As was rather obviously hinted at in the previous update, my travels have come to an end. After 4 months, 40,000 miles, 8 countries, 14 flights, 40 different lodgings (not including overnight buses or sleeper trains) and enough foot-longs to make a mile-long, I'm safely back in Blighty, being fed & pampered at my parents' house in York.
A big thank you is due to everyone who has taken the time to follow my insignificant little musings. I am very glad & grateful for the various messages of encouragement and approval which have come my way since I've been blogging. I met lots of friendly and interesting people while I was away, but even so, when you're travelling alone in far-off places it's nice to know that people are thinking of you back home.
I'll leave the whole blog available online, but there will be no further updates after this one. However any future travels of mine (probably next summer at the absolute earliest) will hopefully be documented here in the same way. I'll try and make a bit more effort on the photographic front next time though.
In the meantime, does anybody know if there are any jobs going?
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Monday, 15 September 2008
Bangkok, Thailand
Monday morning in Bangkok. Sunlight breaks in through the blinds, and I slowly come to waking life in my upper bunk bed. Elsewhere in Bangkok, the protestors are still barricaded inside the Government House complex - although 'barricaded' is perhaps overdramatising it a little, given that the 'barricades' have plenty of gaps, and indeed I myself wandered through one of those gaps for a look around yesterday. See pictures. The government is undoubtedly corrupt - he who pays the piper calls the tune, and all that - but at the same time the 'protest movement' is very obviously nothing like the spontaneous expression of people power which it pretends to be. Someone somewhere is paying for all these protestors to have free food, water, medicine and toilet facilities. Indeed I understand that they're actually being paid hard cash just for the protesting itself.
Monday afternoon in Bangkok. Smoke drifts upwards and out of the common room window into the street. At times it's sunny, and at other times the rain is torrential, but the muggy heat is everpresent. Swigging water at regular intervals, I lounge on a sofa; I've been out for a Subway, and now I'm sleepy from the food and the heat. People are coming and going, checking in and checking out...I find myself dispensing helpful travel-related advice to those who are newly arrived in SE Asia. (The fact that I'm much older than most of them seems to give my advice more credibility than my actual travel experience to date can really justify.) Some of my fellow inmates are gap-year students who are too young and flighty to feel homesick; others are older people who seem, for whatever combination of reasons, to be travelling more to get away from their old lives and homes than to seek out new ones. I suppose there are some people who just never really put down roots. After four months on the road, and for all the fun and relaxation and stimulation and experience I've been lucky enough to have along the way, I'm now more sure than ever that I do have roots, and that a trip abroad for me is like a night out - no matter how long it lasts or how good it is, you still want to come home at the end of it.
Monday evening in Bangkok. There's a night out on the cards. It sounds tempting, but then I've already had enough Bangkok nights for one summer. And anyway, Sunderland are playing at home on Saturday.
Monday afternoon in Bangkok. Smoke drifts upwards and out of the common room window into the street. At times it's sunny, and at other times the rain is torrential, but the muggy heat is everpresent. Swigging water at regular intervals, I lounge on a sofa; I've been out for a Subway, and now I'm sleepy from the food and the heat. People are coming and going, checking in and checking out...I find myself dispensing helpful travel-related advice to those who are newly arrived in SE Asia. (The fact that I'm much older than most of them seems to give my advice more credibility than my actual travel experience to date can really justify.) Some of my fellow inmates are gap-year students who are too young and flighty to feel homesick; others are older people who seem, for whatever combination of reasons, to be travelling more to get away from their old lives and homes than to seek out new ones. I suppose there are some people who just never really put down roots. After four months on the road, and for all the fun and relaxation and stimulation and experience I've been lucky enough to have along the way, I'm now more sure than ever that I do have roots, and that a trip abroad for me is like a night out - no matter how long it lasts or how good it is, you still want to come home at the end of it.
Monday evening in Bangkok. There's a night out on the cards. It sounds tempting, but then I've already had enough Bangkok nights for one summer. And anyway, Sunderland are playing at home on Saturday.
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| Inside the Bangkok protestors' compound (1) |
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| Inside the Bangkok protestors' compound (2) |
Thursday, 11 September 2008
Siem Reap, Cambodia
After a short and sweet bus ride - short and sweet by the standard of some of the interminable nightmares I've suffered in the past few weeks - I am now in Siem Reap, a place which justifies its existence by being quite close to the 12th-century temple city of Angkor Wat, Cambodia's foremost tourist attraction, which at the time of its being built was the largest public place in the world. It's become a time-old cliche for tourists and travellers to get there before dawn and watch the sun rise over the ancient stones and the misty moat surrounding them...I'm not a fan of following the herd, but I couldn't think of anything else that would be original, so I set my alarm for 4.30 and toddled bleary-eyed down there along with everyone else. (I'd already woken at 2am to see if the England match was on the telly. It wasn't. Rats.) Sadly the weather was drizzly and completely overcast, so instead of shimmering sunbeams and iridescent reflections, I just saw a sky which changed imperceptibly from mid-grey to light-grey. Profound. And it was $20 in!
The place is very impressive, certainly much more so than any of the temples I saw in Thailand, but on the whole I still have to say I haven't been especially overwhelmed by Eastern temples in general. There are undoubtedly certain areas of learning and morality in which I think Eastern cultures are superior to our own, but I wouldn't add architecture to that list. I find most of the temples rather gaudy, too fussy and ornate, and effeminate rather than feminine. Given the choice, I would much rather look again at the memorials in Washington DC; or, for that matter, Durham Cathedral.
Nonetheless, I did take some pictures at Angkor Wat, and a picture update will follow as soon as I can be arsed. Hope all is well back in Blighty. Y'all wish me luck in trying to find somewhere I can watch SAFC get beat, as we always do at Wigan, on Saturday...wherever I may be...
The place is very impressive, certainly much more so than any of the temples I saw in Thailand, but on the whole I still have to say I haven't been especially overwhelmed by Eastern temples in general. There are undoubtedly certain areas of learning and morality in which I think Eastern cultures are superior to our own, but I wouldn't add architecture to that list. I find most of the temples rather gaudy, too fussy and ornate, and effeminate rather than feminine. Given the choice, I would much rather look again at the memorials in Washington DC; or, for that matter, Durham Cathedral.
Nonetheless, I did take some pictures at Angkor Wat, and a picture update will follow as soon as I can be arsed. Hope all is well back in Blighty. Y'all wish me luck in trying to find somewhere I can watch SAFC get beat, as we always do at Wigan, on Saturday...wherever I may be...
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