How I found gratitude on my own

Looking through my old photos to find the herring I wrote about in my last post, brought a lot of memories to the surface. Every picture triggered a story I wanted to share with you. Remembering the fun times I had was enough, but sometimes these stories had a point to make too.

This simple photo of a coffee was one of these.

The morning after the first time I got high, I went to a cafe near Amsterdam Centraal. I had made the classic rookie mistake of taking too much at the start and ending up super stoned, but in my defence, I waited nearly 2 hrs after eating my space cake with zero effect. They recommend waiting 30 minutes, so you can't question my patience.

My high was as fun as I'd hoped it would be, at least what I remember of it, but I was alone, and I'll admit, felt a bit like a loser for it... Thankfully being stoned makes that easier to deal with.

The night before, wandering Haarlemmerstraat, trying to work up the nerve to go into a coffeeshop and buy a brownie, was the first time that I really felt like I was missing out on some unique experiences by travelling solo. Sure, I'd wanted company before then - by that time I'd been abroad a little over a month - and I missed the friends and family I'd left behind, but I really relished the challenge of backpacking alone too. No compromises, no quarrels, total freedom.

What also comes with that is no assistance or support. There's no one to brainstorm ideas of what to do next, or to sound off feelings about where you want to go and how. There's no corroboration or collaboration to validate that the choices made are the right ones. I find it so much easier to be calm when I'm with calm people, because I reflect their mood, and in turn they absorb my zen. Without that, I internalise, mull, and stew over the smallest details, which leads to anxiety and indecision. I can freeze on the spot in the middle of a crowded street, not sure whether to turn left or right, and terrified about the consequences of either, completely aware that the decision I have to make is not at all as apocalyptic as it feels.

When I'm by myself, there's no shared laughter when things get a bit ridiculous. And I realised, as I entered a dim smokey coffeeshop on my own and pointed at a herbal cupcake for one, that I really wanted a friend or two at that very moment, to giggle about how silly the whole situation was. (My journal later reads in shaky handwriting, "There are actual Jamaicans in here!")

Still, there's something to be said for letting the situation dictate the proceedings. Just as you cannot walk through an ocean, the environment does have a fair bit of control over the journey you take. When push comes to shove, you just have to work with what you've got. Go build a boat. Go enjoy the water and swim. What you shouldn't do is stand on the beach and get frustrated. There's no doubt some things are more fun to do with company, but if you simply don't have something you want, instead of moping about it, or willing it to appear by constantly wanting it more, it's far better (and in the long run, actually easier) to accept things for what they are, pick yourself up, and keep plodding on.

I have since surprised myself by learning that I can be extremely easygoing on the road. (I still make plans, and I'm slightly more neurotic about those plans when I'm by myself than when I'm with friends, but I also like to follow my nose and not have to consult anyone about making sudden detours.) I have also proven myself that I can make friends out of strangers - not just random people to share space with and help me disappear into crowds, but really good friends; souls who I probably wouldn't have met if I hadn't dared to venture outside without a social condom to protect me.

So that's the "never say no" and "live life to the max" and "go single girl solo travel power" part of this post. But I've kind of always been into that. What is it about getting away that has such a hold on me? And when am I going to get to the point of that coffee photo?

Mostly, I think what I always savour by travelling alone is the mental relief that physical distance and solitude gives me from the pressure of expectations I feel when I'm home. Doesn't really matter how much of that stress is real, imagined or projected, because I suffer it all in the same way. And until I learn to let go and find space from it internally and figuratively, finding literal space helps a great deal. I have a slight hang up about whether this is a cowardly form of escape... But deep down, I firmly and truly believe it is a healthy thing to do - to separate, detox from distractions and routines, refocus, and pay attention to the immediate surrounds and the present moment.

Going to that cafe the morning after the night before, took some time. I'm slow first thing, especially when I have to make choices and plans by myself. I was further hampered by what was either a pot hangover, extreme sleep deprivation, or both. But I finally made it out to that cafe, which I remember searching for specifically, for reasons I can't recall; perhaps good reviews on TripAdvisor. Cosmic irony stepped in to ensure that the cafe was severely understaffed, so on top of all of my own self-imposed delays, I waited a really long time for my coffee.

What struck me was that I really wasn't fussed by the wait. I empathised with the barista who apologised to me for the inconvenience while she rushed about like a headless chicken - I noticed this because normally I'd only be thinking about myself, and feeling critical and judgmental.

Not that morning. Instead I sat quietly at the scrubbed wooden table, my journal untouched, and stared mesmerised at the warm amber hue of the sunlight as it slanted across the tabletop, like transparent gold. It occurred to me how beautiful mid-morning sunshine is, and how I never noticed it before the way I seemed to be noticing it now.

I briefly wondered if I was still high, because I was really transfixed by that sight. Then I realised it didn't matter. I felt really happy. I'd had an amazing night, one of those first-in-a-lifetime type of experiences. I hadn't waited for anyone to give me permission to do it, or to babysit me through it. It was a night I would always remember - me, the straight laced, straight A's, rule follower, spacing out in the lobby of a Dutch youth hostel. Then, because of how light and liberated and joyous I felt, I would always remember that following morning too.

