then I walked her back to her hotel. Unfortunately, when we found her hotel, I actually had no idea whatsoever where I was so I grabbed her number, and then started trying to find my way back to where I was staying...well this lead to me wandering around for about 15 minutes before some lady boy on a motorbike offered to give me a ride. I told her/him that I had absolutely no money on me, but he/she said no worries, it's all good. So this lead to another 40 minutes of absolute randomness, as I couldn't remember the name of the street I was staying at, and she didn't know the name of the place or where it was....so we're just driving all over the place, and then I suddenly found my bearings and would tell her/he to make a turn, but he/she would just start laughing and ignore me and continue going down another street...it was kind of funny in hindsight, although I did think I was going to get taken somewhere dodgy and raped! ha ha, but eventually he/she dropped me off, and I was able to crawl into bed around 5:30 am..."
Most awkward experience: Being inappropriately touched by a gay guy while sleeping in my bunk bed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Most lost in translation moment: Either a comedy show I went to in Macedonia that was all in Macedonian, being kicked off a train in the middle of nowhere in Serbia, or else the van ride in Albania
Friendliest locals: It would have to be a tie between the Cubans and the Colombians....the people there are just so amazingly friendly and chatty towards foreigners, they all seem quite happy and excited to have you visiting their countries
Rudest locals: Serbians....I only spent 4 days in Belgrade, but I didn't want to stay any longer...that being said, I'm sure that there were a lot of friendly ones, maybe more so in the country side, but Serbia definitely had that cold hard Communist bloc feeling; no one smiles, very little laughter, asking for directions is pointless, etc.
Strangest experience: Tough call here, could be eating a live snake heart in Vietnam, sitting in a 98 degree Celsius sauna in Finland, or else driving a taxi at 6:30 am in Nepal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PrnTldaepE
With all that said...if there are any other questions any one out there has, feel free to comment on here or ask me, would love to answer them :) Here are some of my favourite photos from the trip so far.
 |
| Albanian fishermen |
 |
| My first attempt at planking..hilarious trend |
 |
| My first fine for not paying public transport fare..in Bosnia, all of $5, big deterrent |
 |
| Mosque in Brunei, no sign of the Sultan though |
 |
| Angkor Wat in Cambodia |
 |
| Cabo San Juan del Guia in Tayrona Park, Colombia |
 |
| Probably the coolest animal ever |
 |
| Sunset from my balcony in Dubrovnik, Croatia |
 |
| Myself, and some Brazilian and English travel friends in Cuba |
 |
| Eiffel Tower |
 |
| Most amazing sunset I've ever experienced |
 |
| Behind a waterfall in Iceland |
 |
| Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur |
 |
| One of the most incredible pieces of artwork I've seen...took the artist 3 years alone to collect all these coloured stones and then another 7 years to make this mural...wow. In Mexico City at the UNAM campus |
 |
| On the way to Mt. Everest Base Camp |
 |
| My friend Dave and I at Mt. Everest Base Camp..we're crazy |
 |
| Me sitting on the edge of Priekstolen in the Fjords of Norway |
 |
| Standing on Kjeragbolten in the Fjords of Norway |
 |
| Panama City, one of the most impressive skylines I've seen |
 |
| Small town boy, big city dreams...at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore |
 |
| Baseball game at the best ballpark in the World, Fenway Park in Boston |
 |
| Owling in front of the Statue of Liberty in New York City |
 |
| Home of the most powerful man in the World, POTUS |
 |
| Lederhosen and hot babes...Oktoberfest is amazing |
 |
| Craziest parties in Vang Vieng, Laos |
 |
| Just a normal day walking the streets of Laos, being chased by elephants |
.JPG) |
| It's a tough life sometimes |
