Indelible Adventures

The conversation started innocently enough - over beers earlier this week, strangely I was at a rooftop bar in  Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) talking to a colleague, then the topic resurfaced again as a group of us walked around downtown KL on Friday afternoon.    And as I sit here on the plane back to Canada and reflect it’s a rather poignant thought that keeps running through my head. Earlier this week at Skybar in Kuala Lumpur with my colleagues - the Petronas Towers in the background.  What if you could watch the movie of your life?   Did you ever imagine that you’d be doing what you’re doing right now (beyond reading my blog, cos’ clearly that’s a given!), living where you are, surrounded by the life you’ve created for yourself?  I guess for me it’s completely unfathomable.   Growing up in small town rural Australia during the 1960’s and 70’s was suffocating (I know you’ve heard it before), but even then I had big hop...

This past week I celebrated an anniversary, albeit an unpleasant one – it was a year ago on Valentine’s day that I sat in the sunlight hospital room at the Creswick Hospital, near where I grew up in Australia and witnessed my dad’s last breath and his final passing.   Many of you bared witness to my recent quest to hike the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea in remembrance of his life.   Strangely this anniversary was much less painful to get through because of the things I did to celebrate his life and to grieve his loss over the past year, not so with the passing of mum some 25 years ago.    I still remember the call from my heartbroken dad as he said that mum had died earlier that day, in a similar hospital surrounding except that she had died alone...  It was the day before my birthday, and now sets an ominous tone each April. My birthday is a day I truly dread; that same old sinking feeling starts as April inexorably approaches, and with each ...

One of the strongest memories I have of my year on the road is the feeling of complete freedom!   I had the ability to travel where I wanted, when I wanted and see things on my terms.  A few people have asked me – “but weren’t you lonely traveling alone?”  Strangely not so much!    There were a few things that were distinct advantages of traveling by yourself – for one, you could decide what you wanted to do and see without having to compromise.  You could go at your own pace and take it easy perhaps explore a village, check out a city or perhaps edge your way along the coast. Always at your own pace and never rushing unless you wanted to.   I was learning a life lesson - “to go withthe flow” and trust my gut.  At times I was lonely and wished I had someone to share the sites and experience with, but when you stay in youth hostels or budget hotels you’re never truly lonely unless you choose to be.  There are people from all wal...

I woke as the plane started its descent into Copenhagen, I thought I had just had a bad dream but as I woke realized that it had in fact been real…..very real.   Still dressed in the clothes that I arrived into Bangkok with, now soiled and incredibly dirty, with me unshaven and smelling to high heaven!   I thought to myself it couldn’t get any worse than that and somehow I had survived to tell the story. It was 3:00 am when I finally deplaned, and waited expectantly for my backpack to come down the carousel I realize that I didn’t really have any warm clothes as my plan had been to buy some during my travels before I reached Europe, particularly since I had made the jump from Asia to Europe much faster than I had expected.  So with backpack in hand I now needed money, but when I got to the money exchange it was closed and opening at 7:00 am….hhhmm “it never rains but it pours” I thought to myself.   Okay, no worries I’ll just stay in the term...