I almost couldn't believe it. Look at where I was! I was in the Netherlands! A whole world away from home where I'd been sheltered for 20 years. All the doomsday warnings I've been given about being a female backpacking around Europe alone were proven to be wrong, because I was totally, utterly, blissfully okay. I had coffee (eventually), sunshine, and myself. And it hit me - that's all I needed. Suddenly the many years of exams and grades and good behaviour I'd spent so much time and energy stressing about seemed not only pointless and petty, but stupid and wasteful. Where had I been all this time? Had I even been living all these years?

My time was running out in Amsterdam, and this was the point when I usually began to make lists of things to see and do, and weigh up the things I could tick off against the things I would miss, followed by estimations of how great my traveller's remorse might be. Exhausting, right? That's just how my brain operates. But instead of running through all the sights and activities offered by that great city in my mind, my thoughts wandered back home, to Sydney and university and jobs and family and so on, and what I would do with myself when my holiday was over. The thought of it made me feel queasy, and distracted. Suddenly, I really couldn't be arsed worrying. It wasn't relevant to what I was doing right then and there. I deserved my break. I would worry about my career in the all-too-near future. The present moment had no room for worry. Neither my family nor my college education had a place in that cafe with me. To continue the metaphor: I was not going to force myself to walk through the ocean to reach an impossible horizon. I wanted no boat. I wanted to swim in the water and feel the waves against my skin and soak my hair and laugh, just floating and bobbing about, and enjoying the sea.

It occurred to me that this was gratitude. I was, for the first time ever, 100% genuinely grateful: for all I had, for all I was, for all I'd done, for all I'd been given and was a part of. I was grateful for the waitress for running around to give me coffee. I was grateful for the sun for shining when it could have rained. I was grateful for my holiday for giving me time to linger over that morning. I was grateful for the edibles I'd had the night before which brought me to a state of heavenly relaxation. I was grateful for myself for being there, and having this beautiful moment all to myself. I didn't know gratitude was something you could discover, but there I was, discovering it - and according to recent blogs and articles espousing the latest mental health crazes, gratitude is "so in" right now. However I was a few years ahead of the fad, and I'm proud of it.

Gratitude is no joke, people. It is the real deal and if you discover it, I hope you experience the same joy and cathartic calm I did. If you haven't yet, be patient and it will come. For me, all it took was a cup of coffee, and a bit of sunshine.

Have a great weekend everyone. I'm thinking of you and wishing you peace. Love Bernie x

Travel by food

The popularity of food-related travel media - and vice versa, travel-related food media - is huge. I feel like it's really boomed in recent decades, far beyond the traditional settings of the home and the restaurant where food was once singularly based.

And how could it not? Food is so deeply and intricately tied into our culture, our history, and our identities. Once you start looking into different cuisines, you cannot avoid the influence of place and time and people. You know that old saying, you can escape on a great adventure with a good book? I would say the same with food.

Food celebrities like Anthony Bourdain, Rick Stein, and Luke Nguyen (I think he's slightly less renowned on the global scales but still very famous and one of my personal favourites), have made it trendy and edgy by travelling to exotic places and eating local fare on the streets side-by-side with the people that cooked it. Nowadays you can visit entire museums or join city tours that have only food as its main feature. But at its core, I feel that food at its most authentic and revealing when it is humble and homey.

To reference yet another favourite food celebrity of mine, Nigella Lawson, through food you can travel without ever leaving your doorstep. Even in your own kitchen you can evoke flavours and aromas that are interwoven with strong memories and even stronger emotions. To drop another quote, this time from the beautiful film, The 100 Foot Journey, "Food is memories".

I have definitely had many of these evocative moments - when the smell of something delicious bubbling away in a pot makes my head dance with images from my childhood; or the sight of a familiar packet label in an international deli makes my heart leap with a long forgotten but suddenly recalled holiday experience.

These moments have always struck me as really profound, but also really joyful. I think this is common. However I suspect it is especially acute in people like me who are super greedy hedonistic obsessed foodies (a majority of my friends may raise their hands now!)

I'd like to share more of these moments, starting with one I had recently.

I had an IKEA day with my sister and brother-in-law last weekend. It was more of a research & recon trip, so we made very few actual purchases, but walked out with plenty of snacks from the shop.

I was excited enough already with my 500g bag of Daim toffee chocolates. It was without fail my favourite candy while I was in Europe, and always very strongly reminiscent of my Belgian friends because they were the ones who introduced me to it in my first week there. I spent a lot of time lounging on their couch helping myself to handfuls of Daim's off their coffee table! Once I started I couldn't stop. They are addictive!

We also got a couple of jars of marinated herring from the IKEA shop. My brother-in-law laughed because he would never be caught dead eating something like herring, and he thought I was a real weirdo! As an adventurous eater, fish is hardly the oddest thing I've ever tasted. My sister chose it specifically to remind me of my time in Amsterdam, which I thought was a really sweet gesture.

