Departures

I spent my weekend catching up with Departures on Nat Geo Adventure. Departures is basically about a bunch of Canadian boys who decided to leave the normal and the regular and set out on an adventure around the world. And most of the time, it is off the beaten path. 

I've seen episodes where they visited North Korea, Siberia, Mt Bromo, Chernobyl and many others and they were somehow able to just blend into the culture and get on well with the people. 

I am hoping that my future adventures to even be a fraction of what these boys have experienced. 

I've never really travelled. I guess I've never got the opportunity to. Time constraints, responsibilities, money issues were all contributing factors. When I renewed my passport for the first time in over 8 years, I was probably more excited than most people would be. 

For the longest time after I left MMU, I was actually blacklisted by PTPTN (local organization that gives out student loans) and was not allowed to leave the country. It was partially my fault, partially theirs. But last year I finally got that sorted - broke, but sorted - and now I can finally leave the country to travel or work.

And my first stop will be Bangkok, Thailand on January 30th. I bought the ticket completely on a whim. And what had started out to be a 4 day trip turned into a week long one because I wanted to take advantage of the cheap ticket deals on Air Asia. 

So now I'm basically heading to Bangkok in two weeks without having any idea what to do. I'll be meeting a few people, but other than that I have no idea what to do. Of course, the touristy bit is a given, but I want to experience something not in the guidebooks as well. 

At this moment, I'm also planning a couple more trips for the year - mainly to Bali in June for my first surf training and hopefully it will lead to more surf training in August. 

Need to get the hang of planning for flights and trips in preparation for our RTW trip.