Afterword: A reflection a year on, on a journey of 80,000 miles and a lifetime of memories

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11 December 2010

It is almost a year on from the end of my travels as I start writing this final entry. It has been on my mind for 10 months to write this blog; I even wrote in my last blog entry “I will write one last blog in the new year, to sum up the last 18 months of travelling, an afterword so to speak.” I didn’t intend it to write this blog so deep into the New Year and almost into the next one but inevitably events take over and you get into the routine of work, sleep, work, sleep.....a weekend or two thrown in for good measure and before you know it a year has passed you by in the blink of an eye. Did my 18 months of travelling pass so quickly? I don’t think so, but that was crammed with so many highlights and almost most days were special, each for a different reason.

As I start this blog, I don’t really have a preconception of where it will take me, I just have a series of jumbled thoughts that I wish to put down on paper about my Round the World Trip. Often I reflect on where I was at this time last year. Well, 12 months ago I was in my final country on my trip: India. I was about to travel from Varanasi to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, to set my eyes on the world’s most beautiful of buildings for a second time. I had a week left in my journey and I was still feeling lethargic after completing the Annapurna Trek in Nepal, a lethargy I later discovered to be because I was suffering from gastro-enteritis once I arrived back in the UK. A year on and it feels a lifetime ago, or at least half a world away.

My travels in numbers, including the best and worst

Where to start, well I thought I would summarise my travels in numbers. When I got back from my travels I plotted my route on a map on the internet. Over 1000 individual journeys, and a journey as a whole totalling 81765 miles. In reality it was probably approaching 100,000 miles, as the shorter journeys within a city, plus the countless miles on foot were not included in the above figure. Taking a journey between A and B is one of the main parts to travel, and the modes of transport I used for those 80,000+ miles were:

• Bus: over 300 (20 of them overnight)
• Boats: over 100 (in almost every country)
• Mini Bus: over 100
• Taxis: 86
• Train: 54 (14 of them overnight)….and riding one train on the roof in Ecuador
• Car: 49
• Plane: 43….including one that ended before it started between New Zealand & Cook Islands!
• Auto-Rickshaw/Tuk-Tuk/Becak = 43
• 4x4 jeeps: 21…including driving one of them myself in Australia.
• Sawngthaew: 19….all in Thailand/Laos
• Bike: 16….including falling off several times!
• Motorbike/Scooter: 16…..including riding one myself in Chile, Thailand & Vietnam.
• Cable-Car: 15
• Underground systems: 12…..Tokyo’s definitely the most complicated!
• Cycle Rickshaw: 8
• Monorail: 8
• Kayak/Canoe:6
• Pick Up Truck: 5…..I think this has to be up there as one of my favourite modes of transport.
• Horseback: 5
• Golf Carts: 5
• Funincular: 4
• Tram: 4
• Raft: 3
• Tractor: 2
• Tube: 2
• Dino Truck!!: 1 in Bolivia
• Dune Buggy: 1 in Peru
• Helicopter: 1
• Elephant: 1 in Nepal

Favourite journey:

Out of the 1000 journeys (excluding those by foot) these were my favourite in no particular order:
• Chugchilian to Latacunga, Ecuador – On the back of a pick-up truck in the high Andes with the sun beaming down. Does it get any better?
• Sailing around the Galapagos Islands.
• Cycling the world’s most dangerous road: La Paz to Coroico, Bolivia.
• Uyuni, Bolivia to Chile, through some of the planet’s most dramatic scenery, or was I briefly transported to the moon?
• Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales, Chile – Good friendships formed aboard the Navimag , and the scenery of the Chilean Fjords on the final day was special.
• Christchurch to Greymouth, New Zealand – Stunning and varied scenery aboard the Tranzalpine Express.
• A self-drive 4x4 on Fraser Island – Great fun.
• Sailing from Flores to Lombok in Indonesia – and seeing some Komodo dragons on the way.
• Riding a motorbike in the hills around Sapa.
• LI River Cruise in China.
• Beijing to Lhasa, China – A 48 hour train journey, which is a feat of modern engineering and offers some amazing views of the Tibetan plateau.
• Lhasa, China to Kathmandu – The ultimate roadtrip from the Tibetan high plateau, across a pass in the Himalayas and dropping down to bustling Kathmandu.

