Random Photos

Here are some random photos taken over the course of my travels that I thought I would share:



From Vietnam: not brilliant
noodles but not horrible

From an airplane somewhere:
the word "orange" has never
seemed less complicated...



I take it "landung" means "landing"...

... which makes "emergency landing"
hilariously "not landung".

 

And before I left to go to Japan, I took a picture of the clothes I was taking with me. I thought it would be interesting to compare it with what I would bring back with me. So here are the before and after pictures (after picture taken when I got back home after Paris and Edinburgh in December):

 

Before

After

I think the most notable differences are the cleanliness of my shoes and the presence of an ugly Christmas sweater. It's only been 4 months since then (and only 1 week since I've been reunited with all of my belongings) but it already seems pretty incredible that that is all I lived with for 4 months.

 

Definitely going to do it again!

And to summarize...

I’m finally mostly set up in Montreal and long term travel is over for a while – I’ve committed to spending a year here before making any more decisions (although I do confess to already having some vague planning thoughts about where I’d travel to next). I thought I’d just do a summary post of my travels as a whole so here goes:

1. I took 17 flights, which took me the entire way around the northern hemisphere… plus halfway across North America and back twice (… so maybe not a very environmentally friendly trip).
2. I visited 10 countries (including my own… but not including the few hours at the Istanbul airport, the few hours at the Dublin airport or the mad dash through the Manchester airport). I cannot name a favourite country.
3. I used 10 different currencies: yen, riel, dong, kip, baht, rupees, euros, pounds, and dollars (x2). Despite my half-assed efforts, I came home with leftovers of each currency and so can now play money exchanger whenever I want.
4. I travelled by plane, train (regular, shinkansen and sleeper), car, van, jeep, truck, local bus, long distance bus, taxi, subway/metro/skytrain, tram, cable car, tuk tuk, tractor, motorcycle, bicycle, ocean ferry, river ferry, river boat, cruise boat, basket boat, row boat, canoe, inflatable raft, kayak, surf board, snow shoes, skis, and lots and lots of walking.
5. I spent nights in hotel rooms, ryokans, hostels, a cruise boat cabin, homestays, tea houses, volunteer quarters, a sleeper train cabin, friends’ houses (thanks Mike!), relatives’ houses (thanks Brenda and Frank!), a ski condo and a couple of airplanes. I’m surprised that I didn’t actually sleep in a tent at all.
6. I used all sorts of toilets from fancy built-in-bidet, heated-seat western toilets to squat-toilet-style outhouses and everything in between. I got used to putting used toilet paper in the garbage instead of in the toilet and flushing with a bucket of water.  I perfected my half-squat stance for seat-less western-style toilets without ever understanding why anyone would think that this kind of toilet is a good idea.
7. All the travelling I’ve done since the beginning of August, plus all the pre-trip costs like vaccines, supplies and insurance has cost almost exactly $24,000, which is actually less than I had expected.
8. I learned how to say “thank you” in four more languages.
9. I took somewhere around 3100 photos, which then got whittled down into about 1350 that I actually kept.

And the general lessons that I learned over the course of the last 8 or 9 months:

1. Packing cubes (little bags that you can separate things into in your big bag) are great. I was a little leery because I thought they wouldn’t be space efficient but it was really nice to not have to root through my whole bag trying to find underwear or a shirt. And there are always enough random leftover items to fill the small crevasses in your bag.
2.   You can buy toothpaste and shampoo everywhere. Do not carry full sized containers of these. Ever.
3. The Dukoral (traveller’s diarrhea) vaccine was a fantastic idea. It tastes horrible but I made it through 10 countries, 5 of which do not have consistently (or any) potable tap water, without a single stomach issue.
4. Travelling with a laptop was a good idea. I wasn’t sure about this before I left. I regretted it every time I had to carry all my luggage for any real length of time (my laptop plus the lockable bag I got to keep it safe weighed a good chunk) but being able to pay credit card bills, keep an eye on my bank account transactions, and book hotels/tours/flights without having to worry about internet café security issues made it worth it. The ability to sort through the photos I took along the way was also a huge perk.
5. Garbage bag pack liners are great. It’s nice when you don’t ruin your clean laundry when you accidentally put your pack down in a puddle or put your pack in a luggage hold of a bus going down a dusty road. Plus, my pack can zip open down the side and I found having my bag contents in a garbage bag added an extra layer of security (a flimsy layer, yes, but it meant people couldn’t just unzip the side and grab whatever items fell out).
6. Standing out as obviously being a tourist makes you a target for scammers, beggars and anyone selling anything but it also gives you huge leeway in being able to make social gaffs. Nobody expects you to understand anything, which is actually really nice… especially when you don’t understand anything.
7. Don’t go home until you have something to jump right into. Nothing’s worse than coming back after an awesome trip to have nothing to do but sit around and think about how much fun you had and how much fun you could still be having if you were still travelling. (Ok, putting things in perspective, there are obviously many worse things in life but this still sucks).
8. The world is only as intimidating as you make it out to be.  
9. Don’t worry so much.  Sometimes things will be awkward, stressful, annoying, costly, painful, exhausting and/or embarrassing but really, in the end, things will be fine.