Well here it is! Post number 300, which surely deserves a strident fanfare of trumpets – especially for anyone that’s actually followed the itinerant Barry from the beginning. Of course, if I’d blogged my earlier African adventures with more than this brief summary of my first six weeks and maintained the one-entry per day format; that number would be far, far higher. Still, for those of you bored of the constant Barry-spam on your Facebook walls or those living their lives vicariously through my vagabond lifestyle, we are now nearing the end.
I have mixed feelings about my return. On the one hand I’m actually looking forward to being in one place: maybe even having a wardrobe and chest of drawers to put some clothes in and not just be pulling the selfsame attire out of a rucksack all the time. Also I’ve felt for a while that being on the road has become so commonplace that I no longer fully appreciate the amazing sights that I’m seeing; the new experiences that I’m taking part in; and the wonderful opportunity that I’ve been given to roam the world without worrying too much about money. I’ll also miss the chance to meet new people on a daily basis and listen to their stories and adventures around the world.
On the other hand, the idea of going back to w*** gives me the heebie-jeebies. Hopefully I’ll find something that challenges and reinvigorates me in much the same way that my travelling gave me new strength when I started off. Like Forrest Gump, one day “for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run.” Okay, there were reasons at the very start: some minor annoyances like dissatisfaction with my career and a failing marriage but those quickly fell by the wayside as I travelled on: “I ran to the end of the road, and when I got there, I thought maybe I’d run to the end of town.” What drove me on was a compulsion to go to places I’d never been before, to experience the world as you can’t see on a two-week vacation, to test myself with new experiences and push myself in ways that I’d never been pushed before. On the whole I think I succeeded but, eventually, like Forrest “I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll go home now.”
One question that I’m often asked about my travels is “What have I learned in all this time on the road?” Firstly I think I’ve become less concerned with material things although I’m still very attached to my MacBook Air. Probably because it is my window to the outside world and stores my prized photographs of my trip. My iPod too has been a travel essential – I doubt I could have endured some of the long bus journeys without it. Apart from that my head-torch and Swiss Army knife are items that I’d be reluctant to travel without in the future. Carrying my thoughts forward, I’ve learned to appreciate the smaller things in life: a comfortable bed, a fluffy towel, a hot shower and a toilet where you don’t have to squat and can flush toilet paper down. And although I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly asocial, I think I’m now even more able to mingle with a roomful of complete strangers. The other thing you learn (although this will probably evaporate when I get back to the real world) is to be patient: when you’re travelling a few hours delay here or there doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things. You also learn to be very adaptable and more spontaneous: if you have a plan you can change it; if you don’t have a plan you can always make one.
Anyway, after this indulgent introspection, it’s time to move on with the travels. On my last day in Laos I said my goodbyes to Jan and Yana (who’d been my travelling companions for most of my Laos trip) and Ellen (who I’d been running into since Hoi An). I think I’d said goodbye to Sarah and Manon the night before – which was just as well because, much to our disbelief, they’d finally left the island after days of saying that they would. I was on my long way to Japan, which due to the hefty prices is a bit off the backpacker route. I’d be unlikely to see anyone there that I knew from elsewhere. After a boat and bus ride I arrived in Pakse once again. From here I got a bus across the border to Ubon Ratchathani. The border crossing was quite smooth; although some people somehow managed to cross to the Thai side without having an exit stamp in their passport – which caused a bit of a delay. At Ubon, I was happy as a pig in clover when I discovered a coffee shop in the bus station offering free, good quality WiFi – I’d missed that in Laos; but unfortunately they didn’t do any food so I still had to leave after a while to get a dose of Thai cuisine: we only had an hour at the bus stop.
I’d bought The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo the day before and found myself compelled to read it to the very end, even if it meant I wouldn’t get a good night’s sleep. Even when the lights on the bus went off, I strapped on my head torch and carried on. I finally finished it at around 11pm. The bus wasn’t a sleeper so it wasn’t the most relaxing trip ever and we arrived two hours later than expected at almost 8am. I had been travelling for 23 hours and still had another 17 hours to go before my 15 hour flights to Tokyo. I wasn’t sure whether to just hang out at the airport for all that time or check into a hostel for the day. In the end I decided that 55 hours without a shower might be pushing things a bit far so I headed to the Lub*D hostel for the day. This was quite pricey for a Bangkok hostel and far away from the normal backpacker haunts on the Khao San road but it was located right next to the Sky Train which made it easy to get to the airport later than night. Unfortunately none of the other backpackers at the bus station were heading in this direction, so I shared a taxi with an Australian couple to Khao San and then got the boat down the river to the main sky train terminal.
Chang beer
I couldn’t check into my room until 2pm – so, after being in Indochina for 2.5 months and somewhat limited in my culinary options, I did what any self-respecting foodie would have done when in Bangkok: I went to McDonald’s and got a Big Mac. For the rest of the day I had a small afternoon nap and just chilled out at the hostel using the WiFi. I couldn’t even find it in myself to socialise too much: it seemed pointless when I was leaving before the end of the evening. The hostel seemed really nice and in some ways I wished I stayed there longer but at 10pm it was time to catch the sky train to the airport, ready for my journey to Tokyo. This involved a brief stop-off in Beijing where I think I paid $11 for a coffee (isn’t China supposed to be cheap?!) and finally after more than 2 day’s travelling from Laos I found myself in Japan.
