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WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO! I HAVE BEEN AROUND THE WORLD.  The exact same words I cheered as I landed at Heathrow airport, much to the amusement of the very cute navy officer that I sat next to in my upgraded business class seat.  What a perfect end to an amazingly, fabulous, awesome year.  I am now safely back to the UK and am looking forward to life's next adventure.

Thanks for reading.

Signing off.

Love to all.

Pip xx 

Time to go Home

12 countries; 34 planes;  numerous buses, boats, jeepneys, motorbikes, mini vans, trains, hire cars, campervans, taxis;  100+ dives;  7000+ photos;  3 haircuts;  weight lost, gained, lost and regained;  52 books read;  0 books purchased;  family, friends old, friends new;  rivers, mountains, jungles, oceans, hot springs, volcanoes, geysers, canyons, caves;  flora, fauna;  sun, snow, wind, rain;  sunny blue skies, dark thunderous skies;  beautiful sunsets;  many a smile;  it is time to head home, time to head back to the UK.

Thai Massage

I have been pampered, pummeled, pushed and pulled a few times on my travels, all voluntarily and all paying good money for.  Each has been good in its own way but I have to say the Thai Herbal Massage that I have had was just incredible.  You may wonder why I might need a massage with the relaxation that I have been doing recently but I have to say that walking around a city in flip flops can take its toll on the feet, the ankles and the back.  The massage I chose was to relieve aches, pains and tensions in the muscles and to improve circulation.  It worked very well and I felt great at the end but I did have to endure two hours of being pulled, pummeled, stretched, bent, and rubbed.  Plus, after all that was over I was pummeled with what I can only describe as a super heated pestle that I think had been boiled in a herbal infusion before being pressed all over me.  Very strange, but very good and my muscles did feel much better afterwards.  It is just a shame that I still need to walk the streets in my flip flops.

Contemplation

I am back in Bangkok and back to the 'normal' routine of a lazy breakfast, a swim or the gym, a little bit of reading and relaxing, maybe the odd stroll around the city, a skytrain ride and an afternoon with Irene reading stories and playing games. A routine that I really shouldn't get too used to. With all this time to relax and the ever closer end to my travels, or at least this particular trip, I have been thinking about some of the things that I haven't done over the last year, or haven't done much. There is always an exception to the rule and most of mine happened in New Zealand but here are a few things that I came up with.

Work! Ha, it is over a year since I left my job and left Cayman and it is one of the best decisions I ever made. I did work aboard the Nautilus on my travels, and although it was the most physically demanding work I have ever done, and the best way to lose weight ever, it doesn't count as I got to dive every day.

Iron. Not a single thing. I think this is going to have to continue in my everyday life.

Laundry, washing up and other general household chores. I did use a washing machine in New Zealand, sweep out my hippie mobile and do a little bit of washing up whilst camping, but I was outside in beautiful surroundings so again I don't think it counts. It will be great not to have to carry my dirty washing around with me once I stop travelling.

Cooking. As with above NZ was the exception as I was camping and the camp sites and hostels are so well set up that there were often cooking facilities available. I have actually missed being able to cook, it is nice to have the choice to either go out to eat or to stay in and with so many lovely markets that I have visited it would have been good to have sampled a few more local delicacies.

Watched tv. A few places have had televisions and on occasion it has been good to catch up on the news, or chill out in front of a film. However, you can catch up on the news quite easily on the internet and to be honest you don't miss much by only tuning in every now and again.

Worn jeans. Wow! My jeans were my wardrobe, I'm not sure I can give them up completely but it will be quite heavenly to be able to open my wardrobe in the mornings and have a choice of what to wear rather than knowing all you have is 3 pairs of trousers and a few tops.

Driving. Again NZ was an exception and also my road trip across the US but on the whole I have done very little driving and have used public transport all the time. Another thing that I should try and carry back to my every day life, though I am not convinced I will be able to do so very succesfully.

Slept in my own bed. Everywhere I have stayed has been clean but there have been varying degrees of comfort along the way and on occasion it has been much cosier to snuggle into my silk sleeping bag liner than to sleep on rough sheets. I am looking forward to a nice comfy pillow.