But I had no idea just how much I would enjoy the experience of eating herring again, with herbs and seasonings so redolent of a faraway place where I haven't stepped foot in years. I was bouncing on my tip-toes as I speedily prepared myself a plate with the herring centre stage.

In the crisp of winter my family tends to crave hot noodle soups and chunky stews. This is so not the kind of meal we're used to eating for dinner... toasted rye bread slathered with salted butter, generous portions of the herring, and a few raw and cold pickled sides and sauces.

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure I nearly had an orgasm sliding those soft tender slippery herring fillets out of the jar.

It took me right back to Amsterdam, standing by the canals, spearing those small pale morsels one by one and letting them melt in my mouth; enjoying their subtle aftertaste briefly, before spiking it with a crunchy sharp sour onion or pickle.

I believe the mark of a truly enveloping dining experience is when you don't feel the need to do something else distracting while you're eating: talk to someone, watch tv, read a book, enjoy the view. Don't get me wrong, these are all fun things I love to do while eating, and sometimes they are exactly what makes it divine, like when I'm absorbed in great conversation with friends around the dinner table, or admiring a gorgeous sunset with wine or hot chocolate. What I'm talking about is those moments when I have lost sense of everything but the food right in front of me, and the taste and texture of every single bite - that's when I'm really connected with it in a way that is more than merely a meal. I'm not being hippie or new age at all; you know, we've all had those moments where could do nothing more but close our eyes, sigh, and chew - because it was that good.

And this herring was so good. It wasn't as melt-in-the-mouth as the raw herring I had in Amsterdam, because it was marinated and therefore would have cured and cooked to a firmer bite over time. Still, I couldn't help but go straight to my computer afterwards to search for the photos I took 4 years ago, to help me relive the food, and the happiness it brought.

It took me all night to find this snapshot but it was so worth it, for the feeling of instant travel it gave me. It's like culinary apparition!

A much younger me, and totally shameless tourist, so keen for that herring I asked the stall holder to take my picture with it!

Food is easily my favourite topic ever, and I would love to hear all your fond travel-related food stories and memories! Please comment below 😊 Happy eating!

Don't wait

I think often about how this blog never turned into what I hoped it would be... i.e. an evocative, photo-laden, detailed, running chronicle of my travels in real-time as I backpacked solo across two continents.

But that doesn't mean I still can't share some stories from my travels. Yes, it all happened a long time ago, but I honestly think about travelling every day I'm home, so it is as fresh and precious to me now as it was then. For some reason, I keep these thoughts to myself, as if it isn't relevant to my life now. Totally wrong of course! Let me explain.

I follow a group on facebook called Girls Love Travel. The title of the group is pretty self-explanatory. Some of the posts and comments are really insightful, and even enlightening. The community perks me up when I'm feeling low - and I feel low often, what with my bleak 9-5 working routine of going to and from the office in the chilly winter darkness.

One GLT-er (as we call ourselves) recently shared a story about her father who is quite ill, and asked the group for advice on how she can take him on one final trip overseas to fulfill a long-term dream, while still being mindful of his health. Her love, thoughtfulness, generosity and compassion for her dad, who was an avid traveller in his younger days, and now as an older man is basically confined to a motorised chair, really touched me. While many people would host a lavish dinner or buy a fancy gift to show affection, she chooses to give him a memorable experience, perhaps one that will end up being his final hurrah in a lifetime of memorable experiences.

It was inspiring in a way, but mostly just jerked me back into perspective, and was very validating. Why? Because while I long to travel every day, I also doubt myself every day. I constantly wonder if it would have been better for my future if I didn't spend most of 2014 & 2015 overseas, but instead spent it sitting at a desk chair as I do now, making $$$ and padding out my CV.

Nevertheless, I do not regret it. Not one bit. And stories like that GLT girl's story really give me confidence that I made the best choice for myself at the time, and that I have to trust that the results of it will carry through forever. Because some day I may not be able to do it again - and if I had waited, I may not have ever been able to do it at all!

It may not have been the right decision for everyone, but it was the right decision for me. And the benefits are subtle, which is why I question my actions all the time, but they are there nonetheless, and I will learn to see the value of it as I grow. Like I did when I read that one simple warm heartfelt facebook story.

So while this blog is never going to detail my travels back then as they happened, I can still recount, retell, and relive, with the added serenity of retrospect. And I think it will serve as a reminder, not only to myself, but to all of you, that what you get in a day's travel, you keep for a lifetime - and beyond! When we tell our stories to our friends and our kids and our grandkids, we inspire them to be curious and exploratory and adventurous and proactive, which is a great gift.

Seriousness aside: I will also admit that I am a terrible perfectionist. When I was on the road, I never made the time to throw out a word or two, slap on a pic or few. That's ok, I was busy living!

Now I am back, I still feel like I need so much time to sort through old journal entries and photos and blah blah, and then plan and design each post. And it does. But if I just tone down the inner critic, it really doesn't take long to click "Publish". Honestly every time I flick back through my old pictures, I get such a rush of memory and emotion and sensation, that I think this is a really rewarding, satisfying process I've been denying myself for too long out of laziness.

