Ed does the AA This the account of Ed Powell, a man in his 20s exploring SE Asia and Auckland. My moto - "Bringing the world together, 1 step at a time"

Hello, Im gonna get straight into it so here goes.

I received an email a week or so back from a friend of mine whom I hadn't spoke to in quite a while. The person had found me through facebook and had realised I had left the good ship England and had ventured to pastures new. The content of the email through me a bit because I wasn't sure how to interpret it. Meant with innocent intention, the person suggested that I might be running away from certain things. At first I did not know how to read the message, initially I thought "how does someone who I have not spoken to in a while come to this conclusion". I then started thinking "am I actually running away from stuff?". I did not reply to the message and thought untill I fully understand the content of where the email was coming from I won't reply.

So I have travelled from the Gibbon Experience to Luang Prabang on the slow boat. A friend of mine was a life saver and kindly gave me Angels and Demons by Dan Brown and amazingly it made the 2 day slow boat journey all the more enjoyable. The boat was filled with many nationalities, English, Irish, Dutch, The Yanks, Ozzies, you name it they were there. What really made me think was that every pre-conception you have of the inhabitants of these countries are correct. I could go a step further and devide them up again into a demographic of traveller types. Firstly, lets touch on the nationalities.

The English - They arrive late to the boat and expect there seat to be like a thrown waiting for them apon arrival. By the end of the trip there pissed.

The Germans - They get there early, weigh up the best seat and stake there claim.

The Yanks - Now I believe there to be 2 kinds - the quiet intelligent kind, or the over friendly. The quiet ones sit and read and engage in conversation but not small talk, they also laugh off the vietnam war at how stupid they were. Then there are the over friendly - they make there way around the boat telling people about where there from and where they should go.

The Irish. These are the really loud ones who blow hot and cold. One second they'll be asleep, then next they will be dancing and singing every irish song under the sun including the corrs - trust me, it happened. It was run away if your interested.

I could go on. We now have the traveller demographic.

The family - commonly parents have had there child/children a little bit later on in life and now have decided to take them on a 3 week intense holiday. Mainly from Oz or Scotland.

The hippie - These are the main make up of my demographic. They are normally anti most things and pro everything. I.e F##k the government, legalise drugs, western businesses are screwing 3rd world trade etc. However, they do nothing about such issues and just bum around from country to country wearing there hippie trousers and linen tops with dred locks and multiple piercings and crap tatoos.

The Searcher. This crosses over from the hippie and can be commonly found looking out into the horizon waiting for an answer.

There are more, but I won't proceed any further, you get the idea.

So I am sat on this boat, my arse is asleep from the wooden bench I'm on and I think, which one am I. I'm certainly not a hippie or a family and then I think, "am I a searcher?". I dismiss the thought and eventually arrive in Luang Prabang. Here I visited some waterfalls with some people I met on the boat and basically chilled. This morning I had a brain wave in the shower. The answer to the email, "am I running away?" The answer is NO. It's quite the opposite - I'm running towards something. What it is I do not know but I had another thought whilst still showering. Is it about acceptance or rejection? The last few years in Cheltenham have either been about acceptance or rejection and here I am in Laos going over the two words. I came to the conlusion that rejection is by far more a powerful thing to master because through it we become stronger. As an opinionated, generalising guy I thought that if we all conform to be accepted, where and when do challenge the person we are, the leadership we follow the relationships we are in and the friends we hang out with. In a nutshell, Ed is not running away, he is looking to the future and how he can contribute through questioning where we are and where we are going. My challenge to everyone including myself from a cheap bedroom in Laos is, do you long to be accepted, or are you prepared to be rejected???

Ok, thats enough deep talk from me, untill next time,

Whats next.

Ed

p.s you find slideshows of the gibbon experience and Laos stuff at these links.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=8911&l=e198f&id=505411301