So we have crossed two continents, eleven countries, 28 cities/towns/islands/villages (counted as places slept!) and nine time zones! We are in the highest spirits and bound for Sydney, Australia!
We have seen panda’s, elephants, monkeys, bear’s (the real type!), tropical fish, terrapins, dear and loads of dogs (some even still on four legs and not a BBQ stick!). We have seen the largest inside, outside, gold, bronze, wood, stone, clay, paper mashie & beer straw Buddha (ok, the last is a lie) in the world, all at least three times! The past three months have been emotional, from tears to laughter, from despair (see previous post!) to joy, but overall we have had a truly truly awesome time! We have experienced many foreign languages, cultures, religions and cuisine, and below we pick out a random few highlights. It is not a top whatever list, nor in order, just things that have stuck in our memory or jumped out whilst cruising at 33,000 feet!
· Great Wall – To walk along the wall as we did, for the length of the walk and see in places the wall in ruin and in other places restored to its original glory was special
· Birds nest – Being on the athletics field and looking around at the vast-ness of the stadium, you could only imagine what those athlete’s experienced – the noise, atmosphere & nerves must have been off the scale!
· Shanghai F1 GP – not only did we experience a sporting event in itself, we saw Lewis get within touching distance of his (1 year) overdue title – well done Lewis – BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2008 for sure! The noise was something else, if only we could have recorded the sound – it vibrated through your body.
· Giant Panda’s – we were sceptical at first to see such magnificent creatures in captivity, even though it was China’s Breading Centre (was China after all!) and after the first pen we were scared our fears would be realised. But once we stood and watched them eat, it was amazing – could have watched them eat & play all day!
· Solitude of Trans Sib – It was the perfect way to wind down after 6 months of crazy hours and working Monday-Friday; to sit and watch the miles go by was a great way to start the journey. It also prepared Karen for the trip, the toilets on the TS seem like royalty in comparison to some of those in China!
· Diving/Thai Islands – Dan got to dive, Kazza got to sun bathe – perfect combo!
· Tubing – this was a great day out, we had such a laugh with the guys (Rutter was a legend!) and floating/paddling back the two of us was nice. More importantly no one was seriously injured!
· Chaing Mai – This is definitely a place to go back. Three days was just not enough (how many times have we said that over the trip?), but the feel of the city and Luang Prabang was special and would highly recommend visiting BOTH!
· Angkor Wat – Those that have been, those who know about the place will understand that the experience of visiting Angkor Wat is highly rewarding. It would be a tragic shame if severe destruction happened there, so too if significant restoration took place!
But this is not the end of the trip, nor the blog (you will have to sustain more blogging folks!), for this is only the end of Part 1. Part 2 is a total new experience, in two weeks we must find an apartment, furnish it, if it isn’t already, and ow find jobs! Hhmmmmm.