So don't wait. Don't wait to travel if you want to and you have the means to right now. Don't wait to do anything, actually, if you want to and you can. Even if that's just sharing some lovely stories on the internet.

Here's my photo of the mesmerising ocean of temples in Bagan, Myanmar. I wanted to stand here forever, just gazing peacefully and in wonder at that vast expanse of green, sprinkled with dabs of ancient brick-hued history.

I was in Myanmar for a month over July-August 2015, exactly 2 years ago now. It has been the most challenging and also one of the most intimate experiences of my travels abroad so far. My confidence behind the camera skyrocketed in this mystic country and it helped me dig a bit deeper into every encounter I had. You can see some of it on my instagram.

Not only that, I made wonderful connections, and even collected a motley crew of adopted international "family" members that I journeyed with for a few weeks. Now that we are worlds apart again, I should probably let them know that I still think about them, and how much they mean to me, and how much our travels together changed me.

What would you do right now if you decided not to wait for it? Would love to get your comments below!

Have a great night folks!

My first time travelling, but not the last

I've been travelling around Southeast Asia for 7 months. Really. 7 months!

I recently returned home to Australia and am now capable of fully admitting that I failed spectacularly in my goal to update this blog regularly while I was on the road. I am sorry. I have always been sorry about this. Usually my problem is I have too many things to say, and in my painful, circular attempts to gift you the blessing of conciseness and precision, I give up, red-faced and puffing, mashing my face into the keyboard, and ultimately not saying anything at all. But let's face it, I also made a commitment to choose life whenever it was a choice between living and writing about living. So in that, I won.

Still, I do want to share with you my thoughts, hopes and feelings. All of which have intensified in importance and meaning in my past 7 months away. So thank you for your patience as I try, yet again, to blog.

Reflecting on this past year, I have to say, I made it! Who knew I'd last this long? From May 17th to Dec 11th, I visited Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. It's a magnificent Google map waiting to happen.

Far from sating my travel urge (I am trying to avoid use of the word "wanderlust" here) by living out of a 60L pack for almost a year , I have merely whetted my appetite to see more places, meet more people, and taste more food. And while I still wonder about how and when my completed university degrees and a successful career will collide in a bankable fashion, I worry about it less than I did before I left Sydney with a ticket to Saigon in my hands. Because I can now, completely and wholeheartedly, own the truth that my true interest lies in travel, and that I'd like to make it priority for at least the next 5 years. If a career happens along the way, whoopee. But come on, choices, people! We can't have everything... although we try. So we have to think about what matters to us most, right now.

(More on this later.)

For now, after realising I have actually invested over 11 months out of the past 24 in travel, I think it a reasonable outcome that at some point, while adjusting to my return to a developed first-world country, drinking tea made from delicious diarrhea-free tap water, I thought back about the first time I truly "travelled" - because I consider myself a late bloomer to the jet-setting, backpacking life. The answer would seem obvious - it was recent, right?

In fact, the result was surprising.

My first travel experience

I remember the first time I travelled outside of my hometown alone, and I mean "travel" in a way that I'd consider more than simply going from A to B. It made an impression.

I was 19. I'd gotten a summer job with a minerals exploration company. I was very excited because I was one of the earliest in my university cohort to find industry-related work experience. Almost everyone else in the company was an experienced older Caucasian male geologist, with greying hair and thick Australian accents.

View from the train window.

Every weekend for 3 months I left the sleepy outer-city suburbs where I grew up, and took a 4 hour train journey to a place further away from the ocean than I'd ever been before. There I spent my days traipsing about the rugged Aussie countryside in steel-capped boots, digging around in soil and rocks, to the operatic tune of heavy machinery. It was a culture shock for me, and a great learning experience.

One morning when I woke up early (not by choice, come on, I was 19) and crawled out of my little metal donga to get ready for work, I went outside before I met my workmates and took a moment to take in the pre-dawn.

Our work camp, consisting of nothing more than a few "dongas" or mobile tin buildings.

The first light of dawn.

An outback sunrise.

This was a new site we were investigating just for a week, and it was my first true-blue taste of The Outback. We were 600 km inland. The ground was as red as rust. The horizon was a dead flat thin black line rising to ever lightening heights into a diluted navy sky still dotted with a few exhausted stars. It was as close to the desert as I've ever been; cold, quiet, and empty. I was totally alone. Yet I remember thinking to myself, "I don't feel lonely. I feel peaceful."

Later that day, the heavens opened up and flooded the dusty, parched earth with torrential rain that lasted barely an hour. It was beautiful. My workmates and I waited for the mud to drain away and took photos of a giant mushroom that exploded out of the ground.

I love a sunburnt country. My country.

Sudden shroom!

This experience was the first time I travelled. The disappointing thing is, I didn't realise it until now, simply because the way I got there was through work. I saw it as only work. Which means I lost years of appreciation for what I am capable of. It took me so long to understand that there are alternative ways to make my dreams happen.

