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The Final Chapter
I'm in Moscow International Airport, awaiting a flight back to where my trip began: a journey that's taken me from Malaysia to Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos ends 183 days after it started in Balham, London.
Along the way, i've slept in around sixty hostels and hotels, at friends' houses, on overnight buses and trains, at numerous campsites, on boats and in a camper van. I've shared accommodation with snorers, fidgeters, mosquitoes and cockroaches.
I've spent three different kinds of dollar (Oz, NZ and US), ringgits, baht, dong, riel and kip.
My passport is full of colourful visas and entry/exit stamps. There would be even more of these if i hadn't put my passport through the washing machine in Sydney.
I've travelled by helicopter, kayak, ox-cart, tuk-tuk, motorcycle, elephant, junk, catamaran, bicycle, aeroplane, tram and more besides.
I visited the world's largest sand island, volcanic springs, glaciers and mountains. I've seen some of the most spectacular scenery Earth has to offer. I've trekked with Vietnamese hill-tribes and seen farms carved from hillsides. I've visited the sites of furious fighting and terrible atrocities. I've sailed up the Mekong River and across Halong Bay. I've watched the sun set and rise in utterly stunning locations. I've been to Summer Bay and Hobbiton. I watched the New Year fireworks over Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, then attended a music festival the very next day. I visited the awe-inspiring temples of Angkor Wat, the pagodas of Chiang Mai and the Buddhist monks of Bangkok. And i fired an AK47!
I ate crickets and various other bugs, chicken claws, goat, eels and kangaroo. I've slurped down pho in Vietnam, feasted on the world's greatest cuisine (and cooked some myself) in Thailand, ate like a student in Australia and ate nothing but burgers in New Zealand. I've barbecued on the beach, eaten in a treehouse and cooked in some of the grottiest kitchens the world has ever seen.
I've seen mangoes, pineapples, bananas and cashew nuts growing wild. I saw trees which shed their bark rather than their leaves, with roots like legs, with branches growing back into the ground and with vines like coiled springs hanging to the floor. I've seen temples which are either being held together or throttled (it's hard to tell) by trees hundreds of years old.
I've read 55 books on topics ranging from the human brain to Buddhism to Brian Clough, and novels from just about every era you could imagine.
I drank goon in Australia, Speights in New Zealand, Chang in Thailand, bia hoi in Vietnam, Angkor in Cambodia and Beerlao in Laos. Regrettably, a bottle of snake/scorpion wine was also imbibed - definitely the worst substance ever to pass my lips. Vietnamese coffee (strong & sweetened with condensed milk) became an acquired taste. And in every country copious quantities of flavoured iced teas and fruit shakes have eased my parched throat.
I've swum in pools, streams, oceans and crystal clear lakes. I've washed my hair in natural tea-tree infused water. I almost boiled myself alive in a natural hot spring. I've floated (drunkenly) down a river in a rubber tube. I've even been snorkelling.
I've held enormous snakes, been fondled by an elephant, mugged by an iguana and raced a kangaroo. I've been licked by a five-foot long lizard, chased away a dingo and waded through water filled with rays and sharks. I've seen giant turtles surface from the deep, heard the mating call of the koala, been attacked by a monkey and had my feet nibbled clean by fish.
I acquired four pairs of sunglasses and lost them all. I bought trinkets i didn't need from tribespeople and a fridge magnet in every country i visited.Having lost, shrunk, stained or torn almost all the clothes i left Leeds with, they have been replaced along the way. I've worn out four pairs of flip-flops and broken five pairs of headphones (luckily the iPod has survived). I had a suit tailor made. I've destroyed two cameras, but still managed to take hundreds of photographs, some of which are actually quite good.
I've met amazing residents in every country i've visited and my heartfelt thanks go to every one of the wonderful people who have shown us such patience, kindness and understanding. Local families, restaurant owners and waitresses, tour guides, tuk-tuk drivers, hostel owners and boat captains have enriched and enlivened every day of the last six months. Merci beaucoup.
For five months i managed to keep myself healthy and safe, but in the last few weeks i've been really ill, damaged my knee ligaments (in both legs), gave myself sunstroke, was fined by Thai immigration and got robbed. Thankfully multiple trips to Bangkok left me unharmed, although the military presence was obvious and a curfew enforced.
I've randomly bumped into ex-colleagues, re-acquainted myself with old university mates and have made friends from Norway, Holland, Germany, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, Canada and even England! Some of these will be friends for life: you know who you are without me embarrassing you here.
Special thanks, of course, are reserved for Rachel Elizabeth Harrison: my platonic shadow, my chauffeur, my accidental wife. It's gonna be weird adjusting to life without planning, plotting, packing and spending every minute together. I'll manage somehow. And, let's be honest, i'm sick of hearing her burp now.
This journey has been a lifetime's worth of holidays, the best ever fresher's week and the most interesting school lesson of all time rolled into one. I've shed inhibitions, danced in the sunshine, slept under the stars and witnessed things which i thought i would only ever see on television. I've loved (almost) every single second.
Thanks for reading.
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