Well, I'l be honest, this is a kind of retrospective look back on what we've done so far (and I hope it doesn't come across as really cliche, and patronising and sickly), as today, for probably the first time, the realisation that we now have under two weeks left of our trip has really hit home. It's not in any way that we're not wanting to come back - of course we miss our parents, friends and brothers and sisters, as well as sausages (proper sausages, not little orange things full of gristle), beds with duvets, (not blankets full of bed bugs and the now familiar, and admittedly, quite comforting, fusty smell), pillows with no lumps and pillow cases, and being able to cook our own food without having to pay for it every evening. But would we have changed any part of it? Not a chance. Would we have done anything different?No way. But why? When we consider that we've both been really ill - shonah really really ill, and have been on some horrible journeys, eaten some absolutely foul (but enlightening) food, we have both had such an amazing time that we wouldn't change one thing. Not even eating that fateful curry in India that gave me gastroenteritis, or Shonah eating that doomed Tuna Sandwich, which resulted in me having to pull her off the floor, unconscious, of the dirtiest bathroom floor in India, or even having the migraine which crippled me with blinding pain for 36 hours in Sri Lanka. Not even losing our backpacks as the train we arrived at the malaysian border on left as soon as we got off to sort our visas. Why? Because it's all been a massive part of the trip, and these, as well as the beautiful beaches, trekking amongst 8000 metre peaks, seeing the burning ghats in Varanasi and not to mention the dozens of people we have met, some of whom I hope we will keep in touch with for a long time to come, are just as valid memories, and in a way, high lights of our trip. It was easy at the "bad" times to think, "oh shit, this can't get any worse, why are we even here?", but in retrospect, every crap day, was proceeded by a day where we saw something that we'd never seen before, or had only seen as pictures in books and they completely blew us away. In a sense, making all the shit that we'd been through the day before, the haggling for train tickets or whatever it was, was definitely worth it.
Again, this probably all sounds sickly and typical traveller waffle, but we both agree that it is the best thing we've ever done.
Working 70 hour weeks in Halfords? Well worth it! Missing out on a night in the pub to save a few quid? Not even a chore now!
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