Voyage Of The Odd Essay

It’s been some time since I’ve really played with any new software, and as this week I’ve been trying to streamline some of my usage of the Internet, when I remembered I was going to look at the latest version of Flock it seemed like it could be the answer to many of my current work flow problems.

I have looked at flock in the past, but it was very early versions and while I liked the idea, it just didn’t deliver anywhere near what I was hoping for. But from the moment I’ve installed the latest version (Flock 1.1) it instantly impressed me how it now comes across as a rich and professional piece of software.

For me, one of the main attractions is the ability to write blog posts off line; Something which will make life much simpler and cheaper when I travel around South East Asia from the end of the year, I’m still researching getting a connection via mobile, and the news the Thailand is rolling out HSDPA makes me feel warm and fuzzy, but that’s all extra expense that I don’t really need. (But I would like it all the same)

The various social networking feeds look like they could be very useful when on the road as I start to cull my list of blogs and try to streamline the way I look at online information. As much as when I travel I will keep connected, I still want to ensure I’m not wasting time poking around sites to find information, and Flock looks like it could be a very useful tool for bringing that information to me.

Since this is the first time I’ve posted with Flock, this post might come out a little funky.

Tags: Blog, Software, Technology, Travel, Flock

Looking ahead to the rest of the year (I’ll finish my Thailand updates later in the week) I have a pretty healthy set of destinations in the line up for the rest of 2008 and beyond:

July: Suffolk, England - For Latitude Festival
August: Amsterdam, Holland - For A Friend’s Stag Do
October/November: Helsinki, Finland - To Visit My Sister While She’s Studying There
December onwards: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam etc. - Traveling South East Asia for Six Months

I’d really like to go to a music festival in Europe too, so there are too options on the cards currently:

July: Open’er Festial in Poland. (Friends are going)
August: Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden. (Sigur Rós are playing)

Given that Sigur Rós are my all time favorite group it’s likely to come out on top, they are playing at Latitude as well, but I’d leap at the chance to see them twice.

The first few days on Koh Chang where our most active, thanks to our friends Paul and Shell who were also on holiday for a couple of weeks, though arriving a few days before us.

15th March - Lonely Beach, Koh Chang
Just off Lonely Beach there is a set of three smaller islands not far from the coast, the closest of which has an easy to get to beach so six of us jumped in a couple of kayaks, and paddled out to them to what we had in mind as a deserted island. Of course, we weren’t the only people with this idea, there were a couple of other people milling around as well, but still, it was a good find, and a fun paddle out. Though a rather large wave right on the outset broke my phone (And thus, camera) turns out the water proof pouch didn’t have a water proof zip, and it leaked just enough to break. You live and learn though. Was well worth going out there though, considering I nearly bailed out as I don’t swim so I was slightly nervous about heading out over the ocean, but I didn’t fly half way around the world not to push my comfort levels.

At this point, I don’t really remember which places we partied at - my note book was rain damaged from the previous nights tropical storm, but I think it’s safe to say we went out and drank a lot! I also realize around this time that when you’re in a tropical climate, you really need to pay attention to waterproofing items that needed it. If memory serves, this was Kelly’s - a traveler the guys we had gone out to meet had been hanging out with - last night, so we went out for pizza, and did some drinking out and about.

16th March - Lonely Beach and Bang Bao, Koh Chang
The big event of the day was the elephant ride, we got picked up by taxi about 9am, and it was a short trip north to the elephant place, were we were placed in pairs up on small benches held a top three huge elephants. You have to climb up a set of steps to the boarding platform, and step on to them and shuffle into your seat in pairs, and then off you go, plodding and at times running along on top of this frankly, massive creature. It was all very surreal, but a fantastic time, and a great way to see some of the deeper jungle of the island. Our route took us on a ride of about 45 minutes out to a small pool, where we got off via some more platforms set up on trees, and then chilled out for a bit, the rest of the group when swimming in the pool, and were joined by a couple of the elephants as their riders cleaned them down. Again, not really a water fan so I just sat and watched and had a mooch around before we rode back. At this point, my elephant took a shorter router back then the other two, because it was been a moody bastard. It’s rider wasn’t best please with him, and he tried to do his own thing at several points.For dinner we went a bit further south to the next beach Bang Bao, to the Buddha View restaurant, watched an amazing sun set from the lighthouse watch point at the end of the peer, and enjoyed an amazing meal. While we were in Treehouse we randomly bumped into the woman who runs the tree top adventure, when we told her what we were planning the next day she exclaimed that it was her place! Small world out there.

17th March - Lonely Beach and Tree Top Adventure Par, Koh Chang
The last day of really doing any serious activity was the Tree Top Adventure Park, climbing up high wires, going down zip lines (One of which was 150 meters long) and generally working really, really hard to get around the pair of amazing courses which over looked one of the bays from a perfect vantage point and wind through the jungle. Of all the activities on the island, this is the one I would really recommend. I was pretty surprised at how I coped with it, I always figured I didn’t have a problem with highs, but never really tested out the theory so when I was pottering though the tree tops I was very happy to find it didn’t phase me at all.

