We left for our adventure on the 17th September 2016. Today, is the 17th March 2017. Officially, today we have been travelling for 6 months! Wow… what a long time. Today also marks 5 weeks until our flight home so we are definitely at the start of the end. I just thought I’d write a little here and be really honest about how we’re feeling 6 months in.

We still love travelling. There is no part of this trip that has taken away our love of seeing new places and having new adventures, but we’ve learnt we have a limit. Some trips require more than a 1 or 2 week holiday, but I don’t see us ever doing a trip that’s more than 2 months again. It has been amazing, but also very stressful, tiring and frustrating at times. We have already thought of other trips we’d love to make in the future, once funds allow, but none of them will ever been this long again and more than likely the destinations could be broken up into smaller chunks. Here’s some of the places we would like to go:

Vancover and British Columbia down through Washington State, Oregon and Californica. Road trip!!!

Mexico. I really want to show Simon the diving that Cozumel has to offer.

Peru and Macchu Picchu

The Galapagos

I am currently writing this blog with this view…

I mean nothing is wrong with where we are or what we’re doing. I think we’re just ready to come home. 6 months of counting the pennies, organising transport, booking accommodation, finding food, fighting of bug bites and all the rest has become tiring.

Saying that though, we are so very excited for the next few weeks as we have Loveday, Joe, Jamie and Leigh joining us for varying lengths of times. That whole time is going to be unbelievable and we are so looking forward to sharing some of our experiences with some of our best friends. I think them coming is the pick me up we both need right now.

There are many things we are fed up with so here are our ‘diva’ requests for coming home in 6 weeks time.

1. Please let us put our toilet paper in the toilet. We are so fed up of having to put toilet paper in a mucky bin.

2. Please let us sit on a normal toilet. I don’t think we’ll be visiting you at your home if you’ve recently had a squat toilet installed. We can’t squat like they do here.

3. Please provide us with a lot of diary products. We miss cheese (every type), green capped milk (here it’s super creamy or condensed or just not right) and some yoghurt would be nice too!

4. Please stock up on tea bags. You do not need to stock up on lemons… when I ask for milk in my tea I do not want a lemon slice in there too. Mmmm tea…

5. Please do not put MSG in our food. It will taste great regardless.

6. Please have lots of cereal. I love cereal… Oh I really want some shreddies….

7. Please do not drive us on any roads where there are pot holes the depth of a tyre. Our tailbones need a break…

8. Please don’t make us sleep on a bed that may as well be a table it’s so hard. If you have made a table firm mattress order recently, please let us know.

9. Please don’t take us to anywhere where we will sweat profusely. We have sweated enough… I don’t want to see a sauna for a while…

10. Please don’t be alarmed if we are cautious. We are on autopilot where ever we walk. ‘No thank you’, ‘Why is he looking at us like that?’ ‘Cross the road Simon!’ You get the idea.

11. Please inform us if you have installed a wet room in your house. When I mean a wet room I mean a shower directly over the toilet meaning the toilet, floor, sink and everything else in the bathroom is soaking wet. What does a girl have to do to sit on a dry toilet?

12. Please do not get a ‘bum gun’. By this I mean shower for your bum or a hose for your bum. I don’t ever want to see another one of these… EVER! They are just another reason that when I go to a public toilet the toilet seat is wet… gross!
I think that is all for now… looking forward to seeing you all!!! 😍

To clarify before I start we are loving our time in South-East Asia. We have been in Thailand now for 19 days and so far it has been amazing. I can honestly say that we haven’t felt scared, pressured or worried at any part so far. I know a lot of our friends and family were a little more worried about us being in S.E Asia compared to New Zealand and Australia, but so far they have had zero to worry about. I would say that is partly down to research. Knowing how much things cost, what the common scams are and the Thai customs have meant we have slipped straight into being tourists here with no issues. All that being said, there are some adjustments that we are having to get used to.

Toilets! We have encountered so many different types of toilets in 19 days. Here is a brief overview.

