First let me start by discussing the name of my blog, and the picture at the top of this post which has an important connection to it.
Like most people, I enjoy a good quotation or motto to sum up how I am feeling - I am also well known for quoting song lyrics during conversations (and that's why I have tried to use these as blog post titles). My secondary school had a latin motto on it's base which was 'Ad Posse, Ad Esse' which means, 'From possibility to reality'.
I thought about using that as the 'tagline' for this whole trip, but inspired by another hobby of mine - I came up with what I thought was a more fitting title.
As a huge fan of sports, and particularly American ones, I have been hooked on the ESPN: 30 for 30 documentaries which were first created in 2009 to celebrate the American sports network's 30th anniversary. The series began with thirty films covering a wide range of top stories from the last three decades, and range from events which I was vaguely familiar with - Michael Jordan's retirement to play minor league baseball; through to events I knew very little about including Nelson Mandela's involvement with the South African Rugby Team leading up to the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
It really is a fascinating series for anyone who has an interest in sport.
With my 30th birthday on the horizon, I decided to steal the '30 for 30' part of the title as I guess this part will now become a major part of my story as I travel around Asia, but I still needed a title to go along with this.
Eventually after bouncing a few ideas around, I decided to go back to the Latin theme, and borrow something from one of my favourite video games - Uncharted. The story centres round a character called Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter who travels all around the globe looking for famous ancient civilisations such as the world of El Dorado, and the lost city of Shambhala. Not that I am quite doing exploring of that magnitude, but it's tie in with travels and exploring the globe really drew me in when the story began to discuss an artefact Drake discovers - a silver ring which is inscribed with the phrase 'Sic Parvis Magna'. The game later explains that this particular Latin phrase translates to 'Greatness from Small Beginnings'.
I thought it was particularly fitting, not only because my surname is in the wording, but also because what I hope to gain from this trip is a greater understanding of the world around me, and particularly sections of Asia which have only begun to develop as tourist destinations in the last thirty years. I'm also intending this to be a 'great' trip which I will look back on with fondness in the future, and give me some extremely fond memories about the grand old age of thirty.
Just to make sure that purpose of my trip is continually in my mind, I wear a ring engraved with 'Sic Parvis Magna' around my neck, and will take it with me wherever I go.
As
previously mentioned, and as many people may already know, my first visit to
Asia came in 2009 when I spent a calendar year working as an English teacher at
a private language academy in Suwon, South Korea. I felt that my experiences in the Far
East were very positive, and having always wanted to go travelling and explore, I needed to find an adequate opportunity to do that.
I theorised
during my stay in Korea that I would return home for a few months, save some money and then be
able to come back purely as a tourist, but as it turns out, despite trips to
Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia in between, I have only been able to live out
my theory five years later.
Asia is a continent that has always fascinated me; From it's bright lights, unfamiliar
customs and spectacular scenery, I thought that coming to the Far East for an extended
period of time would be something that was beneficial to both the mind and the
soul. Some of my favourite elements about living in Korea were the feeling and freedoms of being away from home, totally immersing myself in an entirely different culture, and
enjoying experiences that very few others would be fortunate enough to have in
their lives.
Each and
every moment in Korea created a new thought, a new memory and a new understanding
in my mind, and having become a bit of a world tourist I set about making plans
which would allow this to continue.
As
the master of preparation.... (Yes, me) I started plotting and scheming about a
journey around different parts of the world way back in 2010....
Being in Korea gave me a taste for exploring some more of the country, but also
just generally taking advantage of any opportunity which might come along
allowing me to travel to multiple countries. This was something I was actually wanting
to do on my year out after finishing 6th Form college,
except that was more speculative and without any financial backing whatsoever.
I felt like
I had a few good ideas about where to go, I was intrigued to explore more of
Korea, particularly the other major cities such as Busan and Daegu, but as ideas came springing into my head I started widening the net. Japan
has always been a country that has interested me so I was definitely intending
to include places such as Tokyo, Sapporo and Osaka in any trip I was going to make.
Not for the
first time in my life, I then started to get ideas above my station and thought
that I could potentially manage to squeeze more out of a long period of
travel in Europe, and I came up with this list of European
countries in no particular order that I theorized would become part of my trip…
After looking
at the list of countries I figured that I would actually prefer to travel to
Asia for a long period of time, because I thought about the practicality of
taking a weeks holiday to say Holland for example, against going to Vietnam for
a week and thought that at some point in my life as most of Europe is within a
closer proximity to myself in the UK that Asia would be the place to go.
Reverting back to my original idea of travelling Asia, I then did
some more research and came up with the original list (1.0)…
It was still
pretty sizable, and at this point I had to start thinking about how long I wanted
to go for, and the number of places I'd want to hit in each country. Logically I also had to think about saving money, and when I eventually started making headway with that, I felt like 2016 was a more realistic target (it was at this point I considered a name change of the whole project to '30 for 31 - The Trip You Should Have Taken last Year').
I toyed with the idea of travelling for a full calendar year, but once I came to my senses. My realistic hope was that if I saved up enough money I could be away for about three to four months. Eventually somewhere in the planning process, three months increased back up to six months, and as my saving power started to increase I managed to set myself a realistic target to save and move everything forward to 2015 so it coincided with my 30th birthday. This would then would allow me to reward myself with a fantastic present to commiserate the fact that I was getting a year older.
