The grand sum up of my adventure. With maps and FAQs

So it’s over, done, ticked, finished, terminado!

So I’m going to answer some FAQs.

1. Where did I go?
2. What were my highlights?
3. What were my lowlights?
4. Where were my favorite places?
5. How much did all this cost?
6. What was the most fucked up shit I saw?
7. What now?

I’m a strong believer in self reflection and self improvement. Here’s the sum up of all my adventures over the last four months. I’ll start with the geography side. I’ve split it up over two maps. A global map and another map with just Europe.

Global map. Not including Vietnam stops while travelling up the country.

After making the global map myself I then decided for the Europe section it would take me all day to draw a map of my trip in Photoshop. I instead recruited a website to take all of the leg work out of it for me.

Map of Europe. Not including Sail Croatia stops and day tours on Contiki and what not. Starting in London and finishing in Istanbul. As you can see it’s not the nice logical loop of Europe I intended on taking.

So without getting all mushy about it, this trip was fricken amazing. It had it’s highs and lows but the lows weren’t even that low. I was pretty much sick for like two months after Contiki but it was manageable. I didn’t have anything stolen and I only lost maybe three items. Nothing important. I didn’t miss a single plane or bus. Considering the situations I threw myself into, I count myself very lucky on all accounts.

Highlights

People often ask me “What were the highlights of your trip?”. Very tough question. I will probably give a different answer depending on the day you ask. Today I’m going to say my highlights were meeting so many amazing people, rugby 7s at the Commonwealth games, wrangling elephants bareback in Chang Mai…. argh I need bullet points for this

• crossing the roads in Vietnam
• Top Gear motorbike ride from Hoi Ann to Hue in Vietnam
• Living a life of luxury with Simon in Dubai at the Ramada Plaza
• The Nazi concentration camp for reasons unlike my other highlights
• Getting lost in general
• Chilling in the pool at the Hilton in Venice instead of doing the tourist thing
• Two day break from sweating in Switzerland
• Having the front seat in the bus for a 9 hour trip with my amazing bus bud, Julia
• The crazy dance party on the rough seas during Sail Croatia
• Catching my best wave to date on a surfboard in Peniche
• Electric bike self-guided tour of Barcelona with a rad gang of new and old friends
• Brighton road trip with Rosie
• Impromptu rental car road trip to Pammukale with some guys I only met a matter of hours beforehand
• Hot Air ballooning and hiking around Cappadocia
• Oktoberfest (this is right up there). Read more: https://lostploring.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/das-oktoberfest-4-nights-of-debauchery/
• Exploring an abandoned hotel in Dubrovnik (also right up there). Read more: https://lostploring.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/fence-jumping-into-an-abandoned-hotel-in-dubrovnik/
• Gay pride in Amsterdam
• Halong Bay overnight cruise in Vietnam. Read more: https://lostploring.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/halong-bay/
• Cam’s stag du in Brisbane.

Lowlights

Yeah so I got a bit carried away on the highlights list. I will now try to offset all that awesome by also listing my low points.

• Having both my tablet and nice headphones break on my very first flight out of Auckland was a bit rough.
• Karaoke duet with Simon in Chiang Mai (I’m not a singer!)
• Getting stomach pains for three days on Contiki (shouldn’t have drunk on antibiotics)
• My infected toe from swimming with elephants (which explains the above antibiotics)
• Contiki cough
• Letting my man, Krumm, down in Split and not being able to party with him every night (it was probably one of six nights off in my first two months of travelling. The second two months weren’t quite as drinking intense.)
• Spending far too much on food and drinks in places such as London and Paris
• Having that dick in Barcelona ruin our chances to see a Barcelona football game. read more: https://lostploring.wordpress.com/2014/11/12/warning-this-post-has-a-negative-vibe-a-rant-about-a-dick-i-met-in-barcelona/
• Almost dying on the same motor bike trip in Vietnam that made my highlights reel. Read more: https://lostploring.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/closest-i-have-come-to-dying/
• Being constantly sun burnt for like a month
• Being constantly tired and feeling bet up.
• Buses and planes on hangovers.
• Taking valium to try sleep on the overnight bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. It worked but I was sooo groggy the next day.