Work. Study. Family. The ultimate triad of life priorities, and they are good ones indeed. But when you've got other interests like travel, and you're not told how you can combine them with the other things on your list, you can feel like you've spent forever waiting to pursue that dream.

All I can say is, don't wait. Find a way. It will be worth it. You will surprise yourself.

~ ~ ~

Hope you enjoyed my return post and my photos! I dug through 6 years of archives and countless feels to find them.

If you like what I write (and forgive me my lack of discipline) please share!

Perhaps you could even

Finally, and most importantly, I hope you have all had a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!

"Where you from?"

Those who remember the early days of instant messaging and chat forums - ICQ, Yahoo, MSN - will remember a/s/l, the universal way to begin a conversation. Age? Sex? Location? The question had become so common that it had to be abbreviated in that time-pressured era.

I think the travelling equivalent - no acronyms yet, sorry - is "What's your name? Where are you from? How long are you travelling for?" New names are hard to remember when there's dozens of them. As for details about itineraries, they are frighteningly similar once you're in the same part of the world. Travellers often have similar routes, similar time periods on their visas, even similar budgets, so the places we see, and how long we spend on the road, can sometimes be almost carbon copied. It's not unlikely to meet the same faces in the same cities, or to find mutual acquaintances. In fact, most of my plans come from fellow travellers' advice along the way.

But where are you from...? Everyone wants to know what country you left in order to visit this one. I'm someone with Asian heritage travelling within Asia but having grown up in a Western country, and it seems no one knows who I am. I'm pretty sure many people in my situation can relate.

People think I'm Chinese. They think I'm Korean. They think I'm Japanese. No? So they start to zoom out. Thailand. Malaysia. Myanmar. Still no? Those good with accents might guess the UK or New Zealand. Haha, sorry, no, but good guess. Okay, got it! American! The ultimate trump card. Nope, actually, I'm Australian.

Oh... but you look like one of us.

That's the usual response I get from the locals, anyway. My features are quite Oriental, and there are a lot of Chinese tourists in Southeast Asia, so people have gone so far as to start speaking to me in Chinese. Sometimes they look quite proud of themselves, thinking they'd identified my ethnicity and my language in one fell swoop, only to stop when I've given them a dumbstruck look and said loudly and clearly, "English." The disappointment on their faces is like a curtain.

Especially from touts who have their sales line down pat. Touts who want to sell me a taxi ride, a motorbike ride, a massage, a mani pedi, a boat tour, dinner in a restaurant (or if I'm with a guy, marijuana - regardless of the laws or how close the nearest law enforcement officer is). They shake their heads in confusion and momentarily forget they were trying to make money off me. They have to reassess their approach to potential "yellow squinty-eyed" customers.

Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's annoying. It's a good reminder to not be too heavy-handed with our assumptions. As important as first impressions are, one cannot judge based only on the outside. This is something we should all know and follow if we want to live in a peaceful world, but travelling helps to really hit it home.

It's gotten a bit better now that I am in Vietnam, my country of background. I hide my ability to understand basic Vietnamese sometimes for my own safety, and once it is finally revealed, locals respond either with outrage that I didn't announce myself as a fellow Vietnamese immediately, or with amusement because I clearly look like a weirdo foreigner. Occasionally they will use me as their agent in trying to rip off another tourist, which is not nice at all, being put in an "us or them" situation.

Other times they just rattle away to me in Vietnamese and are pleasantly surprised that I can respond, but then they quickly and excitedly go beyond my very simple grasp of the vocabulary, grammar and slang, before I can squeeze in the words "xin lỗi, em không nói tiéng việt giỏi" (sorry, I don't speak Vietnamese well). Sometimes they slow down, but if they're a bit older, they kind of sigh and gently let it go...

Luckily there's a word for me here. Việt kiều. Vietnamese living overseas. When they ask me why I know Vietnamese, I bust out that phrase and that opens up smiles and a bunch of questions. Which country do you live in? Where you born there or here? Where are your parents from? They're curious about me. Suddenly I fit into a category.

I can't help but think about how my life would have been different if my family hadn't left Vietnam. I'm sure many việt kiều wonder the same. What kind of person would I be? Would I be a proper Vietnamese girl? Or would I constantly be seeking ways to go against the grain? What's normal for me back home lies outside the box here, but not as far as one might think. Vietnam is an edgy country, and I see change happening all around me. The thing is, my family didn't migrate to seek a better fortune. They were refugees fleeing post-war Vietnam. If my family hadn't left, I may not have been born, period.

I love Vietnam already, and I want to live here, nor would it be hard to find work to facilitate that. I'm sure I'd discover a lot of myself here in the mountains and coasts and forests of this diverse, colourful country. Yet meanwhile, my heart still roots a big part of itself in the dusty red earth and dry scrub of Australia, my beloved old continent. I can't imagine not returning to those sandstone headlands or eucalyptus woodlands after too many years.

