No toilet too dirty, no room too squalid, no food too weird and no insect too big...even when it's in my food. What an amazing diversity of landscapes - mountains stretching into the clouds, castaway island beaches, crystal clear blue seas, humid overgrown forests with rampant, blood sucking
b@stard leaches, huge air-conditioned cities that never sleep, and villages that are in the middle of god knows where. Volcanic rocks to cut-up a lost traveller's shoes, awe inspiring glaciers, paddy fields as far as the eye can see, and bright green freshly cut grass to make a man think of home...
I only went out for some milk, but stumbled through 30 plus countries, and over 200 cities with nearly 700 days of travelling, before i returned to my parents' house (home?). A house full of my furniture, my paintings, my memories...but alas not my slippers it seems. It's been a week of discovery - do i really own 22 pairs of shoes!? Is Gordon Brown really prime minister!? and how the hell did Boris Johnson become London Mayor!? Do people really still watch Big Brother, has the English verbal language really deteriorated so much and how the hell did i go without English ale for nearly 2 years...warm and flat it isn't you Philistines :-)
Over 80 flights - not bad for a guy who said he will try and avoid them, 5 robberies (plus 1 near break-in by me in Thailand, i can still picture the blokes face as i tried to saw through the padlock), 1 case of food poisoning, 6 colds and 1 bout of home sickness - so maybe i do know where home is. I've generally found travelling incredibly easy, it had become my way of life - fitting in has become second nature. So much so, that sometimes it's difficult to know who i am. Other times I've felt incredibly free and capable of doing and being anything in the world. How can someone who has never been in this position understand this? Before i started this journey i felt driven; ready to burst; i could barely contain what was inside me. Now i feel saturated, lost and tired. What a huge worldly exposure to new people and places, different cultures, different mind-sets, outlooks and of course weird and wonderful food - an unbelievable assortment of sights, sounds and smells. I'm still digesting this journey i have taken - i feel i need another 2 years just to begin to understand...
...to understand what it can mean for me. I don't want to forget, and slip back into 'normal' life. How can this experience not change a person? and yet in what ways has it changed me?
...I am really not sure.
In 10 countries I've had well over a hundred dives, to become a master scuba diver, I've had 8 days of storm swept Thailand to learn how to supposedly skipper a sailing boat, 30 minutes of leg quivering rock climbing to learn that this is one occasion where i can't get over my fear of heights - and stuff the getting out of the comfort zone thing. I've lived, breathed and thought in a foreign language. I've been touched by a multitude of cultures, religions, beliefs, and histories - from Hitler's camps to those of Pol Pot. From Angkor ruins to Pearl Harbour to Mayan temples. What an incredibly lucky person i am to have been able to have had such experiences. How can i ever forget?
So many different places, so many different memories, so many different people - how can i remember even half of that i have experienced, never mind appreciate it, do I learn from it...or do I just be.
I'm back in England now. I guess my trip is over, i don't want to believe it. I've spent the last few weeks visiting friends, family and a few European cities that have been on my list for a while. I didn't want to stop travelling. I don't have a job, i don't really have a home and the last couple of months deciding what to do have been my most difficult yet. How can i go back to the capitalist, nanny society of England after what I've been through. Surely i should be saving the world by now, not returning to old ways and lifestyles. In the end it has boiled down to wanting what makes me tick, and i think that's a challenge that makes me grow. I have so much to learn.
I don't want to spend any more time writing blogs - this isn't the real world for me. It's time to go and live my life, however that may be.
Thank you
Shane
