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.......and for my next trick On October 8th 1999 I set off for my biggest, and scariest adventure yet.
I am flying alone, on a plane full of strangers, to the sweaty and flood filled monsoon time in Bangkok Thailand . Where I will have two days to see the sites, recover from jet lag,reclimatise, and hopefully make friends with some of the 25-50 other back pack clad strangers like me, before heading down to Australia. 
I shall be spending a year down under, where I plan to not only work in a variety of new and exciting cities but hopefully try my hand at several wildly different jobs. Perhaps freelance at an advertising agency, be a tour guide on a boat cruise, be a banana picker (which I would probably only just survive one day doing!) or bluff my way into working behind a bar on the Australian Gold Coast in Queensland. Having worked and sweated my way around Australia, probably by bus and foot, I leave, before my visa expires and head back to London over the Pacific Ocean to make it a complete round the world trip. En-route back to grey London I shall be stopping off at the following places ranging from the exotic volcanic to the nuerotic hispanic: 
New Zealand: I think I'll stay three weeks here, travel top to tail and see mountains, sheep, glaciers, gysers, more sheep, wellington boots and maybe even the hauntingly beautiful Kare Kare beach, as featured in 'The Piano'.There's also a great looking underground glow worm cave i want to play in, which looks very shiny indeed! 
Fiji: After all the work and travel, i will no doubt deserve a long rest, so I plan to lay back on a deserted, or at least relatively uncommercialised, palm fringed beach in Fiji for a couple of weeks. I have already a few cheap huts and lodges in mind, though am a little disturbed by the news there is no hot water on the island, hopefully the hot air will compensate. 
Raratonga: No, I had never heard of it before either! It is the capital of the Cook islands in the French Polynesia, rumoured to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth, along with Fiji I think I will be spoilt for paradisical parchments to dream off post trip and fear i may never enjoy the North Norfolk coast quite so fervently. 
Tahiti: I am a little nervous about Tahiti. While i am emmensely looking forward to the prospect of a highly volcanic vista, carpetted in rainforest and parrotage, I have a couple of concerns. I have heard it is extortionately pricey, and think i may eat up my entire travelling budget with one mouthful of traditional Tahitian pot noodle. I am also worried that it is owned by the French, who may well hate the English as much as we supposedly dislike them. remember all that French nuclear testing a couple of years back? Well, that was just of the shores of tahiti, so i shall keep my eyes peeled underwater for three eyed fish named Blinky. 
Los Angeles: Out of the frying pan and into the fire, from radioactive Tahiti to 'blink and i carjack you' bronzed LA. I'm sure it's a delightful little town really, with crisp fresh air and well tendered flower beds along the side of the simple, single road that leads the way up the west coast of America. I think i spend three or four weeks in America, and maybe even three or four hours in fa, la, LA itself! San Fransisco and Arizona are high up on the wish list this time. London: Tired, broke, burnt and hopefully whole, I shall return to merry Olde England in time for Christmas 2000, having my world changed around me, and passed beneath me, i must attempt to find a new job and new place to live in London. The city I managed to escape for hopefully the most amazing year of my life. |
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