So when someone asks me "hey, miss, where you from?", it doesn't really matter whether I answer "Australia" or "Vietnam", because, well, I guess I'm both.

I'm a việt kiều, mate!

Hello. Goodbye.

These are two words I hear a lot when travelling. Hello, and Goodbye. I've gotten better at using them, but never become quite used to it. How can I, when I've met so many awesome people I've had to see leave all too soon, or be the one to leave them? It can be hard to let go, to not worry that you'll never share a laugh or a story with them again. But the fact is, the world is a big place full of way too many amazing souls in it, ready to cross paths with yours.

After 5 months on the road (yes, it's been that long, and I haven't posted since the beginning of my trip! You really must stop believing my blog-related promises), I've said hello to a great many faces from a great number of countries. Each and every time it's been worth the bittersweet risk of having to say goodbye afterwards, because the company they've given me, the memories they've gifted me, the lessons they've taught me, are everlasting and truly life changing. I never quite know who will make a mark on my travels, and sometimes it's been quite unexpected. Generally, a good rule to follow is not to expect anything from anyone, and people will surprise you.

I've heard some say they don't like goodbyes. If they can, they just silently disappear. I can't think of a worse thing. To just be cut off like that. As hard as it is, a heartfelt, genuine, sometimes teary goodbye is something solid I can hold onto. It's closure. It's my last chance to tell them, maybe for the first time, or maybe as a millionth reminder, how much they meant to me, and the difference they made, no matter how small. I think that's a beautiful thing. It makes me brave enough to step out of the doorstep the next time.

Current location: Nha Trang, Vietnam.
Current situation: cough-y, phlegm-y, blocked nose-y, toilet-y, and clearly emotional.
Next stop: Quy Nhơn, Vietnam.

On the road from Nha Trang to Lắk Lake.

My first time with EasyRider, another fresh way to travel around and see the country.

I promise (dun dun dun!) to post some more updates soon.

The Tales of the Travelling Pants

Howdy! It's been a long time since I posted. I have a good reason for that! (honestly)

I actually drafted this ages ago when I was running around like a headless chicken preparing for my trip to Southeast Asia. I was madly organising visas, buying travel insurance, booking flights and accommodation, not to mention getting a tonne of vaccinations. Seriously, I am like a human pin cushion! After all that, thankfully I still had some money left to actually travel.

So I wanted to write you (tearily) before I left, but instead, you find me typing this in Vietnam! I almost can't believe I've already been on the road for 2 weeks! While I take some time to absorb the happenings of the past fortnight, and the fact that my feet are once again on foreign soil, let me tell you about my Travelling Pants.

I present to you the aforementioned:

My Travelling Pants. Dey be every where mon!

I bought this pair of jeans in the first week of my Europe trip last year. £11 at an ordinary Primark in London. Bargain.

I didn't think they'd last very long, but as the guy at the beginning of Aladdin said, don't be fooled by its commonplace appearance! They went with me nearly everyday for the following 4 months as I walked, plane'd, train'ed, tram'ed, bus'ed, and climbed (a lot of cathedral towers plus a couple of hikes in Switzerland) my way around 8 countries in western Europe including the UK.

Berlin wall. Oh my god, yes, I'm finally uploading photos from my Europe trip last year! And it's nice to remember that Berlin is where I started this blog. :)

Sometimes they were too much for me, like in hot Barcelona when I decided to lounge on the beach in something shorter while checking out cute guys with my friend M (to our dismay, there weren't any). Sometimes they weren't enough, like when I was shivering in cold Lucerne and my friend A introduced me to delicious roasted chestnuts, yum!

Sometimes they were too tight, like when I ate that amazing duck in Nice. Sometimes they were too baggy... nah, that never happened.

Paris at night, with a view down the Seine River towards the hauntingly magical Notre Dame Cathedral.

So besides my booty, these jeans carry a lot of memories. There was that time I was having a horrible day in Antwerp: a man kicked me for no good reason (not even kidding), and then when I sat down on the wharf near the river to compose myself, the sun-scorched wooden pier bleached the colour out of the bottom. Wow, they got off to a bad start in Belgium. I even remember that time in Ghent when my friend's adorable frisky kitten Billy accidentally pulled out a thread near my left knee with his sharp little claws. After that, every time I fingered that loose thread, I remembered cute little Billy.

But that was more than made up for by the many hours I spent in them wandering the cobblestones of beautiful Bruges, the canals of picturesque Amsterdam, and the alleyways of Florence. I wore them when I ambled all the way down the Unter den Linden in Berlin, from my hostel in the Mitte to the Tiergarten, a walk that was longer than I expected. I wore them again in Paris when I walked from the Notre Dame Cathedral, all the way down the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, to the Arc de Triomphe - another long urban trek. Then again in Milan, when my friend M and I diagonally cross-cut the entire city in search of good aperitivo (calories we totally earned!)

Cinque Terre and the beautiful Italian Riveria. I'd never seen olive trees before, and there they were along the coastal hike from Vernazza to Corniglia. Kind of cool to think that almost a year later I was picking olives in the backyard with my cousins.