Least favourite journeys:

They are fun to look back on now, but at the time they certainly weren’t!

• Tulum, Mexico to Flores, Guatemala – Sunburnt, I felt every bump on the terrible Guatemalan roads.
• Guayaquil to Vilcabamba – Arrived at 2am and had to sleep in a bus station.
• Bangkok to Nang Rong, Thailand – Arriving at 4:30am, and realising you’ve missed your stop, meaning another hour’s journey!
• Houayxai to Luang Prabang, Laos – It was meant to be one of the 25 must do’s in SE Asia. Avoid the uncomfortable journey.
• Luang Prabang to Sam Neua, Laos – Arrived at 3am in a cold bus station.
• Vientiane to Pakse, Laos – On a sleeper bus, and sharing a bed barely wide enough for me, with a fellow traveller.
• Champasak to Si Phan Don, Laos – Unpleasant experience when a guy’s vehicle broke down, leaving us stranded.
• Kunming to Ping An, China – 36 hour journey without a proper bed.
• Xian to Luoyang, China – The bus I was travelling on caught fire and we were stranded on the highway.
• Agra to Delhi – 3 hours standing in a hot, cramped carriage was not fun.

Best accomodation:

• Chugchillian, Ecuador – Views to die for, and a very homely guesthouse.
• Vilcabamba, Ecuador – A friendly hostel in a great location overlooking the valley.
• Bariloche, Argentina – A hostel in a tower block…sounds terrible, but good hostel, with amazing views of lakes and mountains.
• Estancia Huechahue, Argentina – You pay $340 a day to stay on a ranch and you have high expectations….it delivered.
• All 3 Refugio’s in Torres Del Paine, Chile – Incredible views in the National Park.
• Ushuaia, Argentina – Really quirky hostel, full of maps and photos. Don’t know why, but I loved it.
• Dunedin, New Zealand – A really homely hostel.
• Melbourne, Australia – You can’t beat staying with a good friend.
• Heron Island, Australia – Luxury on the Barrier Reef.
• Whitsunday Islands, Australia – The weather was terrible, but the boat was first class.
• Cape Tribulation, Australia – Living amongst the jungle.
• Tree house, Bokeo National Park, Laos – Very, very cool, and stunning views.
• Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - Staying in a million dollar mansion.
• Lijiang, China – Mama Naxi was pure entertainment, and the food was superb, with generous portions.
• Kyoto, Japan – Staying in a traditional Japanese Inn, a Ryokan was cool.

Worst accommodation:

• Piste, Mexico – I had just started my travels, I was naïve. I paid too much for the first place on offer.
• Puerto Montt, Chile – Small cold room which was uninviting.
• Jakarta, Indonesia – I could not wait to leave, the streets were almost as inviting.
• Medan, Indonesia – Bed bugs!
• Hide, Taman Negara, Malaysia – Wooden Bed, mice…not much sleep….at least it was cheap.
• Luang Namtha, Laos – Paper thin walls meant a night listening to Laos Pop Music, which is awful.
• Vientiane, Laos – Tiny cell like room.
• Hong Kong – Tiny cell like room.
• Everest Base Camp, China – Cold, bleak, disgusting toilets. All I wanted to do was sleep.
• Kathmandu, Nepal – No cheap, comfortable places to stay.
• Tea Houses on the Annapurna Circuit, Nepal – They make their money on the food, so consequently the accommodation is poor. But you’re not there for the quality of the accommodation.
• Lumbini, Nepal – Uninviting, thankfully I wasn’t there long.

