So Many Numbers, So Many Favorites!

Nearly 4 months (16 weeks and 2 day or 114 days) later, we are finally home. Now that we are home and trying to get back to reality and settled into our life, we have been asked many questions regarding our favorite places on our trip.

Our trip emphasized quality over quantity – Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, Tibet, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and England. This means if you count Hong Kong and Tibet as separate countries, our journey took us to 10 foreign countries on 4 continents (as well as coming within 500 miles of Antarctica). In order to accomplish this, we flew on 25 flights (11 international, 12 domestic, 1 scenic and 1 helicopter), 2 overnight cruises, 9 day cruises and stayed in 47 different hotels in 45 different cities (not including London and staying with family). We had to pack for 4 seasons, travelled in 6 different time zones, paid with 11 different currencies with various exchange rates, and couldn’t speak 7 of the languages. WHEW!

After getting through all those impressive numbers (yes it took a while to figure all that out), we started thinking about some of our favorite things throughout our time abroad. Here is what we came up with.

Our favorite…:

City – definitely Buenos Aires… beautiful, clean, fun, culture… everything!

Country – we had the best time in Chile – the scenery, horseback riding, hiking, food, wine and culture were all amazing. Cambodia comes a close 2nd for me but while I’d love to visit Cambodia again and would recommend it to everyone, I would love to have a vacation home in Chile… I could go back again and again…

Food – Raj and I disagree about this one – I liked Vietnamese or perhaps Thai food the best, but Raj preferred the food in China though I didn’t particularly enjoy all the oily sauces (we do agree that Tibet was the worst food – I will not be disappointed if I’m never confronted with Yak meat again).

Airline – after all those flights we have some clear preferences. we might have a tie between LAN and British Airways – if you took LAN’s media and BA’s seating and food, you’d have the perfect airline.

Beach – Cape Foulwind in New Zealand – the surf was incredible and we saw seals and other lovely wildlife – and we were all alone (except for the 1 random person we ran into who took the photo on the left) – so nice!

Hotel – Park Hyatt Saigon was my hands down favorite until we stayed at the Intercontinental Bangkok (our last hotel) – that was pretty darn nice too; it even had a humidor bar in addition to its rooftop pool and amazing gym. It was a very nice splurge to finish off Southeast Asia.

Non-hotel accommodation – Helena’s home in Futaleufu with the long pastures, rivers and horses – she was also an amazing cook and they introduced us to mate. We stayed in their guest cabin that they had built themselves to be like a huge tree-house. It was fantastic!

Week – horseback riding in Futaleufu, Chile – it simply can’t be beat

Sunrise– the sunrise on the cruise in southern Patagonia where we woke up to the sound of of seals splashing and the red glow of the sun was so lovely- not only the nicest of the trip, but the nicest I can remember ever.

Sunset - with Brian and Eleanor in Dunedin when we saw seals and penguins was gorgeous and we had so much fun.

Culture – Cambodians were lovely and we enjoyed the unique dancing and authentically friendly people

Sky – Tibet – we were clearly closer to it than usual and the color and the clouds were spectacular.

Temple –I can’t even count how many we saw and many were nice, although at some point they all blend together. Angkor Wat, however, was quite extraordinary.

Shopping/market – Hong Kong night market, with a very close Beijing as second with its snack street.

Currency/exchange rate – Cambodia…. and they accept US dollars as well as Riel

Nightlife – ok, this one is obvious - BA

New friend – Romi is best entertainer (in BA) and Fabian in Futaleufu – though Fabian isn’t returning our emails :( maybe he didn’t feel the same way – really sucks because we were hoping to plan another trip with him).

Transportation – Hong Kong was the most impressive and easiest to use.

Local Drink – we tried many local beers, teas, mate, pisco sours, local wines. I still crave Stella Artois from BA (it just tastes better – can’t explain it, must be the water it is bottled with there)

As you can see, for the most part, Raj and I agree on the answers; we also agree that this trip changed our perception on travel as a whole. We had wanted to travel to places that we might have a harder time travelling to in the future when we have kids. Now that we did this trip, we realize that while some places will surely be easier with kids, no place will be out of reach. Furthermore, we have completely changed perceptions of what a “long flight” or a “long drive” entails.

A huge thanks to all of you who have followed our blog (by the way, at the time of posting, you may be interested in knowing a few more numbers – we had 1645 number of page views and 756 visits in 19 countries!)

Also, a special thanks to my parents for unexpectedly watching our crazy dogs and making sure our house was ok – we still can’t believe how much you were willing to do, and so graciously. With your help, we were able to explore the world without worrying about what was going on at home.