I toyed with the idea of travelling for a full calendar year, but once I came to my senses. My realistic hope was that if I saved up enough money I could be away for about three to four months. Eventually somewhere in the planning process, three months increased back up to six months, and as my saving power started to increase I managed to set myself a realistic target to save and move everything forward to 2015 so it coincided with my 30th birthday. This would then would allow me to reward myself with a fantastic present to commiserate the fact that I was getting a year older.
I felt like despite the length of my proposal I was much more focused with this list than the European one, but again I
had to make some culls deciding that the Maldives, Dubai and India would make
my route even more confusing, and eventually I came up with this list which
became version 2.0…
Version 2.0
was actually in some sort of order, in 1.0 I was just spit-balling ideas. I
actually came up with a 1.1 version which put the countries in almost reverse
order to the way they are shown above, but figuring that the fewer flights I could take, the better it would be for my ability to stay there for
longer I moved things around. Next consideration was then to figure out Visa requirements for each country, but this is point where work started to take over my life and the trip went onto the
back-burner.
The table I
had drawn out was an attempt to work out how to get into, and out of every
country which became one of the next things I had to figure out. My route was
fairly logical starting in the Philippines and then following a pattern of going to countries which were next to - or fairly close to each other in a clockwise circuit. This stage involved some serious work
online, and it was almost a full two years later that my plan started to take shape.
As you can
see there were some notable gaps as travelling in and out of Borneo and
Indonesia were causing me some problems in this part of the planning stage. I have always
been intrigued by the wilds of Borneo, and Indonesia is a country with plenty
to see and do there, but I 'ummed and 'ahhhed about leaving one, if not both of
them out altogether due to complications in there almost being TOO much there.
Eventually,
in 2012 I brought a couple of books on these two locations and ploughing through
them I made this un-organized set of notes about what there was to do in
each place:
Over the
next year or so, I took a few hours each week to dedicate to the continual planning of my trip, and to give myself something to look forward to I made notes about
cities in each country I would like to visit, and then also compiled some
information about what I could potentially get up to in each country. Again
this involved a lot of research using magazines, the Internet and Lonely Planet
books, but eventually I managed to fill my original notebook with ideas. (I
later typed these up onto my computer, and made a nerdy little spreadsheet to
help me along the way in each country).
By this
point, I had to get hold of another notebook which my mum kindly provided me,
and I wrote up this final version of my route; version 3.0 (very fitting
considering that is my age without the decimal point).
The List 3.0
was to be my actual route around Asia, and it was at this point I had to start considering a date to
travel and how long to go for. I also had to look back over my research
(considering it had taken place over four years) and make sure I knew what I
was doing.
As things started to get closer, I also had to start considering items to buy to take with me. Here are a few examples of things which I brought, or were brought for me to help me along the way.
As things started to get closer, I also had to start considering items to buy to take with me. Here are a few examples of things which I brought, or were brought for me to help me along the way.
I did quite
a bit of research online about items of clothing and piece of equipment I might
need, but generally I wanted to do this for myself, and if I made mistakes
along the way then that would be part of the learning experience. The main item
I needed, and strangely the last thing which was purchased, was a rucksack
which I eventually was brought as a Christmas present from Mountain Warehouse.
It’s a 75L bag which I hope will not cause me too many neck, back or shoulder
problems on my travels and has plenty of pockets for all the things I am going
to need as I travel. I don’t anticipate being a typical backpacker, but it’s
important to look the part I guess.
As time went
along my considerations were starting to get more difficult - and not just in the sense that I had to think
several times whether or not I was prepared for it all. One of my main thoughts
was about all the different currencies I would be using a long the way, but I
also had to look into how many clothes to take, and whether or not to bring my
laptop along for the ride or just use Internet cafes to keep my blog going.
Potentially
the hardest thing I had to configure was how to split my time up in each
country. I did this in the most logical way I could think of as shown below:
So the
number on the left is the amount of towns, cities etc… that I would be
interested in visiting in each country, and at the top there is a list of the
number of days I thought I would be away for. I didn’t plan on sticking to the
numbers on the right too much which is the number of days I intend on spending
in each place, but I thought this was important to have to make sure that I
don’t get half way through and realize I’m never going to make it, or the opposite,
and I have done everything by April because I didn’t plan it too well.
Keen eyes may have noticed that China was eventually removed entirely from my list of places to travel to as it became clear that that part of Asia pretty much doesn't want any visitors at all (I'm joking.....I think).
Re-capping the visa considerations in each country, China was the only place where I couldn't get a visa on arrival, and there were a number of complicated facets like having to let them know your exact itinerary, and making sure you enter and exit from the same airport. In the end, I decided it would be too much hassle, so unfortunately, it's your loss China.
Keen eyes may have noticed that China was eventually removed entirely from my list of places to travel to as it became clear that that part of Asia pretty much doesn't want any visitors at all (I'm joking.....I think).
Re-capping the visa considerations in each country, China was the only place where I couldn't get a visa on arrival, and there were a number of complicated facets like having to let them know your exact itinerary, and making sure you enter and exit from the same airport. In the end, I decided it would be too much hassle, so unfortunately, it's your loss China.
All of this
worked out to be the very complicated, and stressful planning procedure which
took a full five years to work out (with a good couple of months off every now
and then whilst I figured something else out). I hope this gives you an insight
into the trip itself and how I plan to spend my time. I’m sure there are still
many questions that are out there about how I decided to go the places I’ve
listed or even why, so if you’re curious feel free to leave me a comment or
question at the bottom of the page and I will do my best to get back to you
with an answer.
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