The last one

This will be the final blog and one that does a bit of a rundown on some of the more amazing things I did or saw while away. Ive been putting it off for a while but having been asked a few times now what my highlight or highlights were I thought I should put something together. So here are my top 11 moments of my trip abroad. Its 11 because I was gone for 11 months and includes at least one moment from each country I visited. For those of you who dont remember I was in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Australia and New Zealand. Ive ordered them in how much they mean to me (or in some cases what I remember of them) so number one is clearly the best. Lets begin our countdown with Number 11!

11. Teaching Math & Science: This one kind of had to feature since it comprised 5 months of my trip away. I still remember arriving at the school for my first day's work under the impression I had to teach English with a little bit of Math or Science on the side. This turned out to be the other way around and straight away I had to chat to the kids for a good half hour having been told I would only have to say hello! This one takes in a lot of things from teaching itself, living in a foreign country where I dont speak the language or look like anyone else, cleaning days which were my days off, games in the classroom, relearning what I had to teach the night before I had to teach it, hanging out with the other teachers in the school who spoke english, Ajarn Chaweewan, trips to Chiang Mai (one of my fave cities if not the fave) and so much more. It was a challenging experience that took a while to get used to but left me with the confidence to take on other challenging things I might have shied away from if I hadnt gone and done this. I now forever have the sentence “Well if I can teach thai kids Math and Science then I can do this!”.

10. Phi Phi: Probably my first big trip once in thailand and working was going to Koh Phi Phi for New Year. It was a nightmare logistically because I assumed it had all been taken care of for me and I just had to show up. So it started with getting to Phuket and missing the ferry, followed by missing the gang on Phi Phi and not getting into the hostel till nighttime. Once there things picked up and I had a great time with the friends I made in teaching orientation in Bangkok. I got really drunk and really sunburned but had an amazing time. I played football on a beach, I got to visit The Beach, I got to sit on perfect white sand and swim in crystal clear water. Then there was NY Eve itself and getting off my face on 'buckets'. It was an amazing little holiday from work and we all made the most of it.

9. The slow boat down the Mekong: In a way the beginning of the travelling for me. I had moved out of Li and with my backpack on my back I was off to Laos, on a boat. Crammed onto barge for two days with a large gang of other backpackers there is little to do but befriend people and have a good time. We spent plenty of time chatting, a lot of time drinking and the boat was under a haze for a lot of the trip too. I made friends aplenty here and met them all along the way through Laos, though mostly in Vang Vieng where we did some more socialising and drinking. My first overland border crossing too which is a ritual I would come to hate but at the time was all good fun.

8. Franzjosef: Hiking on a glacier for a full day, what's not to like? It was a truly spectacular experience and one that will stick with me for a while. The sheer beauty of the glacier and the surrounding valley made this a special journey. The highlight of which was shuffling through the blue ice crevasse. There are not many places in the world left where you can get up close and personal with that deep shade of blue ice.

7. The Great Barrier Reef: An amazing day trip where I got to snorkel over one of the natural wonders of the world. The weather was good, the water was beautiful, the staff on the boat were amazing and I got to see Nemo and a turtle in the wild! Beautiful coral, amazing fish and sealife, its what visiting Cairns, Australia is all about.

6. Mae Hong Son: A week-long motorbike trip through the northwest of Thailand with Markus Chisholm. The two of us just rented a pair of motorbikes and sped off into the mountains, driving our way through some spectacular scenery and visiting some wicked towns like Pai and Mae Hong Son. Pai itself is an amazing little place and we had a good laugh there. The journey didnt end so well or it might be higher in the list but if you dont know what im talking about then look back through my blogs. I still have the scars.

5. Wat Rong Khun (The White Temple): This was a crazy place in the thai city of Chiang Rai where an artist had taken your standard red and gold temple and painted the entire structure white. He added a few little twists of his own on top of this such as the bridge over the sea of souls but the highlight was the inner wall of the chamber. On the wall that you pass through to enter it had a painting with all sorts of crazy stuff on it from Bin Laden to Superman, from Converse shoes to Neo, its one of these things you have to see to believe.

4. Ha Long Bay: A boat trip on the famous bay just north of Hanoi in Vietnam. It is a massive bay with thousands of rock formations rising up from the water like little islands (some of them are actual islands too). Its a fairly mind numbing experience as shown by the fact that all of us on the boat sat there staring around us in amazement for most of the boat journey. The sunsets were particularly impressive and I got to do some sea kayaking so all in all a pretty cool trip! Oh and there was the visit to Monkey Island.

3. Skydiving: An amazing experience if probably the most terrifying thing ive ever done. Im still not entirely sure why I did do it but im glad to be able to say I jumped out of a plane at 15,000 feet and lived to tell the tale.....barely. Ive got the photos and the dvd to prove it to any doubters too.

2. Angkor Wat: These truly deserve to be one of the wonders of the world and Cambodia itself is such a beautiful and welcoming place to go on top of it. The temples will blow you away, simply because they are among some of the oldest man made structures still standing in the world today and you can see how the ravages of time and mother nature have taken their toll. This place was in the middle of a jungle for a very long time which you can clearly see when you visit the 'Tomb Raider' temple which has trees growing on and around and through walls at what seem impossible angles. Go and see it for yourself!