We leave you with a few of our favorite quotes regarding travel:

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

“The world is a book and those that do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

and my favorite: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Travelling Thoughts

I think it is widely accepted that international travel, especially for an extended period of time, has the tendency to change people, even if in only small ways.  Obviously, one of the reasons for this is that you witness the way other people live and have the opportunity to compare many differences in lifestyle to your own.  Intrinsic to this comparison, is a greater appreciation for many of the comforts of home.  While I have undoubtedly gained a deeper understanding, appreciation and respect for the Chinese culture, travelling for an extended period of time in this Asian society has made me miss and appreciate some things from home more than others.

Apart from the obvious things like missing my dogs (and I could go on and on about the specific things I miss about each one of them, but i will spare you this whining and instead discuss at length with Raj), and chatting with my mom and dad without worrying about the connection, and working out with Amber, and being able to call my grandparents without worrying about the time difference, and my bed and pillows… you know – all the things anyone misses, here are some of the specific things that I’ve been thinking about:

• I miss Western etiquette.  This one is tricky to discuss because I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like diversity or appreciate different cultures, but certain things must be stated:  when a plane lands, it won’t kill you to let people file out of the plane according to where they sit- pushing your way to the front will really not save you that much time, especially when nearly everyone else is doing the same thing.  Also, and this one is the worst, Chinese people tend to clear the phlegm from their throats and spit it out anywhere and everywhere and it is simply disgusting.
• I miss and appreciate non-smoking restaurants and hotel rooms.  Our favorite moment illustrating this was our first hotel in China where we had booked a non-smoking room. When we entered the room, it smelled a bit funny – not really smoky but more like how it would smell if they were covering it up.  Then we noticed there were two ashtrays in the room, so we called the front desk and said we had requested a nonsmoking room and the response was that we did have a nonsmoking room  We replied that there were ashtrays in the room and there was a bit of a language barrier but their response was that if we wanted ashtrays (in our nonsmoking room) all we had to do was call housekeeping.  (sigh)
• I miss shopping and cooking for myself. I miss salads and hummus and veggie burgers. I miss Trader Joe’s and Costco.
• I miss Sunday brunch with the Ramga’s after a Saturday night shaking our booties.
• I appreciate Western toilets and their being toilet paper in stalls.  Although I’ve gotten rather good at squatting and quickly learned to always carry my own toilet paper, I must say that after a week in Tibet, I will even appreciate dirty gas station bathrooms in the future.
• I miss being able to dress up – at this point I always feel grubby in my travel clothes – really looking forward to shopping in London – like as soon as we get off the plane!
• I miss and appreciate having my own washing machine!  It’s bad enough having to wear the same clothes over and over again, but either washing them in hotel sinks or finding a laundry mat that seems to always get the stink out but also adds stains is getting really old.  Other than my bathing suit and sundress, I don’t expect to keep one article of clothing that I brought with me.
• I miss driving and understanding the rules of the road.
• I miss being able to listen to music and sing along – always using headphones with iPod sort of prevents this.
• I appreciate free press – the news and information in general is censored in China and it’s very frustrating when you know its happening.

Despite these things, with only 3 weeks left of our trip, I feel a renewed sense of adventure and excitement over our trip. I don’t feel as homesick as I had been feeling for a few weeks and am finding it easier to live in the moment. ironically, Raj seems to being feeling homesick for the first time, which actually just makes me happy because I finally know that we feel the same way and are in it together.  We are heading to a beach in Vietnam which makes it feel more like a relaxing vacation and I am super excited to veg-out, read my book and get a tan!  A couple days of down time will be great to make sure we are re-charged for Cambodia, Thailand, London and of course, for coming home! 

Yes we are leaving for a 4 month world tour

We are less than a week away for an adventure of a lifetime and I can't wait. For some of you this trip might be a little bit of a surprise, so perhaps let me provide a quick background on how we got here.

As some of you know Spunlogic got acquired by Halyard Capital in March 2008. The Agency was renamed Engauge and I remained with the agency based out of Atlanta. I approached my executive team with a request to take a 4 month Sabbatical a few months ago and was lucky enough to get my request approved. I have to thank the executive team and all my fellow colleagues at the agency for this opportunity. A number of you have worked hard during my role-off transition to take on my duties. Thank you!

So back to the 4 month world trip. As my first post I'll leave you with an image of the world map and our route (above). The countries we'll be visiting are Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Tibet, Mainland China, Japan, Thailand, England, and back to Atlanta.

Make sure you follow our blog as we travel around the world in less than 4 months:-)