Four months until the backpacking journey begins
Welcome to mine and Rachel’s travel blog. We’re four months away from taking one of the most exciting and frightening steps of our lives. Currently we work in an office where the only stimulation comes from fiddling with your seat. We’re both government statisticians. Enough Said! The job isn’t too bad and we know that we lead privileged lives but we can’t help but ask ourselves if this is all there is to our existence. To wake up five days a week, dreaming about the two days we get off, isn’t how we imagined our lives to be and unlike the majority of people who share our offices and our opinions we’re willing to do something about it.
Our first stop is sunny Thailand for the beaches and the parties. After drinking and socialising too much we’ll have a few tranquil weeks in Laos and Vietnam to recover before we begin working as teachers in South Korea for a year. The truth is that for the 2 months or so around South East Asia we’re going to do nothing but relax, laugh, and party. Very cultured eh?!After 2 years of monotony in our office I think we can give our selves that.
After South Korea our next destination will be the home of Lao Tzu and the Great Wall. We’ll try and see as much of China as possible and as soon as we start to dream of Cuban maracas and the Inca trail we’ll whisk ourselves off to Latin America. After that…well, who knows! At some point during all this we’ve got to get married; which is probably a more frightening prospect for me than anything we do travel wise but in reality I couldn’t ask for a more perfect fiancée.
Ultimately, we don’t plan on returning to England. The world is a big place and we want take as much of it in as possible before deciding where to settle. Despite our plans we’ve promised to remain flexible throughout. If things are going badly, we’ll find somewhere else. If we find somewhere we love then who knows we might decide to stay. It’s going to be difficult leaving our family and friends behind but we’ll see them again and at least they’ll have free accommodation if they fancy a holiday where we are.
In preparation for our departure we’re still in the process of getting our vaccinations and applying for teaching positions in South Korea with EPIK. I’ve spent the past 2 years learning Spanish and the past year learning French. Not much use in South East/East Asia but we’ll be fine in South America and French Polynesia. I plan on writing about my learning experiences in the two languages and adding links to courses and websites that have helped me along the way so stop by regularly if your student of either language.
We plan to update this blog at least every two weeks with information on anything we think might help other people who are planning on travelling as well. In the meantime you can see Rachel and I looking all smart at one of our friends weddings (photo top right). I’m the one on the far left who looks nothing like Count Von Count and Rachel is the second blond from the left in the green dress. Also, I’ve included a picture of Bran and Kate. Bran’s my best man, and not the ‘better man’ as he likes to tell everyone. Look at his double chin. Actually it’s a very small chin, not very manly at all.
