Good to read the replies and other peoples thoughts on this.
I'm still sort of sifting through my past trips and picking out which elements of the trips were good, bad, mistakes and myths and what can I take that was good and maybe repeat it.
I've been to quite a lot of places, besides Canada, USA and Mexico and England ... I think 8 countries in Europe, and 8 in Asia. Around 20 countries in total. If I add it up would be around a year and a half travelling around.
I think the most memorable trips were the ones where I knew people there or met good people there, or travelled with people who's company I enjoyed. Plus a roll of the dice and things coming up sixes instead of ones or twos. Also I've come to realise that if I set off on the trip feeling pretty good or bad about life then I'll feel the same on the trip. Might sound obvious, but I hear a lot of people saying a trip is what you need when your feeling down... myself I can't agree with that one.
Also I've come to realise that I don't like to spend time in impoverished places. Or places recovering from a war or some kind of disaster. It might sound obvious, but Cambodia is a good example of a country recovering from a war, at least it was when I went quite a few years back, it's beggars and land mine victims with limbs missing such a downer.
Manilla Philippines is a good example of the kind of impoverished place that brings me down with its gangs of glue sniffing kids and armed guards in every McDonalds and Joliee Bee and diesel smog that turns your snot black, tiny city parks with dead grass and smells of urine.
Also some of the modes of transport that I've been on, an overnight bus with faulty brakes that had to go down huge steep hills and the seat in front of me broken so that it reclined onto my knees. Another bus where the girl next to me was sick in a bag and then just hung it on the hook on the seat in front of her for the rest of the trip, and the bathroom stop was some bushes where you had to dodge all the dried out turds from peoples previous stops.
Cafes where you go piss up against a wall out back as there are no facilities. Rats that eat the garbage a couple of feet away for where I was eating.
Then there's some of the crap holes where I slept. One that comes to mind is a capsule hotel in Tokyo, when they saw I had tattoos they kicked me out. It was Saturday night and everywhere full, so I drunk in bars until late and then slept in McDonalds, woke up feeling like death warmed up.
This damp ugly musty smelling room I got late at night in Bagio city, I remember the posters outside reminding people that it was illegal to eat dogs! ??? This hut thing on an island in Thailand and woke up covered in ants.
Also there are some places I thought would be really interesting but personally I really didn't find them interesting. Hong Kong is one that comes to mind.. I was only there a couple of days but for me it was about a day too long. I know other people that say HK is great, they often say the shopping is great there! Maybe thats what it is, that I have no interest in shopping.
My pleasant memories are when I went to visit my girlfriend in Korea for 5 weeks... a road trip I went on with a couple of friends from Vancouver to Tijuana, A trip from Paris to London with an old girlfriend and some local camping trips with friends and family, also the first time I went to Thailand and stayed in Chiang Mai, I was travelling solo but met a lot of people that I really clicked with.
In contrast the second time I went to Thailand a year later, my mum had just died and I thought the trip would be good for me, but it was the opposite, and instead of meeting fun people like the first time I ended up with these 2 dutch heavy metal freaks that used to roady for a metal band.
They told me they used to throw buckets of pigs blood on the audience! One of them chewed ritalin all day long and stole a bit of the Angor Wat temple, he laughed about it saying "imagine if everyone stole a bit, there be non of it left in time"
Home sweet home lol... I'm writing this and really feeling its a nice place to be.
