Day 270

This will be my last blog. We go home soon and I've pretty much said everything I want to say. So here are my final words on my year (9 months) of adventure with my family. It's been wonderful and I highly recommend it. Everyone should go travelling with their kids, you get to see them and know them in a way that is impossible in normal life. You also still get to scream at them in private and administer the occasional slap. Despite the difficult times, and there have been many, it has been the best way EVER to spend a year. I've seen amazing things and met brilliant people. Disappointed in Vietnam and sad we missed Laos. I'm feeling reflective about going home next week, but upbeat and positive. Here are my best and worst moments. Thank you for reading! And goodbye.

8 best things

1. The Taj Mahal

2. The Ganges at dawn

3. A view of Mount Everest - and knowing Rufus was half way up it

4. Everything in Cambodia, literally everything

5. Spending 24/7 with my two wonderful daughters who I now truly know in a way only made possible by this trip

6. The friends we made in Nepal - Celia and Caspian - we love you, and you were quite truly a life line

7. My mum, my sister, my in-laws, my Liam and my Paula visiting us

8. Bathing elephants and seeing wild rhinos on safari

8 worst things

1. Rufus being ill

2. Fern being bitten by a dog in Kathmandu

3. The reality of life for babies in a Kathmandu orphanage

4. Me being ill in Jaisalmer and stuck on a makeshift drip

5. Seeing a snake in Varanasai

6. The bloody awful road up into Kathmandu, it really never got any easier

7. Being scammed trying to get into Vietnam

8. The endless night spent on a train station platform in India

8 things I have learned

1. No matter how much you hope your children will be best friends, it is out of your hands. Especially when cooped up together 24/7. Although there have been moments of real sweetness - curled up in bed together at night, playing elaborate games and generally helping and supporting each other - there have been many more of punching, hair pulling, the occasional black eye and screaming heinous insults. I guess my sister and I still do the same, only more politely and via email.

2. I can live perfectly well without wine. Or new clothes, shoes, bags, make up, magazines or getting my hair done. These things don't matter at all.

3. Chemotherapy is bloody awful. On everybody. So is epilepsy.

4. That I am tougher than I thought - I can cope with a lot and am more patient, more tolerant than before I left. Maybe I am even a better person. But no matter where I go, or what I learn or look at or see or think about, I'm still a bit of a pain.

5. Clover will never be able to spell, nor learn her 3 times table.

6. There is no overland journey in Asia that really takes the scheduled time. You must add 2-7 hours onto every advertised journey.

7. Poor people seem to feel better about life than any rich person I have ever met. They are happier, kinder and make finer parents, siblings, friends. The less you have, the bigger and better you are. I am totally convinced. (And a convenient philosophy since I have no money).

8. Family matters. Friends matter. And the grass is not greener - especially in India, where it is distinctly brown. Despite harbouring dreams of living in Asia where the pace of life, the people, the food and the climate are so wonderful - it's not any better than home. I'll end with the fabulous words of George Moore:

"A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it."

Katya Siobhan Conway 2010/11