The End

In The Himalayas, Nepal

To all the amazing people I've met in the past seven months (travellers and locals alike), to all the delicious food I've eaten, to all the bartering I've done with shopkeepers, to all the cold-water showers and bucket-flush squat toilets, to all the mosquito bites and sunburns, to all the hours I spent lugging my backpack around, to all the laughter, to all the long bus rides and train rides and airplane rides and motorbike rides, to all the times I felt like the happiest girl in the whole wide world, to all the music, to all the dives I took, to all the books that got me through long journeys and long nights, to all the kisses, to all the shooting stars, to all the stray cats and dogs, to all the support from my family and friends, to all the help I received from kind souls along the way, to all the times I knew Lady Luck was smiling upon me, to all the dance parties on the beach, to all the memories (good and bad and great), to Kerrilyn, to Aaron, to Thailand, Myanmar, India, Nepal, Laos, Cambodia, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, to everything and everyone: thank you. Thank you ever so much for the most wonderful adventure.

I fly to Canada tomorrow, but I know I'll be back in Asia again soon.

Darling, It's Better

The Perhentians, Malaysia

While these photos were taken when Aaron and I went snorkelling in the Perhentians of Malaysia, many of my favourite experiences underwater have been while diving. Although I've only been diving in Thailand and Indonesia, I know that this will be a lifelong hobby and perhaps even a future career. There is nothing like the feeling of swimming at 30m underwater, swimming with sharks and turtles and hundreds of species of fish. Here in the Gili Islands, I dived with white-tip sharks, green turtles, ribbon eels, angelfish, damselfish, butterflyfish, stonefish, sting rays, nudibranches, lobsters, pipefish, snappers, groupers, scorpionfish, false clownfish, starfish, pufferfish, triggerfish, surgeonfish, lionfish, schools of barracuda, fire dartfish, pygmy seahorses, and more than I could possibly remember or name. Through my dive instructor for my advanced course, Pablo, I learned better bouyancy, better air control, and the signs for all of these fish. As we'll be in Hawaii in a few weeks, Aaron and I are hoping to do some diving there, too. It's so nice to have a new interest in my life, and so nice to have such a fun dive buddy to share it with.

A few people have asked what some of the highlights of this trip have been for me, and I inevitably say diving; without sounding completely trite, being underwater is an almost spiritual feeling, a kind of meditative calm. I can't wait to go diving again, to be surrounded by blue water and thousands of fish again.

Do you or you would like to scuba dive?

Advancing In Life

The Final Dive of My Advanced Open Water Course

Gili Trawangan, Indonesia

What can I say? My life is amazing. Only four more days of this paradise...

One In Four Thousand

Si Phan Don, Laos

My time on the Gili Islands so far has been a lot like the time I spent in Si Phan Don - otherwise known as the 4000 Islands. We wake up to watch the sunrise, then head back to bed for a few hours, getting up again in time for a greasy omelet and coffee breakfast. We take a quick cold shower, then head to the beach. We lie there for a while, perhaps we skip some stones or make castles in the sand. We lunch in a little organic cafe. We hire bicycles to wheel us around the island, following the coast the entire way, stopping only to drink a fresh coconut or pineapple juice. We head back to the beach to finish up yet another novel. We meander back to the hotel room, have another cold shower, put on our best clothes (the best meaning the least wrinkled from our backpacks). We walk back along the water, searching for happy hour deals and barbecued fish. We sit by the crashing waves, drinking arak out of water bottles, marvelling at the stars and the swells of the ocean and the fortune in our lives. We retire to bed, eager to start it all again, eager to experience another day in this peaceful place.

Street Art Of Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The days of Indonesia are heaven, filled with shopping in the markets for ornate masks and chunky rings, eating chicken with pineapple and bananas, drinking cold Bintang beers at night, walking alongside lush green rice paddies, motorbiking through cloud-covered mountains, sampling delicious Java coffee, playing with monkeys, and laughing as hard as my sides will allow before they split.

I only have eleven days of my adventure left, or at least this leg of it. We are going to spend those days on the Gili Islands off of Lombok, scuba diving and swimming and soaking in as much of this paradise as we possibly can.

I say it in every post, but really, oh really, I don't want it to end.

