BecStar
Rebecca Kent Joined: June 1st 2007
Logged in: March 10th 2010
Logged in: March 10th 2010
Embrace the detours. Kevin Charbonneau
I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain
Travel Blog Posts
About flippin' time, I know. OLD NEWS I started writing this email about two months ago and left it on the To Do pile until now, so the first part of this email is old news. But I hate words to go to waste, so I've left it in because it forms the backdrop for the more recent news - which you'll have to read all the way down the bottom to find - anyway. LET'S GET TALKIN' My London pad is now communication-friendly, by the way, so I'm back on the radar and can be contacted at home on + 44 208 964 5433 or on the mobile on +44 77 178 74354. My address at this stage is 8/177 Harvist Road, Queen's Park, London,UK NW6 6HB. Right, formalities over ... I GUESS YOU'D SAY ... read more
Ladies, if you're hard-pressed finding a husband, a flight to Egypt and/or the Middle East is as good as a walk down the aisle. I was proposed to 12 times since stepping onto Arabic soil in Jordan a few weeks ago! Bus Estonia and guide Erki delivered another wonderful experience - one week in Jordan. What an incredible place. The Roman ruins of Jerash, the magnificent naturally fortified ancient Nabatean city of Petra, the country's biblical significance, the kind people, their culture, the desert, the Bedouins, Bedouin tea and smothering myself in mineral-rich mud from the Dead Sea. The Middle East is one region I definitely plan to explore further. Next stop was Cairo. Jordanians warned me about Cairenes and their persistent ways, but I put their alerts down to a friendly trans-Red Sea rivalry. But ... read more
I spent my last week in Spain in the far south, in Tarifa. It was just so ideal - hot, deserted beaches, cool nightlife, good people around. I fiugured it might have been my last opporutunity to enjoy a beach in a long tiime, so I made the most of it. But in fact, I made a visit to a beach while I was in Jordan. It was nothing like the beaches in the north of spain, or Australia, but it was the Dead Sea and I treated myself to a free body mud mask with completely natural mud I scraped from the sea floor myself! Jordan was absolutely incredible. The people were great and the country is steeped with so much biblical history. I'm now in Cairo, Egypt, staying with an American woman who I ... read more
Killing time has never been so rewarding! This Estonian passport of mine is finally within my grasp and Im not sure if I want to strangle the bureaucrats for taking their sweet arse time producing it, or thank them for giving me so much time on my hands, with which Ive had no choice but to travel. If I had a dollar for everytime Ive answered "I dont know" when asked about where Im going next and when Im going to go home, Id now have as much money as the professional soccer player and his wife who have opened up their house to me in Bilbao in the north of Spain. The poor bugger's team lost to Atletico Madrid tonight, but I had a nice time with all of the footballers wives! Here and in ... read more
Just lost a MASSIVE group email, with details of my past two months and I´ll be buggered if I'm going to write it again! I could cry. Anyway, no time to sulk ... In short, I´ve been through Ukraine, Budapest, England, Amsterdam, France and have now found myelf in Spain. Anyone have any grand suggestions about what I should do here or have any friends here for me to say hello to? I'm waiting on my Estonian passport to come through, so will just continue to travel until it does. I´m thinking about northern Africa, too. Briefly, Ukraine finished with a trip to the Carpathian mountains with a Ukrainian lad, his Russian mate and their would-be botanist Canadian friend. They were intent on meditating at the most inconvenient times, Uncle Pete was mistaken for Steve Irwin ... read more
BACK IN THE HABIT Met cousin no. 2, Alex, in Jaroslaw, Poland, who delighted in presenting me with my travel tales to her students like a show and tell. Alex teaches English in a convent/school under the same order of nuns as her sister Jac, but the difference in attitudes of the nuns were profound. Some just live too cloistered a life. Went away for the weekend with some teachers and nuns to a country town called Jemna. No khaki habits, but it didn't stop them from bush bashing and mounting large rocky boulders in very impressive fashion. PRIEST AND NUN GO MISSING While Alex and I taught one nun to throw her hands in the air and say in her best thick Polish accent ''I am a champion'', a search was out for our priest ... read more
The next leg of my journey has begun ... in Poland! Could I have picked a country more culturally dissimilar from Nepal? NO, and it's doing my head in. I need a new wardrobe for a start. My trekking pants and faded blue jumper don't cut it here with the stylish ladies and my underwear and socks have been reduced to sheets of transparent cotton. Five months of handwashing was not kind to my wardrobe. Nonetheless, I've got it pretty damn good here in Poland. For the first couple of nights I stayed with my cousin Jac, who is teaching English in a catholic convent boarding school in Szymanow, in the Polish countryside, about 100km from the capital, Warsaw. I had my own room in a cosy chalet-like guest house next door to the school and ... read more
Kasko Jit (Who won)??? Jantako (The people did)!!!! Today is a wonderful day to be in Nepal, revelling in the jubilation of throngs of civilians who have poured through the city streets. They have won a people's war against King Gynendra, who last night (April 24) at 11.30pm, gave into the demands of the agitating Seven Party Alliance, and announced a democratic parliament would be reinstated by Friday (April 28). The king's third attempt at abating the people's movement since the alliance's nationwide strike was imposed more than 2 weeks ago, came at literally the 11th hour. The biggest demonstration yet was planned for today, when two million people, including the leaders of the agitating parties, were expected to storm the king's Kathmandu palace. It was almost certain to have resulted in a state of emergency ... read more
Hi wonderful friends and family! Here's a bit of an insight into my life as ''Miss'', the English teacher at a buddhist monastery. There's more to tell about my other Nepali experiences, but I'll send another email to keep it digestible. Photos to come, also. Thanks for your birthday wishes. The big 2-5 came without much of a bang, unfortunately, and all day I wished I was at home by the barbie with my mates, followed by a dance-a-thon of a night on the town. I was on a bus for half of the day, but managed to get in a couple of beers nonetheless and a meal that wasn't dahl baht. The kids were gems, really making me feel special, buying me small gifts that they would have struggled to afford. I'm about to go ... read more
The items mentioned in the menu can be prepared on order according to the unprepared and unreasonable. Ones waiting is expected. Fast food restaurant, Mahendrapul, Pokhara.... read more