Angkor Wat

The outer wall of Angkor Wat

One of the two libraries at Angkor Wat

The Hindu temple inside Angkor Wat

When nature takes over

It takes no prisoners

Bayon

Buddha heads

The reason I ventured into Cambodia and didn't just do a quick visa run to the border was to visit Angkor Wat. It is the one place that everyone I had spoken to on my travels that had visited here agreed was somewhere not to be missed. So with motorbike chauffeur booked for the day I was ready to explore. Now I have visited both Caracol in Belize and Tikal in Guatemala so I wasn't sure if Angkor Wat was going to live up to all the hype and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The fact that you need transport for the day, you can hire bicycles if you are feeling really energetic, kind of suggested that the area was going to be large, but wow! Tree lined streets, moats 15km x 13km, gates big enough to keep the most determined of pheasants out (!), and intricacies of bas reliefs that was pretty spectacular, not to mention the temples, the Buddha heads and the palaces. The shear size and area of the place is pretty amazing. The buidlings are in varying states of repair with scaffolding and workmen evident in some areas and the force of nature taking over in others. Some of the temples are Hindu and others are Buddhist. If you want to see all the temples and go into great details you can buy a weeks pass to the area but for me, in the heat, one day was plenty to see the major sights and get a good idea about the place. If anyone plans to visit don't forget to practice your most endearing smile and "no thank you" phrase before you arrive as you will have to say it many times to all the people and children trying to sell you things throughout the day - from water, to food, to postcards to guidebooks. Learning to say it in Cambodian doesn't help either, I think it just encourages them more.

Cambodia

I thought this was cooking oil for sale - until I saw a moped pull up and fill her tank with it.

"tuk tuk lady?" - a call you may start to hear in your sleep it is called so often

Cambodian landscape - pretty flat, and until recently covered with land mines

There are still land mines over other parts of Cambodia, but this area has been cleared for rice growing

With a little spare time on my hands, and a visa that is about to expire, I head over to the border and to Cambodia for a short break - as you do! Having not been on a journey for more than one hour over the last month the journey to Siam Reap, Cambodia seemed rather long and arduous. Skytrain north of Bangkok to the bus station, then a motorbike taxi to the actual bus station when I got lost walking through the park and had no idea where I was heading :-) four and a half hour bus journey to the border, where I had to change seats as the air conditioning was leaking on me - I think it was only water - a bus to the border proper, out through Thai immigration, in through Cambodia immigration and a further four hours to Siam Reap. Add in the torrential rain that started two hours into the journey, didn't let up until about ten minutes from Siam Reap and caused localised flooding at the border - read, Philippa was splashing through ankle deep puddles to walk through the borders, trying to avoid all the children trying to sell a walk under an umbrella and hoping that she was only walking in water - and I was pretty darn knackered by the time I arrived at my hotel. Luckily it was a very nice, clean hotel and a lovely air conditioned ensuite room - all for $6. I was also feeling quite smug as the only other people on the bus from the border to Siam Reap were fellow foreigners and they had paid between $30-$50 for the same journey as a tour which had cost me only $16 - plus an extra $1 for the motorbike ride out of the park in Bangkok!

The Ancient City

The weekend rolls around again and this weekend we are all off to Muang Boran, or the ancient city, just outside of Bangkok. The ancient city is a large area shaped like Thailand and has all the ancient temples and palaces from all over Thailand represented, either as reproductions or in some cases the original that has been moved here to be preserved. Kind of like a model village but on a much larger scale. It must be quite nice having your auntie to visit, all these weekend trips, it's got to beat sitting at home playing on the computer, and we all managed to stay together this time. Along with all the temples and palaces there is also a water village with lots of eateries and ladies on boats with their kitchens to prepare you a snack or a lite meal. Thai food is so flavoursome, I love it. A simple noodle soup, cooked fresh and flavoured with lemon grass and ginger is just wonderful and it is the perfect mid day food to keep you going the rest of the day. I'm not so sure about the pork balls however, I suppose they are the equivalent to an English sausages - not a lot of meat.