The Problem With Buses

From Jaisalmer to Jodhpur, India

There was this bus, the infamous bus with the crazy horn. There was also the night-bus I took from Vientiane to Phonsavan which blared Lao music for the solid twelve hours, or the night-bus in Malaysia on which the lady behind me would not let me recline my seat. There was another night-bus through Thailand where the driver and his friend chatted obnoxiously the entire time. There was the bus through the Philippines where they crammed twelve people in a eight-seater, or the one in Mexico that didn't even give me a seat, but made me sit on a cage full of chickens. Most recently I took a very uncomfortable bus across the island of Java where I was squashed into the middle seat at the front, with a (broken) air-conditioning unit at my feet and a wobbly gearshift at my right. All in all, sometimes travelling is really difficult and really uncomfortable, especially by bus. Sometimes the music or the bus or its patrons are incredibly loud, sometimes it is too hot, sometimes it is too cold, sometimes one of its tires goes flat. And, without fail, it is always late to arrive.

But sometimes you see really amazing scenery. Sometimes you meet really cool people. And sometimes, if you're extra lucky, there is a person by your side that you adore, and that makes everything okay, that makes everything bearable.

My Favourite Photo

Kathmandu, Nepal

My travelling partner asked me the other day, "What is your favourite photo that you've taken on this trip?" The question is a difficult one to answer, because in the tens of thousands of photos I've taken in the last year there are so many I love and so many that remind me of some great times on this great adventure. This one, however, of a child at a religious ceremony at Swayambhunath Temple in Kathmandu, sprung to mind right away. It is one of my favourite photographs.

Comment with a link to one of your favourite photographs that you've taken, and I'll send you a postcard from Indonesia.

Made By Hand

Agra, India

I am sitting now in the city of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, enjoying a Bintang beer and enjoying the cool night air and enjoying the person with whom I'm sharing this all with. Yesterday, our first day here, we explored the town and indulged in some delicious food, mostly the famous (and famously greasy) nasi goreng; today we woke up at the crack of dawn to visit Borobodur, a huge temple an hour from here. The temple was beautiful, intricate and immense. We circled up it slowly, fancying ourselves like all those who climb it to reach enlightenment.

At the top, we were approached by a group of schoolchildren who wanted to interview us as part of their final English exam (being interviewed by schoolchildren is quite a common occurrence when travelling, it seems). They asked us about our plans for Indonesia and about our home countries: "Where are you going next?" "What are you most excited for on your holiday?" "Can you tell us about animal husbandry in your country?" (Answers: Mount Bromo and then Bali, diving in the Gili Islands, ummmmmm cows?) They also asked us about famous temples or other such landmarks in our native lands. And this is where I find countries like Canada differ so much with the countries I've been visiting; we really don't have famous man-made landmarks the way that other places, places with such deep history, do. Being such a young country, Canada's landmarks are almost all of the natural variety. We simply don't have huge temples that date back hundreds and thousands of years.

I was struck by this same observation when I visited the Taj Mahal in Agra a few months ago - there is nothing like it in Canada (though one could argue there is nothing quite like the Taj Mahal anywhere in the world). I was overwhelmed by its beauty, its size, its history, by its fame but also its mystery; it was one of the top highlights of my travels. I was transfixed.

I've been fortunate enough in my life to have seen some of the most renown and wonderful man-made sights our world offers us: the Taj Mahal of India, the Pyramids of Egypt, Stonehenge of England, the Great Wall of China, Schwedagon Paya of Myanmar, the Eiffel Tower of France, Teotihuacan of Mexico, the many wats of Thailand and Laos, the many churches of Spain and Russia and Italy and beyond. I'm so glad I've been able to add Borobudur of Indonesia to this list, and I would definitely recommend it if you ever find yourself on the island of Java.

So yes, we're off to Mount Bromo tomorrow, and then we're taking a ferry to Bali a few days after that. I only have three weeks of this adventure left, but I'm glad I'll be spending them in the sun and the sand and the sea.

The Sweetest Things

St. Kilda's Famous Vanilla Slice

Melbourne, Australia

I am sitting once again in Kuala Lumpur after over ten days in the picturesque Perhentian Islands, which are in northern Malaysia. There was no internet, no roads, no hot water, often no power, and I loved every moment of it. We passed the days reading, writing, lying on the beach, swimming, snorkelling, eating, and sleeping, and our nights were spent sitting under starry skies lit only by fireworks and the occasional bonfire. In short, it was paradise.

Tomorrow we are headed to Indonesia, for more of the sweetest things in life. I never want this to end.