On the road yet again!

Safely in Turkey, on my way to Çannakale, near Gallipoli.  Tryiıng to work out this Turkish keyboard!  Will keep things up to date as much as I can!

St Patrick had to rid Ireland of snakes ...

And I was getting all concerned about direction in my life!

 

Happy Paddy's Day to everyone!  Drink some of the black stuff, it's good for you!

The first stress of the year

So I’m off again with a head so full of possibilities for the year that I can’t pick one.  Nothing seems to attract me more than any of the other options, so maybe I will actually need to decide based purely on practicality and pragmatism.  Oh, the horror!

I can’t even be excited about Turkey yet because I’m so (relatively) stressed out about what I’m going to do when I get back.  I’m sure it’ll only take me getting on the plane with the guidebook in my hand to get me interested though.

I will keep everyone posted as much as possible, but in the meantime, if anyone wants to suggest a new destination for me, that’d be great.  Anything with flexibility, opportunity to travel, interaction with people, changeability and preferably some kind of monetary return!

Reality TV strikes again

I also managed to become addicted to crap reality TV again in the short time I was in Norfolk.  Oh the joys of Sky television and America’s Next Top Model.  Nothing like watching a passive-aggressive psychotic antagonise a surprisingly feminine bull dyke …

Something else I find interesting as well is how people manage to find my site.  My stats counter tells me sometimes what people search for (and for some reason click on my site on the results page).  The latest two have been “hasselhoff leather jacket flashing lights” and “mulvas name on Seinfeld”.  Who knew I had such broad appeal to randoms looking for TV-related trivia?

I love new toys

This is what's on my desktop at the moment, care of Picasa and Alyson's broadband. Yay. I only wish I had all my photos with me so I could do even more fun stuff ... Maybe people can see their own faces on there ... who knows? 

Late night ramblings ...

Typically I’m up stupidly late playing on the computer.  Granted, this is the first chance I’ve gotten to really play on my laptop whilst it’s connected to the internet, so therefore there’s much more to do.

Also, I’m leaving for Turkey on Friday morning.  This leaves me a day to sort out what I’m going to leave here at Alyson’s, get a few last minute things for the trip and also work out exactly how I’m going to meet up with friends Turkey-side.  Oh, and I don’t know if anyone’s got tent space for me.  Oops.

Meanwhile, I have been back in the UK for two weeks.  In that time I’ve managed to get to (sort of) the four compass points – Edinburgh, Norwich, Swansea/LLanelli and London.  Here are some photos of castles and the like.  Thanks very much to Teresa, Michelle, Simon, Alyson and any respective families/husbands/flatmates who have looked after me and/or just tolerated my presence in their homes!  It’s been really good to catch up with people, even if it’s via ten-pin bowling in teensy towns in Wales.

I am in the middle of horrible decision-making time as well.  I know a lot of people would give a lot to be in the position that I’m in – deciding where to live in the world and what to do with my money.  But it’s actually a lot harder than it sounds, and there are a lot of things that I need to take into consideration, in terms of places I need to or want to be in, and also the fact that I really need to work sometime soon.  If only I could still work here …

Roxfam - Decortica, The Glory Sea, Brushwork - 16/03/06

I know it's extremely short notice but I only just heard about this gig. I'm in London at the moment so I can't make the commute, but thought I'd do my bit by spreading the word.

This is a charity gig in support of Oxfam Trailwalker NZ, so if you're in Auckland with nothing to do tomorrow night, get down to the Dog's Bollix on K Road.

I normally wouldn't promote this sort of thing quite so actively, but it's too much of a coincidence that I have friends in both Decortica and The Glory Sea. I wish I was there to go!

Finally photos ...

Again, I'm tired. Even though there is truly not much to do in Norfolk (I went bowling and played pool with Michelle today).

I have managed to upload and label some new photos from Thailand and Cambodia, hooray.

So for Thailand: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=m1anvbi.7ubucoqq&x=1&y=-yo0nrs

and for Cambodia: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=m1anvbi.4l5mt4si&x=1&y=ng86v2

My tan is fading fast ...

Safe and Sound

I was actually going to write this last night but was way too tired ...

Just so mum can have peace of mind - I am safe and sound in Norfolk at the moment at my friend Michelle's house.

I caught up with Moose in London, took a bus the next day to Edinburgh, spent a few fantastic nights up there realising how much I still love the place and how many friends are still up there, and then came down to spend some time with Michelle in a place we're desperately trying to find activities to do in. I may well finally learn how to drive a manual car ...

Oh and it took me almost 60 hours to get from Vientiane to London, and about 3 days to get me home to Edinburgh ... tires me out again just thinking about it ...

36.75 hours on the road ... and counting ...

Free internet is great.  Except that I am too tired to appreciate it.  And that I can't do the important stuff like bank transfers and emailing photos. 

 

 

Hong Kong International Airport is strange in the middle of the night.  Hardly anything is open and there are creepily few people around.  I flew in late and checked in a million hours early so I could use the (massive) departure lounge facilities.  The departure lounge is so big though that I can't find the place where you pay to nap/shower.  So I guess I will use the comfy banana chairs and forgo the shower.

 

 

I said bye to Angie and Ian yesterday.  I didn't have time to be sad about it but I'm sure gonna miss them.  I had to rush my goodbyes so I could get on the back of a motorbike wearing my daypack while the driver held my 20kg pack between himself and the handlebars.  We negotiated alleyways barely wide enough for our knees to pass through.  Then I had to sit for an hour and a half in a stinking hot minivan in awful Bangkok traffic while the driver examined what looked to be a hand-drawn map.  Not exactly encouraging.  It was 37 degrees C in Bangkok, way way too warm for me.  It sounds strange but I am quite enjoying wearing my hoodie in unseasonably cold Hong Kong (it is 10 degrees here at the moment).  I might even like wearing my gloves again when I get to London this afternoon.

 

 

Only 7 more hours until I am allowed to board my plane ...