Thoughts and reflections on 5 1/2 months of travel

I’ve been back in Australia for about 4 months now and thought I might pull together a bit of a summary of the trip for myself and maybe some reflections or favourite moments before I forget everything.

Already a lot of the details are fading and while it was a lot of effort at the time, I enjoyed writing the blog and I’ve enjoyed going back and reading bits of it here and there.

So.

Overall the list of countries I visited (in order) and estimated time was:

1. China - 5 days (Beijing only)
2. Mongolia - 3 1/2 weeks on a tour
3. South Korea - 8 days
4. Japan - 4 weeks
5. Russia - 4 weeks
6. Estonia - 3 days
7. Finland - 3 days
8. Sweden - 3 days
9. Denmark - 3 weeks
10. Poland - 3 weeks
11. Norway - 8 days
12. Iceland - 10 days
13. USA - 8 days
14. Taiwan - 1 day

What would I do differently next time?

I moved around too much.  I was rarely in the same spot for more than 2 nights and I don’t think I stayed anywhere more than 5 nights.  I look at the countries I was in for only a couple of days and I would have been better off spending more time in one place I think.

I did enjoy the moving around thing as well but if I do it again I will spend more time in fewer places I think.

What did I learn about myself?

I don’t think I learnt anything new.

Probably just reinforced a few things.

• I’m not a brave person and I care too much about looking like a dickhead - even in a country I’ll probably never be in again.
• I can be pretty lazy and I’m not very adventurous.  I hate planning so I generally played it pretty safe and didn’t venture too far out of major cities for the most part.
• I enjoy long distance train travel!
• I prefer cities though they all tend to look the same after a while.
• I enjoy the finer things in life.  I wouldn’t have done well on a strict budget.  I liked to eat out at nice places and have a variety of good food and drink good beer.
• Conversely - my standards for accommodation aren’t as high as I thought!  I’m happy to sleep in a hostel!  

On Hostels / Guesthouses

I intentionally chose to stay in Hostels / Guesthouses most of the time for the social side of things.  But this didn’t really happen as much as I thought it would.  I expected them to be a lot more social with people meeting and going out doing things together but that wasn’t really the case in most places.  Maybe I chose the wrong places but a lot of the time it was people staring at their phone or laptop and chatting to people at home or figuring out what they were doing the next day.  I was guilty of that as well at times but they certainly weren’t the social hubs I expected.

Still - I did meet a few people through them so the potential exists … just need to be a bit more aggressive about it next time.

Favourite countries (though this does change from time to time as I think back on different things):

#1 - Japan.  This was the place I spent the most time so it’s perhaps not surprising it was my favourite.  The country is just fantastic.  It has a great mix of the modern and traditional, it’s clean, efficient, has a great spread of things to see and do, amazing food and friendly people.

#2 - Iceland.  The natural beauty here is just absolutely spectacular.  I will be back one day in summer to drive myself around the northern part of the country because I just didn’t see enough.

#3 - Russia.  The scale of this place is just huge.  They don’t do anything small except maybe those townships in the middle of Siberia.  I think I expected Russia to be this very militaristic anti-Western place with border checkpoints everywhere.  Naive I know.  What I definitely didn’t expect was how everyone I spoke to seemed to have a dream to go to America.  Which shouldn’t be unexpected I guess but it was.  

Most unexpected place?

Poland.

Poland was not on my list to begin with.  I ended up there through some last minute plan changes and I thought it was great.  Such a rich and interesting (and traumatic) past, I kind of expected Poland to be this run-down post communist shithole but it wasn’t.  Sure - there were parts of that - but overall it was a beautiful place to visit and I’d love to go back.

Anywhere I didn’t enjoy?

Stockholm.

I probably didn’t really give it much of a chance but I didn’t really think that much of Stockholm.  I think I was a bit scared off by my first real brush with Scandinavian prices so I tried to skimp and I don’t think I did myself any favours.  It just felt extremely touristy and overpriced.

Also - camping in Mongolia.  I’m just not into camping.  The gher’s were fine but tents really aren’t my thing and I don’t like having to dig a hole to go to the toilet.

Worst drivers?

Mongolia.

The traffic in Ulaanbator was crazy and the drivers were just ridiculous.  I suppose you’d have to be to survive there but I don’t know that I’d brave the roads.  And of course once you get out of the city there’s hardly any roads to speak of which may explain why they don’t really understand how to use them.

Favourite experiences (in no particular order):

1. Sumo Grand Tournament in Tokyo - this was fantastic!  I was there the whole day from the earliest bouts to the grand final and I was not bored.  It was a fascinating experience and I’d happily go back and see it again.  The ceremonial aspects were really interesting, the athleticism of the wrestlers was excellent and the speed of the matches was amazing!  Recommend to anyone!
2. Trans-Siberian Express - 8 days train ride from Vladivostok to St Petersburg (with a few stops along the way).  Russia is just so HUGE.  I would have thought that sitting on the train staring out the window would get boring but it did not.  You just get into the swing of it, watch awesome scenery along the way and have fun chatting to your bunkmates (if you can!).  I’d totally recommend doing part of the trip in third class before it gets decommissioned but do pay for a bottom bunk!  You can’t sit upright on the top bunks so you’re at the mercy of the person on the bottom bunk wanting to be awake when you are.
3. Trans-Mongolian train - changing the wheels on the whole train between China and Mongolia.  This was a fascinating experience!  Because they have different track sizes in Mongolia and China they have to lift up every carriage and change to different sized wheels.  All while the Chinese military has taken your passport and locked you in the train.  A bit scary but totally worth it!  Make sure you go to the toilet before they do it though as they lock them during the 3 hour process!
4. Dog-sledding on Svalbard - what a cool experience!  Harnessing up the dogs, having to kick through the snow, falling off and being dragged along until the dogs stopped, then playing with the puppies at the end.  Do it!
5. Eating whale.  I had whale 3 times while I was away and I enjoyed it each time.  Would do again.  #beefofthesea
6. Great Wall of China.  I went to one of the closer restored sections and it was damned hard work (#fatnotfit) but it was a spectacular day and I’m really glad I did it.
7. The Vasa Museum in Stockholm - despite not really liking Stockholm the Vasa museum was awesome.  They basically found a 300 year old ship buried in the silt in the Stockholm harbour and brought the whole thing up in nearly one piece.  They’ve built a museum around it.  Awesome.