Still, that wasn't enough for my Travelling Pants! Even after I returned home to sunny Sydney, they wanted to keep on moving, although the adventure was taking its toll...

So I wore them for 3 weeks in Melbourne, sightseeing and feasting with my friend D around the city, laughing my ass off at the International Comedy Festival with a crew of awesome mates, and visiting my cousins.

My beautiful cousin M suggested my Travelling Pants deserved a post all of their own when she saw how hard they'd been working:

Yup.

Uh huh.

All the thigh chafage they've prevented! There's no way I can repay that debt.

Now that I've properly recognised what they have done and what they mean to me, I can gracefully retire them to the rubbish bin. Ain't no charity is gon' need them. I pushed them to their limits and now it's time to herald their farewell with the attention and respect they are entitled to.

It's funny how the things that mean so much to us can be so unassuming in and of themselves. Just a cheap pair of jeans. One among hundreds on the shelf at a chain store. And yet they've been everywhere, man. With me.

Flinders pier. D and I visited the scenic Mornington Peninsula on a day tour while we were in Melbourne.

As I embark on another long backpacking trip through a new continent this year, I think it's helpful to remember that the things/people that matter most are not measured by how much money we spent on them, but by how much time we spent with them. And it seems like the experiences we value most of all are the ones that we absolutely didn't see coming!

One of several picturesque vineyards in Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, Australia.

Thanks for stopping by to adieu my Travelling Pants! grin emoticon It's already taking me some time to sort through my photos and stories from the past 2 weeks in Vietnam. I know first-hand that it's super hard to stay updated while I'm constantly on the move, but I'll try to do a better job of blogging this time!

With that promise made, here's a bit of a visual preview of my current journey through Indochina:

Bùi Viện: backpacker central. One of the busiest streets in bustling, hectic, chaotic Saigon. Haven't yet figured out if I love this city or if I'm stressed out by it, but it's certainly got me captivated!

As always, much love to all of you, my readers, and please share your thoughts in the comments below. Backpacking solo can get lonely and it'd be great to hear from all of you!



I wrote this in Cà phê Ngôi Nhà Số 7, a beautiful cosy little caffeine-infused secluded retreat, hidden down a long driveway off Ngô Thời Nhiệm street. I won't go so far as to review it since Tom has already done such a good job, except to say that it's probably my favourite café in Saigon, and I've come back 3 times in almost as many days. If you're in town, make sure you pay it a visit - and bring your charger! You'll want to stay a while.

It only takes a smile...

In preparation for my trip to Southeast Asia, I've been reading the Lonely Planet. I don't tend to overplan my holidays or rely solely on guides, but I find them a good starting point when I'm feeling overwhelmed by all my travel options, not to mention a great source of inspiration.

The other day I read a testimonial by one of the contributors saying that one of the things she loves about Asia is the friendliness and the generosity of all the people she met, regardless of whether they were locals or fellow tourists.

It made me think of what I have loved most about my experiences overseas so far, and I realised I'd have to agree with her wholeheartedly. Sure, the food always a huge thrill to me - I get a big kick out of trying the local cuisine and it's always a highlight (sometimes the goal) of my trip. The beauty of the landscape and the natural environment is also another major plus that I hang on to afterwards - how could I not, when every continent has its own unique character?

But by far, the kindness of strangers and the fun of making new friends sits at the top of the list of highlights for me. Before stepping foot in Europe, I was pretty worried about the possibility of becoming lonely - in a big unfamiliar place by myself, not knowing who to trust, would I alienate myself? Would I come across as unapproachable, or fail to engage if people did try to connect?

Very quickly my anxieties faded away as I realised how easy it is to meet people while travelling. Whether it's a super nice roommate in a hostel, or a friendly couple sitting at the table next to you in a restaurant, or a chatty ticket handler at the museum - travelling brings people together. Fellow tourists are just as keen as you are to make connections, and they're up for anything. Locals hear your accent and ask you where you're from, want to show off their hometown.

Without even trying I found myself chatting away with randoms in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona. It was a very pleasant and welcome surprise! Sometimes if we got along really well, we forged deeper memories together, going on walking tours, visiting the beach, shopping, sightseeing, drinking. But even if we didn't, I still got a huge sense of the warm and fuzzies every time I got an unexpected smile from a stranger, and something about it alleviated my social fears. Each and every positive encounter I had boosted my spirits, no matter how brief it was. It helped me reach out to the citizens of whatever city or town I was visiting, and also to be more open to them reaching out to me, even to welcome me. It's a nice feeling, right?

And that's the beauty of travelling - it's more than just seeing a new place. It's about putting myself in the shoes of someone else from another culture, and being a part of their community, even if only for a little while.

It's fascinating thinking about how a physical space can shape the lives and mentalities of the people who occupy it - and I'm certainly not talking about deep philosophical reflections here. I'm just talking about the subconscious appreciation travelling gives me - appreciation for all the countless things in the world I haven't experienced yet, and the little kudos I can't help feeling because I had the courage to seek new experiences while others either can't or won't. Most importantly, it gives me an appreciation for all the things I left behind back home and never noticed before.