• The standard Western toilet (flush, seat and nice and high above the ground) – No issues here.
• A Western toilet, but with no flush. So on this one, you have to pour bucket loads of water down the toilet after your business. Not massively effective I must say…
• A flushing squat toilet. This one’s ok too. You have to squat, but a squat never killed anyone and it flushes for you. Great.
• A non-flushing squat toilet. Now we’re getting a bit hairy. This is what we encountered on our overnight train to Chiang Mai. So, as the train was rocking all over the place we had to pour water down the toilet. Also, the smell is far worse on these ones.
• A squat hole. This is as it sounds… a hole in the ground. I would be reluctant to even call this a toilet. The smell is very very very bad.

In Thailand you aren’t allowed to put anything down the toilet other than your standard 1s and 2s. All toilet paper goes in a bin… I think I dislike this the most. We’re doing fine though, just an adjustment.

Bugs! I hate biting insects. Like… detest! Unfortunately for me I am like a chew toy for insects and I have to admit, I’m getting pretty fed up. Whilst travelling nothing has made me think ‘I want to go home’, but I have to admit, the thought has crossed my mind at times when it comes to the bites. Now you’re probably thinking, ‘Becky, why don’t you use some bug spray?’ I have! A lot! I have tried 3 different insect repellants in the last 19 days. 20%, 40% and 50% DEET. I have applied this up to 4 times a day on some days (I’m getting increasingly concerned about the health risks of this). I have been sleeping (uncomfortably) in long trousers and tops and I have been wearing long clothes whenever I can, and nothing is helping. This morning I found 7 more bites on me… how is this possible? It is driving me insane!! I had similar problems in Australia and New Zealand, but we have reached a new level. Simon is getting the odd bite, but nothing in comparison to what’s happening to me. It’s making me sad 😦 Luckily, we’re not in a malaria risk zone yet, but I will be starting to take anti malarial tablets before we cross into Laos.

Food! We love Thai food, but, I’m starting to feel like we are eating the same things over and over again. It’s not uncommon for the Thai people to eat noodles, rice and soups for breakfast, as well as lunch and dinner. The thought of eating noodles for breakfast makes me feel quite sick and I’ve always stuck to eggs and toast, but for lunch and dinner the food is quite samey. The variety of Thai food is far greater than we’re used to at home, but it doesn’t stop the style being the same and also the fact that it is very noodle and rice heavy. We have had to go for the occasional Western meal just to change things up a bit, which is a shame, because the cost is about 4 times more than local cuisine.

Language! I was expecting there to be a far greater communication barrier, but so far we’re not finding that. Most Thai people speak good English and are very patient whilst you sign out something or get a location up on a map for them. It’s been absolutely stress free. It will be interesting to see if this continues into Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Environment! Thailand is a pretty busy place. There is a lot going on. There is a lot of traffic and there are a lot of people in a small place. Only last night we were walking along the pavement and they put phone boxes, post boxes, signs and benches right in the middle of the path, forcing you onto the road to walk. There are scooters and tuk tuks everywhere and often no pedestrian crossings meaning you just have to walk into the road to cross. They always slow down or drive around you, but it goes against everything we were taught about in our stop, look, listen videos at school. Thailand is also a lot like Hong Kong in that there are more smells than at home. Food, sewage and rubbish smells are everywhere, which aren’t always bad smells, but more than we’re used to.

We have now been on the road for 97 days. It feels far longer, probably because of the sheer number of places we’ve seen and experiences we’ve had. When I think of what I would have achieved at home in 97 days it doesn’t even compare to a smaller fraction of what we’ve done here. So, what have we learnt about travelling and ourselves in this time. This blog is a bit of a follow on from the 1 month blog I wrote previously.

