The halfway mark!

I can’t believe that we are already halfway through our year trip! Neither me or G have been travelling before. Yeah we have been away and explored some countries but never have we set off with a one way ticket and a rucksack.

We also had never been to Asia so have been pleasantly surprised by how well and confident we feel on this new continent. We are not sure if that’s down to the countries feeling safer or friendlier as I’m sure they probably are not. We are now thinking that starting in Kathmandu gave us such a culture shock bringing us in to Asia with a bump that it has been easy to deal with the day to day mentalness of other countries as they haven’t been as chaotic.

Nepal though as crazy as it was is friendly and trusting in equal measure so besides the relentless disorder we didn’t have any bad experiences or scams. However, any nieviety that we had leaving Nepal was certainly cured in Delhi! I feel that being surrounded by extreme poverty but such kindness in Kathmandu then almost being thrown to the lions in Delhi with its scams but such beautiful ancient architecture prepared us for everything and anything that has presented itself since. I can’t think of anything that has daunted us since!

We love Asia and although it was nice to reach Australia to rest the senses, after 2 weeks we were craving being back again. That being said, we are half way through our travels and so at the end of our Asian adventure and are very excited to be preparing to embark on a journey across the Pacific to America. So what else has happened?

Story so far..

Well it’s been nearly 6 months since we left England and we are enjoying our 9th country. We have so far climbed Everest in Nepal, visited the Taj Mahal in India, seen wild leopards and elephants in Sri Lanka, night trekked through the jungle in Malaysia, learnt how to snorkel in the beautiful islands of south Thailand, cycled through Vietnam’s ancient cities, watched wild dolphins playing on a river in Cambodia, road tripped Australia’s east coast in a campervan and as I write this I’m enjoying a Bintang beer watching the sunset over one of Bali’s beaches.

Have we learnt anything..?

I said at the start that travelling wasn’t meant to answer anything for me and that I just wanted to go for the adventure. However I do feel like I have unwillingly learnt a couple of things as it’s very difficult not to learn about a country’s history and current politics when you become so enthralled by being there. It has made us more ethical as tourists as we can see the impact our actions have on the communities we are visiting and have learnt that pity really doesn’t help and on large is not wanted by deprived communities abroad. Through these experiences we have found that there are good and bad everywhere you go, we haven’t found a utopia yet, but by in large the good has prevailed and made us see really beneath the media induced scare mongering what a great world we do live in if it’s the good that you want to see.

What’s changed for us..?

Communicating with people from different cultures and beliefs in their home land when English isn’t their first language makes you so much more self aware. It’s great to be surrounded by the people you love and that they understand exactly what you mean and never take anything the wrong way, but that can make you lazy with your emotional regulation. I found at times that when I thought I was staying calm in difficult situations, I was asked ‘hey are you ok please don’t be stressed’. I was mortified at the time but it made me really look at my body language and therefore become more controlled. It’s made me more relaxed. I’m a pretty chilled person anyway but now I feel my body is relaxed as well as my mind and I can switch off and go to sleep now. I’m not as scared of stuff anymore either or anxsty and I feel healthy. I feel alive and appreciative again. All good really! You’ll just have to wait to see what this means for our relationship…

Our top tips…

I think the biggest tip I could give is to just trust your instincts. If something sounds too good to be true or just feels wrong it probably is. Literally every time I’ve felt like someone was insincere or that a place was bad it turned out right. But my other tip would be to forget any fears you may have and if it feels good then go with it. You never really know what incredible adventures might be round the corner so you just have to go and see for yourself!

Just make sure when you go you’re not laden with a huge bed sized back pack. Seriously there is no need at all for these huge backpacks that dont fit on public transport and dont fit on your back either. We are travelling for a year and have gone from freezing cold 5000ft high mountains to 30C white sand beaches. If anything we could do without some of the gear we have! You will almost certainly be able to get anything and everything you need and probably cheaper while you are away.