The perspective and the gratitude it gives me is so much more worthwhile than that great wine I had or how pretty that building was (though those things are rather awesome too).

Have you had similar experiences meeting new people on holiday? What does it give you? I'd love to hear your stories, please share below. smile emoticon

Back from the dead

I feel like I'm going to be one of those bloggers who constantly apologises for late posts!

I'm a perfectionist, a procrastinator, and I feel like I'm never home. Doesn't help with the regular posting business, does it?

I think the solution to my blogging tardiness is also the solution to my life: to stick a Post-It on my forehead that says "Stop Worrying" - preferably backwards so I can read it in the mirror when I look at myself!

So before I can overthink even this very post I'm typing right now, I'm just going to bring Vacuuming On Holiday back from the dead right now and update you on what's been happening!

Firstly, I was very kindly nominated for the Harmony & Peace Award by my favourite and most inspirational pow-wow blogging pair, Michelle and Anne over at Crochet Between Worlds. This happened way back in December last year! How neglectful am I? What a way to thank them for their consideration! frown emoticon To be slightly fairer to myself, I did immediately draft - not one, but two - entries in response! So what happened to them? Well, the fact is I'm so new to this, I couldn't even name 7 blogs that I regularly read, let alone 7 blogs that fit the profile! I spent so long fussing over this task that I just never got around to actually doing it (story of my life). My goal for this week is to do justice to my Award, and get it and my nominees loudly and proudly posted up for all to see and share - so watch this space!

Secondly, I've recently returned from a mammoth non-stop 6 week jaunt in the Australian countryside working as an Ecologist! I'm very lucky I landed this job and I'm pretty thankful for all the cool, talented, amazing people I worked with and all the new things I learned. I handled beautiful and fascinating animals from lizards and snakes to birds to frogs to bats. I spent quiet moments in glorious ruby red sunsets admiring the unique outback landscape. I missed home and family and friends and the fun of the city, not to mention I was pretty exhausted by the end of it! But it was a memorable, rewarding, valuable experience, and I hope more like them come my way in future.

A cute little free-tailed bat I helped rescue - basically just another day at the office. This species Mormopterus is one of my personal favourites. I love the way they hide their eyes behind their ears!

Thirdly, after many fears about delaying my entry into full-time employment, I have decided to take the plunge and go on another long trip - this time to South East Asia! It's something I've always wanted to do, many years before I ever stepped foot in Europe. I've sought advice from everyone under the sun, and while opinions have at times been very divided, the general consensus - and what I've ultimately chosen to live by - is that now is the time to do it. Everything comes with a trade off. Maybe I will have to fight harder to land a good job when I come back. Maybe it won't come as easy for me as it would for someone who works straight after graduating from university. But it won't be impossible.

The thing with going on adventures is that afterwards life inevitably settles down. More importantly, I know I'll regret it if I don't travel now, before things like kids and bills and climbing up the career ladder become a terrible reality. Happiness happens in the present, not in the future.

Sawn Rocks, a beautiful feature of the Mount Kaputar National Park in northeast NSW, one of the places I visited while I was working out bush. The organ pipe-like rock columns were formed naturally, just by the way the lava cooled. I told you geology is awesome.

Anyway, wish me luck! I'm nervous but excited! I feel like the decision to travel and explore the world is a really relevant one for many people in their twentysomethings; it comes up constantly in conversation. It's a stage of life when everything seems ripe for the taking, and there's just not enough time or money to satisfy all the things we want to do. It's when we all want to start making a name for ourselves in our jobs and have really satisfying, fulfilling work. But we're also young, and fit, and our feet are itchy. And even though we know we're not old, we're also starting to look ahead to when we will be. What will we be doing with our lives when we're  in our 30s, 40s, 50s?  How do we reconcile all these desires with our responsibilities?

Do you know anyone who's had to make a big (and seemingly life-changing) decision like this before? Maybe you've had to make one yourself. Please share in the comments how you tackled it! I'd really love to hear from all of you.  

To end this on a lighter note, I dined at world famous Japanese Restaurant Tetsuya's back in December with acquaintance and travel journalist Paul Oswell from Shandy Pockets. I was very lucky to get the impromptu invitation, and didn't quite realise the enormity of the experience until I was already there! I mean, of course I'd heard of Tetsuya's, and I knew it was rather fancy, but I didn't know just how fancy. He and I were both rather unprepared and therefore pretty blown away by it all!

I was super chuffed to visit the shiny kitchens, which was impressively organised and controlled - not at all like the steamy, hot, noisy, chaotic back stage scenes of five star restaurants you see in movies. We even got to visit the cool and quiet dessert kitchen, where a lone pair of calm and collected pastry chefs prepared the many small pretty sweet things in peaceful solitude.

Tetsuya's behind the scenes - making marvellous delicious things.

Paul has finally released the review of our amazing degustation meal and fine dining experience, and you can check it out here.

That's it for now. Catch you again soon!