1.Everybody… yes everybody who lives in a house/apartment/bungalow owns too many toiletries. I’m now ashamed to admit that at least 2 boxes in our storage container is full of toiletries. We have been functioning on (liquid or cream based, not including medicines):

Becky – Shampoo, Shower Gel, Toothpaste, Contact Lens solution, Mascara, Suncream, Aftersun, Deodorant

Simon – Shampoo, Shower Gel, Toothpaste, Hair Gel, Deodorant, Suncream, Aftersun

I know we all get given toiletry sets at Christmas and we all own too much moisturiser, but I can tell you now our bathroom is going to be a far different place when we return. The best bit of it all is that we both don’t smell and we both don’t feel any more disgusting than we did before we left. And P.S. Yes I still shave my legs! haha

2. Living in a car is hardwork! As I am typing this Simon is lifting the bed up for the 10th or so time to put something away or get something out from under the bed. We don’t have a huge amount of room, but we are quite liking it. We have a routine in the morning and at night now for getting the car into day or night mode, but it’s still handwork and we are properly under each others toes 90% of the time. Unfortunately, we give Maverick back tomorrow which is also sad :(, but we can’t wait for a normal bed where we can walk around the room with ease.

3. Most people are really friendly. I won’t generalise too much, but in the UK people don’t talk to people they don’t know. We are quite introverted. Since travelling we have had conversations with people in supermarkets, on walks, in kitchens, on tours, at bus stops, on buses, just walking down the street even. I feel that we need to encourage this more in the UK! Let’s all be friends!

4. Planning is over rated, but also sometimes crucial. Having the camper car has meant that we don’t really need to plan much. Every campsite has space for us and we just show up wherever we fancy during the afternoon or evening. We wouldn’t have been able to go to Napier if we hadn’t have been so flexible in our plans and not booked accommodation. On the flip side.. we are finding that activities do need to be  little bit planned, especially if we want the discounted rates on bookme.co.nz. We’ve found a nice balance.

5. Good wifi is hard to come by. We’ve heard this won’t be the case in South East Asia, but we’ve really struggled to find wifi that isn’t limited to a little bit to browse with. We are backing up photos to dropbox as we travel and I need to upload photos for the blog. This is practically impossible at times! Which explains why you sometimes get 2 blogs in one because we are making the most of the good wifi.

6. We are fighting fit! Why? I think this is because we aren’t stressed. Everyone who I worked with at Penrice will know that I suffered from migraines, sore throats, colds, stomach aches and rib pain pretty often. I now know that it was all down to stress. I have felt sea sick once and had 1 headache the entire time we have travelled. Yes, we both suffered from gastro, but that was a rare event. We have been around people who have colds and are coughing and ‘touch wood’ we have caught nothing. An interesting thought ehy?!

7. I love baths. I miss them so much.

8. Simon is actually obsessed with ducks. He is so happy when he sees a duck. I mean, I knew he liked them, but I think it’s progressed.

9. Same same, but different. Jess told me this saying before we left. She said we’d hear it all around S.E Asia, but we also hear it a lot here and I completely understand why. This country is the same as Britain in so many ways, but also so different. Sometimes I forget we’re in NZ and then out of nowhere BOOM a mountain or BOOM a volcano. So definitely, same same, but different.

10. We talk about the future A LOT. Everywhere we go we think, could we live here? Simon has become obsessed with property newspapers. I have to admit it’s a lot of fun looking at some of the houses and seeing if we could afford anything truly special. In some places we could. We could have much more than we do now, but do we want that? So far only one place has screamed to us, leave your life and move abroad, Queenstown. There have definitely been other places in Oz and Nz that we would be very happy though. But no-one panic! We’re not moving abroad. It’s not just about where to live though. we have also talked about jobs and our dreams in terms of careers. So far, we know what we want, we just need to figure out how to achieve it. Progress i would say!! We knew travelling would give some clarity to things.

11. It’s surprising how well you can manage without things. There have been so many times in New Zealand where I’ve wished I had my fleece or a certain pair of shoes. But, they’re not here! Layers have been our saviour and you learn to get by with what you have. We’ve just realised we don’t have any oil for dinner.. no issues, we’ll figure it out. Call us the thrifty Dowells.

12. Money is stupid. Yes, we’ve spent more than we have intended. We will be having some VERY cheap days in S.E Asia to make up for some of our expenditure, but do you know what?! We don’t care. It’s only money and the memories and experiences we are having is worth so much more to us than having that money sat in the bank.