1. Whitsunday Islands: Surprised at the number one? Well you shouldnt be. On this trip I got to travel on a sailing boat and help out, snorkel with fish and beautiful coral but more importantly meet one crazy, hot scottish girl. You've got to love that scottish accent......

So that's a wrap for me. There are plenty of experiences I had which didnt feature on the list such as tubing in Vang Vieng, the border crossing into Vietnam, Phnom Penh, Hoi An, Fraser Island. Sports days in the school and many, many more. It is a journey I will treasure and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

This is the end......

My final stop on my 11 month journey was in Queenstown, NZ. From here i would fly (not directly) home to Ireland after 6 nights living it up in the party central of NZ. At least that was the plan. It was all going well for a few days, had a savage night out with the Magic bus crew the first night and had sussed out the town during the days. Then i met up with Dan, fresh into town from Wanaka, and went for a few drinks with him. However, as i went to the atm to get some cash out i soon discovered a problem. The money had run out. I was broke 4 days from the end of my trip! Luckily enough i had the hostel paid for, $30 in my pocket and a bag of rice so i had food and lodging. it meant the partying had to end there and then and i wouldnt be doing any of the many crazy activities which Queenstown has to offer. But i did have a prepaid trip on the gondola and luge so when we got a sunny day myself and Dan went on it. The view from the top of the gondola over the town and lake with the snow topped mountains surrounding everything was amazing. The luge then was great craic full of dips, sharp bends and tunnels but another lap or two would have made it a more worthwhile activity. Ah well.

Later on that day we had a go at frisbee golf in the local park. This involves a frisbee each and a frisbee golf course which was marked out. I sucked at it. Dan wasnt too bad but the trees took a dislike to having a plastic frisbee thrown at them and said frisbee was dead by the end of the round. How it survived that long i dont know. The fun kind of ended there really. The weather turned over the next few days and i was cooped up in my hostel most of the time. On my last night i went and spent the last few dollars i had on drinks with a small group. I spent a bit of time planning for my return to Ireland and the fact that my journey was over sank in fast. It has been an amazing trip and i am so glad i did it. I will have one final blog covering the highlights of the entire journey so keep an eye out for it!

Wanaka

We left Franzjosef in the early morning and began the long journey south towards Queenstown. Before getting that far i would be jumping off the bus in the small lakeside town of Wanaka. We had a few stops on the way the initial one of which was at Lake Matheson, famous for being the 'Reflection Lake'. Basically it is a smallish lake with really still water so you can see the reflection of the mountains in its surface. Its quite pretty and we had a decent day so i walked all the way around it with a couple of others. We had a nice brisk walk as we were a bit tied for time but it was a good way to wake up! After that we had another few stops for some photos, food and the toilets but the next major thing was actually when we got as far as Lake Wanaka after which the town is named. Its a massive lake and we effectively had to drive the whole length of it to reach the town but the scenery on the way was superb. But mostly there was a lot of driving to the day and we got into Wanaka by 2.30. The hostel looked really nice and had a great view out over the lake itself. I figured that i would take it easy for the afternoon and do some stuff the following day. So i went for a bit of a walk and bumped into Cicero, the Brazilian guy from the bus. The two of us chilled out for a little bit and then i went back to the hostel for the evening. Later on a few of us went for drinks, including Dan, a guy i met in FJ and one who i was planning to meet up with in Queenstown and visiting Milford Sound with. But we went for drinks in Wanaka first and had a good laugh mostly at Cicero's expense due to his complete lack of a tolerance for alcohol.

The next morning i was planning to go to Puzzle World which is one of the more eccentric attractions I've come across on my travels. Dan was up to join me as well so the two of us made our way over. Puzzle World is an odd place but cool. It has a maze, an illusion gallery and a cafe with loads of puzzles on the tables. We started with the gallery and saw 3-D holographic pictures, the wall of moving faces and the tilted room where everything is at a 15 degree angle. The weirdest bit was a room that had a slop in it. From the outside it looked normal enough but there were two doors and if you stood inside one of them compared to someone standing in the other you looked like a giant compared to them. You could watch it all on a video link set up outside and its hilarious to see, especially with two people! After this we went outside to the maze and we had a race to see who could find the four corners and get out first. I was doing well by getting to the corners ahead of Dan but got totally lost and by the time i got out he was waiting for me with a big grin on his face. We finished the morning off with 3-D X's and O's where i got the upper hand (success!). Worn out from our mental activities we headed back to town. Dan went off for a walk and i went to watch Inception at the funky Cinema Paradiso.

If you haven't seen this movie yet then do, its epic! The cinema was one screen and littered with couches, armchairs and normal cinema seats as well as a car from which to watch the film. There was also an interval which caught me off guard, i thought the frigging film was ending! Later on we had the All Blacks v Wallabies in the TV room in the hostel so it was a pretty laid back day. The following day wasn't busy by any means either. Chilling in the hostel before hopping on the bus to Queenstown. Oh and i beat Dan at chess so i was getting revenge for losing at the maze!