How much money did I spend?

I have no idea.  I don’t want to know.  I’m scared.

What’s next?

My next big trip is going to be South America and Antarctica.

I expect I’ll probably do a month in Columbia, Chile and Argentina then some sort of Antarctica cruise.

Taipei - one day only!

Taipei - one day only!

I’ve been pretty slack!  I’m making this post about 4 1/2 months after I got back to Australia so I wonder how many details I’m going to remember!  I also didn’t have internet access while in Taipei so I won’t have my google location history to help me out.  Here we go.

Since I couldn’t get a direct flight to Australia from Seattle I decided to try and extend my holiday by one more day and do a decent stopover on the way home.  So I ended up with an 18 hour stopover in Taipei.  Woo!  Back to Asia!

I wasn’t planning anything too ambitious for the day.  Mostly just an opportunity to hit some of the major tourist sights and walk around a bit between flights.

I only managed a couple of short naps on the plane but I was feeling pretty good and ready to do some walking.  Stashed my bag in a locker at the airport (not an interesting airport) then found a train into the city.  

The Taipei airport has these free tours you can do if you have a stopover over 6 or 7 hours I think.  You sign up, they stick you on a bus with a tour guide and drive you around to a few of the major tourist sites before bringing you back to the airport.  I had originally considered doing one of these but I would have had to hang around the airport for 3 hours to jump on the earliest tour and it would have only lasted half the day anyway.  Pretty cool idea though.

The flight arrived so early that nothing was open by the time I got into the city so I just started wandering aimlessly around embracing the sights and smells of a populous Asian city.  It was interesting being back in a part of the world where I didn’t look like everyone else.  Travelling through Russia, Poland, Scandinavia and the USA I got used to being just another white dude but I stuck out like a sore thumb here.

I ended up wandering through some random parks and stumbled across a few random temples.  Was a nice change!  I’d been templed out after the first half of my trip (between China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan) but I was now suffering church fatigue after going through northern Europe and a few temples were a nice change.  There is something about the temple style of architecture that I generally find more interesting than a church or cathedral.  Pokemon Go is still alive and well in Taipei and I saw heaps of people loitering around some pretty cool buildings and artworks and ferociously fighting over gyms.

One area I walked around near the river had this huge concrete wall with giant steel doors scattered around and labelled an evacuation gate.  I’m not entirely sure what they were supposed to be evacuating from but it was cool and imposing at the same time.

Jumped a bus out to the National Palace Museum which was pretty good.  Absolutely packed with Chinese tour groups which made it difficult to see some of the really awesome pieces but they had some great examples of scrollwork which I really love.  I reckon if I ever buy my own place I’ll be investing in some Japanese or Chinese scrollwork (copies of course!) as artwork.  I’ll need to find something that looks good but also has meaningful words.  Or maybe I’ll commission something that looks good and is actually a dirty joke or grievous insult to the person looking at it.  That could be amusing.

Went and checked out Taipei 101 which was the tallest building in the world at one point I think.  Awesome looking building that is supposed to be reminiscent of bamboo I believe.  I did not end up going to the top because the viewing level was covered in clouds for the entire time I was in the area.

There was some sort of free concert happening a couple of blocks over but the terrible Asian pop music scared me off before long.  Do you suppose Taiwanese pop music is called T-Pop?  The Koreans have K-Pop and Japanese J-Pop.  Stands to reason right?

In a shocking twist I managed to stumble across a small craft beer bar in some back street I was wandering around.  Score!  15 taps or so and I was the only Customer so I steadily worked my way through some Taiwanese breweries which were pretty good.  It’s the same beer the world over!  With the huge variety in craft beer you still mostly see pale ales and IPAs and toasty stouts pretty well everywhere.  There will be a revelation one day that all the craft breweries are owned by the Illuminati and they’ve been running a grand progress to homogenise yet another industry by giving us the illusion of choice!

I was getting a bit footsore by this point and I wasn’t hungry enough to eat so I decided to head back to the airport about an hour earlier than planned, found a pretty good noodle soup full of offal at the airport food court and then wandered around the airport for a couple of hours and tried not to fall asleep.  

I forgot to take a photo but Eva Air has this Hello Kitty themed thing going on in Taiwan.  They have a Hello Kitty plane, with a matching checkin area and gate lounge.  Weird.  But apparently quite successful.

Alas I got no sleep on the plane on the way home either!

Arrived in Brisbane on New Years Eve running on about 40 hours of no sleep and it was great to be home!  Amy picked me up from the airport and drove me over to mum's place and just like that my trip was over!