Favorite Places

So again, I often change my opinion on my favorite stops. Today I’m going to say:

• Barcelona, Spain
• Cappadocia, Turkey
• Split, Croatia
• Chiang Mai, Thailand
• Hoi Ann, Vietnam

Finances

Another commonly asked question is “How much did all this cost?”. Well. I think I’ve got a pretty accurate number. It’s probably actually plus or minus $1000 of what I have but I’m at least close to the fact. So here’s the numbers:

Total trip cost including flights and insurance: $19,339nzd

Total trip length: 120 days

Average daily cost: $161nzd/day

So yeah. That’s a lot of money! However I’m pretty happy with it, money well spent. Although that daily cost sounds high that includes my flights. My flights to and from Europe were about $1000nzd each way and I was taking flights within Europe and Asia very regularly. I didn’t really hold back financially and did everything I really wanted to do. After all, it’s not often you find yourself in these amazing places with such great opportunities. I saved a lot of money through staying with friends and staying in Hostel dorm rooms. Food sucked a lot of money but I did do everything short of actually cooking to try save money. Unfortunately eating efficiently usually took priority. I did strategically take the Contiki tour through the most expensive countries too. Leaving the cheaper ones for me to explore more thoroughly on my own.

Fucked up shit

If I was you, asking myself something, then I think I would ask: “What was the most fucked up shit you saw?”. Well. There was of course the daily crazy stuff every traveler sees when they visit places, but there was a few that really stood out.

• Seeing a lady having the shit kicked out of her by another lady in a street in Bangkok after she was caught stealing a passport. We watched all this unfold over breakfast. Read more: https://lostploring.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/thailand-loved-it/
• A few thousand euros change hands in a matter of minutes with street hustlers in Paris
• Ridiculous amount of people cheating on their partners
• Traffic in Vietnam. Everything about it is the sketchiest shit I’ve ever seen. I saw a lady get knocked off her bike and no one ever stopped to see if she was okay (I was in a bus).
• In that same bus in Vietnam we were at a gas station. A guy who is filling up his motorbike starts smoking a cigarette by the pump. The gas station attendant goes to tell him off. They have an argument about it and eventually the attendant gives up and walks off, leaving him to smoke by the pump. I’m like 15 meters away in the bus which is also fueling up.
• Old big boats ramming each other in Halong Bay to make room for themselves at docks.
• A dude on our Sail Croatia cruise drinking another girls vomit
• Gypsy market in Paris
• New Zealand losing a 7’s game at the Commonwealth Games
• The amount of alcohol Krumm would drink
• Furnaces used by the NAZIs to cremate people
• Chasity belt with a big steel dick on it in a torture museum in Prague. Actually most things in that museum could have made this list.
• A crowd of drunken backpackers booing the couple banging at a sex show in Bangkok. I thought it was weird as everyone was into the countless other indecencies that went down but regular (well extremely athletic) sex seemed to get everybody all worked up.
• Drink prices in the Amnesia club in Ibiza. €44 ($70nzd) for two beers and two waters.

Another miscellaneous mention from my trip is Simon’s two FB posts about me which I found quite amusing.

This is what we did instead of the overpriced white water rafting. Hair of the dog.

We had a lot of condoms from stuffing our pockets full of them from a condom dispenser in a gay bar in Glasgow. This is not a good representation of my normal accommodation by the way. This is very deluxe.

Also a bonus FAQ that I doubt anyone would ever actually ask. “What blog post do I think is not getting enough attention?”. Good news, it’s possibly also the shortest. Check it out: https://lostploring.wordpress.com/2014/06/24/making-my-first-contiki-impression/

What now?

I consider myself pretty well traveled now. I have spent more time in the USA than New Zealand over the last three years and have managed to visit 31 different countries. In this year of 2014 I visited 5 different continents. Part of that due to my job as a Field Service Engineer where I was paid to travel the globe. I also haven’t seen winter since 2011.

So. Where to from here? Today is January 15, 2015 so I’m quite late with finishing off this blog as my trip ended on October 22nd, 2014. On the bright side I can now fill you in on what’s next. I have been in New Zealand since my trip ended, which has been amazing. I also got ankle surgery done which left me couch ridden for the greater part of two months.

So my plan now is, quite predictably, that I’m going on another adventure. On Tuesday I have a flight to Singapore where I will spend three days. Next it’s back to London with a two year work visa in search of a new career and a new life. It’s going to be interesting getting reacquainted with winter. At least I’m only catching the end of it and then it’ll be another European summer. I’m quite nervous about whether I’ll like it and getting a good job there, but now is the time to try.

Wish me luck!

If there is anything you would like to know about my trip, anything at all. Then please ask. Perhaps I can help you plan your own exciting adventure. Or perhaps you have your own adventure you can share with me?

Did you really read the whole way down to here? Or did you skip down? If you read it all then I’m very happy about that! Show some love with a blog like below, It’s been a while since I’ve scored once of those.

Over and out. Peace!