The last chapter

Nearly 8 months on and we are set (kind of) to return to England.

We cannot wait to see the cat. Oh and family and friends too of course! It'll be interesting to see how quickly we adjust to normality again; job hunting has already begun and Matt has even applied for one job already.

Although this hasn't been completely on a shoe string, for the most part it has been a very low budget trip. For the cost of a regular new car we have had 8 months away; a chance to see a bit more of the world and an all round great experience. (And we have our not-so-new but perfectly fine cars waiting for us at home.)

I know travelling around like this isn't everyone's cup of tea; we weren't really sure it would be ours. However, we had always enjoyed travelling although the serious travel bug began in 2001 following an independent trip to the States to visit relatives of Matt's. I decided I'd like to have a go at jacking it all in and going backpacking. Thus began my 6 year campaign to persuade Matt.

Language

One of the most notable things while travelling is the language barrier. A very interesting observation is that at times we have actually had to speak like southerners in order to be understood. We say 'bus station' and 'subway' for example - not a clue. But say 'bas station' and 'sabway' and Bob's your uncle.

Russia and China proved to be about the most difficult places to travel around in terms of language (although New Zealand was a bit tricky at times ). We did try and learn a bit of Russian, but, quite frankly, they (people mainly in the service industries) didn't care what we spoke in - we tended to get the same humourless reception varying from moderately cool to really quite hostile. I must say though that regular Russian people we met were pretty friendly. Mandarin is extremely difficult to learn due to the use of several tones for one word giving it several different meanings so we gave up on the idea of this and resorted to pointing frantically at a phrase book…..and charades.

Frustrating at times - especially when ordering food. China in particular did not get vegetarianism. EVERYTHING seemed to come with at least a sprinkling of pork mince or a good dousing of chicken fat. In Australia (of all places) being a vegetarian was even described as having a 'dietary problem' by one guide we encountered. I highly commend the people we came across in SE Asia where English of varying standards is spoken widely (menus were in English and everything. Bonus). Most other travellers regardless of their nationality, speak English in order to get by, which, although we can do nothing to change the fact that English is the common language, it is still a little humbling that we don't have to make much effort in the learning-a-language department.

English translations have made for some interesting signs, from 'uncomplimentary gifts' in China, meaning you have to pay for the provided toiletries in your hotel room, to a kind sign warning us to 'beware of landslides' (China again, referring to a wet shop floor). From 'no human trafficking'(Cambodian hotel) and the more blunt 'no prostitutes allowed in rooms' (Thai hostel) to the amusing 'sorry no sex' in a Bangkok massage parlour window. One website for a Chinese hostel promises that, 'our staffs aim is to hospitalize our clients' and a Malay beauty parlour even promised to 'treat open poles.' Menus have provided occasional amusement too as we could order goldfish and green stuff (Irkutsk), meetballs with fried noddle and salad with barest of chicken (Phnom Penh) although this is more the result of typing errors I guess. Speaking of food…

Food

In countries where chicken's feet, pig's snout and bowls of ice with blue and green gelatinous substances, pink sauce and sprinkles poured over the top are street snacks, it has been an interesting culinary experience. Ducks tongues (a popular Chinese starter), pig's internal organ soup, claypot live frog , fish sac red curry are just a very small number of the variety of dishes that have been on offer. I won't even go into the number of dishes in China that consisted of the private parts of animals. There are too many unusual dishes to write about so I've picked out an interesting one in particular (that we haven't sampled) called Khao Chae, a traditional Thai dessert. Chilled rice with icy water and scented petals (sounds ok so far), condiments can include fresh mango and fried shrimp (so it's starting to sound a bit weird) with shredded sweet pork and salted eggs (what????). Which brings me to this weird pork or shrimp fluff stuff that we have unknowingly sampled. We decided to treat ourselves to a Danish looking pastry from a Chinese bakers to discover it was filled with this not totally disgusting but not totally nice fluff and decorated with a sweet mayonnaise (not icing as we had anticipated) we later discovered this fluff is pork or shrimp fluff and appears in a lot of pastry type food (which we quite quickly learned to avoid).

Stuff

It's been nice to learn that we definitely don't rely on many material things to get by. For example my make-up bag has contained just 5 items (none of which I've used on a regular basis), we have managed on 6 pairs of undies each (although Matt has quite mysteriously acquired a 7th pair along the way; we think after getting laundry done some point between Hanoi and Saigon). It'll be like Christmas re-visiting all the clothes we left behind after managing on our capsule wardrobes for this long. My hairdryer hasn't had many outings and I have actually survived without straighteners!!!

We have found the little clock Matt's mum and dad gave us, on the way out of the door all those months ago as they took us to the airport, to be one of the most useful items we have had. As part of a bag of travel type goodies I got from work as I left, 2 vacuum packing bags (no need for a vacuum) have been highly practical and most recommended for keeping our clothes dust free and in one place. We have seen a number of people's rucksacks, contents spewing out over the sides with screwed up clothes squashed into every nook and cranny in between lidless lotions and potions. To those people these bags are highly recommended. Our knife and corkscrew, obtained from a sweaty Vietnamese market stall, were highly invaluable, that is until Brisbane airport security staff confiscated them after dingbat Matt forgot to pack them in check-in luggage. Doh!

Thank you

To our mums and dads - who didn't bat an eyelid when their 32/33 year old fully independent for the past 11 years offspring declared they were selling up and heading off on a horizon-broadening mission, oh and by the way will you take care of our finances and cat and also re-home us for free on our return for x number of weeks? (AND who are probably 4 of only a small handful of people who are actually still reading this blog) - goes a humongous thank you.

Thank you to those who have regularly kept up to date with this site and left messages.

From Helen to Matt - thank you so much for very logically and meticulously packing the bags all the way around - much appreciated.

Itchy feet??

So, as we look forward to spending the entire day travelling tomorrow to return home we feel excited at the prospect of seeing our family, friends and of course beloved cat. However we are a little sad that this chapter in our lives is coming to an end. I'm not sure it's scratched our itchy feet completely, I think we will always love to travel and surprisingly we really enjoy the freedom that the backpacking life gives us whether it's for 3 weeks or 3 months. Our only regret is possibly that we didn't do it sooner. The big question is: Would we do it again? Without a doubt.

The End