United Kingdom

Arghhhhhhhhh! It's overrrrrr!
So the biggest trip I've ever done is over and I'm in London ('home') for a while.
Now I'm trying to find a job. In banking. In a recession. Smart move. I would have stayed in Fiji and dived for the rest of the year, but that costs money, so I had to head back.

So it was 11 months to the day that this all came to an end. 11 months between my arrival in Bangkok, til my departure from JFK in New York. Around the world in 335 days. I saw a lot.

My last stop along the way was in New York City. I flew from Vancouver via Toronto to NYC and made it just in time to join my sister Margot, au pairing north of the city, for New Years celebrations. What a blast! Margot organised to go to Bryant Park Grill - a popular night spot a few blocks from Times Square, where the crowds were fewer and the drinks prepaid, and we had a blast of a new years party. It was still a bit jam-packed, but I guess what can you expect from NYC on New Years. As the ball dropped in Times Square clouds of confetti came floating down to earth. The wind brought bellowing plumes of the stuff down onto the nightclub's glass roof. It was great partying with my sister, who I hadn't seen in over a year, since Christmas last year, back in South Africa.

Before I left NYC the two of us managed to see quite a bit of the city together - Brooklyn Bridge, down-town Manhattan - including ground zero, Wall Street, uptown-Manhattan and all its skyscrapers. Its a phenominal city - just huge and so busy. A bit too busy for my liking, but still a fascinating place. I think it was perhaps the time of year that I was there - there were just huge crowds of people everywhere - the year-end sales may have dragged the masses from their living rooms.

In many ways I wasn't all that excited about New York. I couldn't figure out why that was. Every country I had been to previously, had filled me with energy and an ambition to read as much about the place before I got there, but here I was in NYC and I just wasn't all that excited. Was it the cold? Don't think so - Canada and New Zealand were colder. The masses of crowds? I'd been in some busy places already - like the tourist crowds in Thailand, the train systems of Singapore, or the Christmas crowds of Oxford Circus in London. So what was it? I was boarding the plane at JFK, departing for London, and it was now pretty clear: I had been away long enough. I had seen enough. I had met enough people. Made enough friends. Re-packed my bag enough times. I wanted to go back to familiarity. To my old friends. Any random job. I wanted routine. And most of all - my own bedroom!!

So here I am in London now and its time to get real and find a job! Wish me luck!

I'll produce a final blognote on the stats of my trip sometime soon and I think that'll probably be it. Hope you enjoyed it

Totsiens!

Right, so as promised, here’s my first blog.
As I write this, I’m still preparing for the trip in London, so I can’t report back yet on what it is like diving with leather-backed turtles in some tropical paradise, or trekking up some giant volcano
I’ve bought a round-the-world-ticket from London going east, via fourteen countries, back to London, and cash-permitting, I think I’ll be on the road for about 8 months. I’ll probably be posting blogs and pics every couple of weeks, depending on accessibility to internet café’s.

HIGHLIGHTS

- Diving in Sipidan in Borneo, Blue Corner in Fiji, and the Similan Islands in Thailand are probably top of the list.
I’m taking an extra BIG bag for diving – some might say its madness to drag such a large extra burden around for the better part of a year, but if you’ve dived, you’ll know that using familiar equipment can really change the enjoyment and down-time of your dives. So, when Im cursing this extra bag, I’ll hopefully still see it that way!

- Trekking in Nepal is going to be awesome. The mountainous views, the clean air, the Nepalese cultures – its all going to be very different to what I’m used to. I’m doing the Annapurna route – a 3-week mountain trek.

- Cambodia – Boeng Leak Yaom crater lake – came across this while researching my travels and it sounds and looks ridiculously amazing.

- I also think the 2 – day climb on Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia should be pretty awesome.

- Lastly, but it’ll take precedence very often – chilling on a remote beach with a cool beer in hand, hammocks making some guest appearances!

TOP TRAVEL FEARS (the ones I’ve been having feverish nightmares about)

- Cambodian bus drivers
- Malaria again
- unfriendly king cobras
- Running out of air at 32 meters down
- Circus folk
- Polio
- 8-foot Fijians on a boys’ night out.
- Koala's

THE ROUTE:

Thailand
6th Feb – 15 March 2008

Nepal
13 March – 08 April T

Cambodia, Vietnam
09 April – 30 April

Singapore, Bali, Komodo
30 April – 23 May

Philippines and Palau
23 May – 24 June

Borneo (Malaysia only)
24 June – 24 July

Australia
25 July – 22 August

New Zealand
22 August – 13 September

Fiji (& surrounds)
13 September – 29 September

California & NYC
29 September – 11 October 2008

For those of you meeting me here and there along my travels, see you soon.

Until I post a ‘real’ blog… Cheers!