Favourite country:

I travelled to 21 countries, plus transit through another 3 (Belize, Costa Rica, Philippines), but which were the best?

1. Argentina – Patagonia is unparalleled in terms of natural beauty.
2. Chile – As above, and Easter Island is pretty special.
3. New Zealand – Such varied scenery in a small country.
4. Ecuador – The Galapagos Islands were truly special and the mountains weren’t bad either.
5. Peru – The North is grim, but the South more than makes up for this.
6. Bolivia – Some unique and unusual experiences and landscapes.
7. Australia – Some great cities and some great wildernesses.
8. China – The South of China was up there with anything on my trip as was Tibet.
9. Laos – So laidback, undeveloped and amazing people.
10. India – No other country has the intensity or diversity of India. I wish I’d had the energy to continue and explore it more fully.

Least Favourite country:

A bit unfair as I liked every country I visited, but my least favourite were:

1. Mexico – Overdid the Mayan trail, but more than anything it was my first country and I was still settling into my trip.
2. Malaysia – Awful experience in KL first time around, but a lot of the places were bland in comparison to the rest of SE Asia.
3. Guatemala – Nothing that really stood out, also near the start of my trip.
4. Vietnam – The people spoilt it, plus I was under the weather a couple of times.
5. Japan – No stand out places save Hiroshima, but a country of some unique experiences.
6. Indonesia – Hard work getting places after 3 months in Australia & New Zealand, the week in Bali bring its standing down.
7. Nepal – Didn’t like Kathmandu as I got sick but the scenery was stunning in the Himalayas.
8. Thailand – Great first 2 weeks, then came Bangkok.
9. Cambodia – Angkor Wat was one of my favourite places, but the rest of the country was a bit dull.

I did not include Singapore & Brunei as they were more like cities than countries, and my stays were short.

Favourite place:

It is so difficult to choose between all the special places I visited. My top 8 would be as below, with Torres Del Paine just edging it.

• Torres Del Paine, Chile – An unspoilt wilderness, and a great trek.
• Galapagos Islands, Ecuador – Up close and personal with wildlife.
• Inca Trail, Peru – The trek is special and the end is so worth it, Machu Picchu is a wonder of the world.
• Easter Island, Chile – Looking on in wonder at how and why they built the Maoi.
• Aitutaki, Cook Islands – Paradise on Earth.
• Gibbon Experience, Laos – Living a childhood dream in a tree house.
• Great Wall, China – Another of the wonders of the world, and the autumn colours were like nothing I’d seen before.
• Tibet, China – The roof of the world maintains its mystique. A special road trip.

Worst places:

• Northern Peru, any of Chiclayo, Trujillo or Lima - Grey skies, nothing of real interest.
• Puerto Montt, Chile – Chilean Port where I had to wait longer than hoped to get the Navimag ferry.
• Franz Josef, New Zealand – It rained non-stop while we were on the glacier, which meant it wasn’t that enjoyable.
• Surfers Paradise, Australia – Over commercialised and a quite bland town. Definitely no paradise.
• Airlie Beach, Australia – I got stuck here for several days due to the floods. In a small town, there was nothing much to do.
• Bali – Over commercialised. Head to one of the other Indonesian Islands, like the Gili’s for instance.
• Jakarta – Yuck, quite possibly the worst place I visited.
• Vang Vieng – Felt like Benidorm rather than Laos.
• Mekong Delta – A two day excursion which was extremely dull.
• Guangzhou – I went for Dim Sum, but couldn’t get anybody to understand me, so left without trying the famous Cantonese food in the largest city in Canton!

Favourite city:

Generally I’m not a city person, but these were my favourites, and amongst my highlights of my trip:

• Buenos Aires – Great food, good nightlife and the home of Tango, and the most passionate football fans in the world.
• Melbourne – A thoroughly enjoyable Christmas with my friend Danielle.
• Sydney – Some fantastic beaches and coastline, the world famous harbour and an unforgettable New Year celebration.
• Hiroshima – A great story of a city reborn. A spiritual place.

Worst City:

• Lima – As I arrived by bus, I wished I’d taken the next one out of there.
• Jakarta – See above.
• Guangzhou – Not a tourist destination, avoid.

Friendliest people:

• Laotians – The people have little, but they are so generous.
• Chinese – A number of occasions where I was treated with great hospitality.
• Cambodian’s – The children are the friendliest in the world.

Least Friendly people:

• Vietnamese – Too greedy.

Best border crossing:

• Bolivia to Chile – A more unlikely border you have not seen, like a moonscape.
• China to Nepal – Walking across the Friendship Bridge in a deep gorge.
• Thailand to Laos – Taking a boat to cross the Mekong.

Worst border crossing:

• Ecuador to Peru – Arrived in the middle of the night, and had to wait an hour for the border to open.

The above is merely an outline. An 18 month journey cannot be summarised by a set of statistics or lists. I have committed it to page so that in years to come I will be able to remind myself of the outline of my journey and access the many memories, emotions, thoughts and feelings that lie beneath this list. On to the story of the last 12 months…….

No Regrets, or at least only a few regrets

I came home because I had run out of energy and because travelling had become ‘too normal’ or not special enough. At times when I battle against the monotony and routine of a 9-5 job I wonder whether I make the right decision. I had planned to travel until late 2010 so I could still be doing it now. Life doesn’t work like that though, you take decisions in the moment and a year ago it was the right decision. A year later it remains the right decision. I miss travelling, of course I do, who wouldn’t. Seeing amazing places, learning more about the world and growing as a person ….. the freedom, a new place every few days, meeting some great people along the way to share it with. Nevertheless, sooner or later the journey ends, and it is time to do something else. It was time to do something else, start a new chapter in my life, but that bug to travel remains and one day I will do it again. Travelling is a passion and one I hope is a lifetime’s pursuit.
I have no regrets about coming home when I did, and barely any regrets about the 18 months I travelled. You always regret what you didn’t do, rather than what you did, and in 18 months I did a lot, and pretty much everything I wanted. Inevitably there are some regrets: I regret not being able to do a skydive, I regret not walking away in Kuala Lumpur, I regret not fitting in some voluntary work into my trip. I would have loved to see the World Cup in South Africa but not particularly to see England’s sad demise there. None of these are particularly strong feelings of regret, and why should they be. I have hopefully the remainder of a lifetime to do those things, as well as see the places I intended to visit, but didn’t after curtailing my trip.

"18 months….Wow!…how did you manage that?"

When I meet new people and the subject comes around to past life pursuits, I often find common ground in talking about travelling. Increasingly, more and more people are choosing to travel. Those that have not, often dream of doing so. Travelling it is not that uncommon anymore, what is unusual is to travel for 18 months. Whenever people ask me how long I travelled for, and where I went, my response is often met with disbelief or amazement. Yes, people do travel, but few go away for as long as 18 months. Money, energy, wanting to do other things are some of the reasons that people travel for shorter periods. On my travels I came across just a handful of people that had travelled for longer than I did……and I met a lot of people. I managed it because I loved nearly every minute of it, managed to stay safe, had the financial resources to do so and probably most importantly I am an energetic person. It is this last factor that is often overlooked when people plan to travel for extended periods. Travelling, particularly on a tight budget can be draining, is certainly challenging and is nothing like lying on a beach with your every need attended to.

Despite travelling for a year and a half, I don’t think I would travel for as long again. I think 3-6 months is the optimum length of trip. Shorter and you don’t fully settle into the dramatic lifestyle changes it demands of you, longer and your energy starts to drop, experiences can become repetitive.

The other characteristic that I forgot to mention above is durability and the ability to overcome a setback. You cannot travel for an extended period without suffering a bad spell. Whether it be illness, homesickness, being robbed, culture shock, travelling will certainly move you out of your comfort zone. The turning point for my travels was 6 weeks in. I had done a month in Central America, which I had enjoyed but it hadn’t really set the world alight. I hadn’t met too many people, and had spent the majority of the time on my own, struggling to adapt to the everyday demands of travelling: getting from A to B, living life in less comfort, struggling with a new language, finding somewhere to stay in each new place, and making new friends. I was however starting to get into a routine, and then I went and attempted to climb Cotapaxi, 5897 metres high, the same height as Mount Kilamanjaro, and the highest active volcano in the world. I got altitude sickness, I was alone in a hostel, nobody really spoke English well, and it was a cold and hostile environment. 48 hours later and I had recovered to conquer Ecuador’s second highest peak, the hardest physical challenge of my life and from that point on, I never looked back. Those days in August 2008 gave me the subsequent strength to overcome any setback on my travels, and will always be a focal point for the rest of my life whenever I face a tough period.

What is it like to be home & What next?

Humans are adaptable beings, they cope with change better than most of the animal kingdom. Within weeks you settle back into life back home, and the excitement of your travels is replaced by the normality of everyday life. My goal when I returned was to initially cope with the reverse culture shock, which I did and then set about to find a job overseas. The latter of these goals I failed to achieve, finding work overseas in a world economy in recession proved too difficult. In addition, language and immigration laws were not in my favour. I lived a life without boundaries for 18 months and assumed wrongly that when I resumed my career that there would be no boundaries. To an extent this is true, many of the boundaries are only those we set in our head. Nevertheless, it is still not a free world labour market, particularly in hard times, where countries have been protecting their own.

My fall back plan was to find work with a UK based multinational, which in time I hoped could take me overseas. Subsequently, I settled back into my career in the UK, working for the UK’s biggest retailer. The last 7 months or so have been challenging. I have relocated to another part of the UK, but in some ways this has been relatively easy. Harder to cope with has been the corporate culture, working at a level below I was previous to my travels and feeling relatively unmotivated by life. I believe this is a combination of PTD (post travel depression) where life seems monotonous in comparison to the life of a traveller but more so the fact that I am not living the life that I want to be at the moment. I still want to work and live overseas, I feel this is the natural progression having travelled the world. I have travelled for long, now I want to travel deep, by truly experiencing another country’s culture. I want another perspective on life.

Did I find my Zihuatanejo?

I named my blog “Searching for Zihuatanejo”. This was a reference to my favourite film, Shawshank Redemption. Zihuatanejo is the fishing town on the Pacific Coast of Mexico which Andy and Red escape from Shawshank prison to set up a new life. It appears in the film very briefly at the end and the viewer is left to imagine this paradise, where they are free. It also represents the fulfilment of Andy’s dream. Therefore Zihuatanejo in the sense of my blog title means the search all of us have for that utopia, that place where we feel at home, feel free, and above all feel happy.

I found many paradises on my travels but none of them I would classify as my Zihuatanejo. To be honest, what the last 18 months have taught me is that a place on its own cannot guarantee you happiness. Rather it is people more than places that matter. I saw many beautiful places on my journey, some of which are widely viewed as wonders of the world, but all these places were enhanced by sharing this experience with others. So in terms of a place I did not find my Zihuatanejo. If it had to be a place I would say Patagonia generally and Torres Del Paine specifically. But, no one ever said your utopia had to be a place. I found my Zihuatanejo on an unlikely trip to a fish market in Japan, believe it or not. Xuelan, the girl I met in Tokyo, and later in Kyoto and Shanghai, where she lives, and I are still in contact. My travels over the last year have been to meet up and see her again.

The last year my life feels like it has been on hold, I haven’t been able to start the next chapter. Rather I have been living in an interlude. The next chapter is a life together with Xuelan, hopefully working overseas. My hope is that that life is in Shanghai. This is my dream now. “Live your dreams” is one of my motto’s. I intend to.

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[Ankur]

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