This was Paul and Shell’s last day, so we went out for another good meal down at a place we knew only as the decking, a cozy restaurant that over looked the more rocky part of the beach, somewhere in between paradise and sunset. I was once again really impressed with the food and had one of the best first I had ever eaten. I’ll go out on a limb and guess we went out and partied, I think at sunset and then lemon bar, for a pretty crazy night of dancing.

At this point, we’d had a nice run of making sure we did something of note everyday, though with Paul and Shell been the main motivation to get out there from this point we slipped into a much more relaxed pace which formed a familiar pattern of beaches and parties for the most part, It was good to have a few active days though.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve ventured out of the UK for the first time, with my first passport obtained just a week or so before departing on the 12th and headed off to the Far East to join a group of friends who were traveling in and around Thailand.

I can’t really it call it traveling or backpacking as we only ended up going two places: Bangkok, and Ko Chang (Koh Chang) we did originally have plans to head further north into Kanchanaburi for the second week of our stay but by that time we had met so many people we were getting along with and a few different trips and parties were coming up that it made sense just to stick to where we were comfortable, particularly since everyone of my group had decided we were going to come back for several months at the end of the year and travel seriously, so there wasn’t any feeling of missing out on anything.

12th March - Manchester To Doha To Bangkok
We flew out with Qatar airways from Manchester which at the time was hit by sever gale force storms, so there was a question as to weather the flight might be delayed, or if we would even make it to the airport as they were closing motorways all over the place as high sided vehicles were blown over in a number of locations. Then with a quick change over in Doha we flew into Bangkok we arrived about 7am on the 13th (local time)

13th March - Khaosan Road, Bangkok
Thankfully it was fairly overcast and smoggy when we arrived so the heat wasn’t too intense, but all the same we were thankful to get onto the air conditioned bus that took us to Khaosan Road where after a bit of milling around we met up with our friend Kate who got us sorted out with rooms for the night at My House (On Soi Camasongkrum) so after settling in, having my first encounter with cold showers and a bit of a nap we set out into the day, had some food, mooched about and did a bit of shopping for the day before finally calling it a night late on ready to catch the early morning VIP bus to Ko Chang.

14th March - Khaosan Road, Bangkok to Lonely Beach, Ko Chang
This was our first real taste of travel in Thailand, which consists of starting at one location with a slip of paper of some sort, which as you go from vehicle to vehicle gets changed for other slips of paper as you travel along. The bus journey took perhaps six hours to get down to the pier near Trat, and then with a short wait we were transfered to the ferry, and then hopped onto a Taxi on Ko Chang which took us along to Lonely Beach, where a short (But hard) climb up the hill got us to the Oasis resort, one of the highest sets of guest huts in the area lead us to meet up with the rest of our friends, and the group of travelers they had hooked up with. After catching up and sorting out rooms and what was to become the usual pattern of lingering getting ready, eating, and then out to party we hit our first taste of the islands full flavor when we went to the Half Moon party at Siam Huts on Lonely Beach. Which was amazing night and really set the pace for our two weeks on the island.

I haven’t really had much new to write on this recently, while travel has never been far from my thoughts in some ways, I’ve also been trying not to think to much about it while I was trying (With difficulty) to get my passport application sorted out. However, yesterday when I got home it was finally sitting on the floor waiting for me when I stepped in the door.

So now I’m looking forward to my first ever step out of Great Britain, all the way around the world to Thailand in just 12 days time. I can not describe how stressful the days until my passport actually arrived were.  - Yes, I know booking flights to Thailand without a passport is not even remotely sensible, but it’s all resolved now and I don’t need to repeat such stupid paths.

It’s all a bit unreal at the moment, there is a group of us flying out to Thailand (Via Doha in Qatar), to meet a trio of friends who have been there for over two months, so we have very little in the way of planning, other then to meet up with them and follow their lead. All the while constantly hearing from them how amazing it is out there.

Given I normally plan everything with exacting detail, this is a very new way of traveling for me regardless of the additional distances, so I’m very much pushing my comfort zone.

With having friends out there already packing isn’t really a concern though, we have been given a whole lot of advice on what to bring, and what to leave behind, this weekend’s big job is to do a bit of shopping for essentials.

I have been pondering clothing, but I think I’ve settled mostly on the idea of buying stuff when I’m out there so I have some interesting things to wear when back home during the summer.

Over the course of the last week, three different people have mentioned music festivals around Europe they’ve been too, all of which make for great ideas to add to my list of must see destinations. After all, I love music festivals and spend my summers at various festivals in the UK either with a group of friends, or on occasion on my own just mixing with the crowd.

The idea of getting out to various festivals abroad is something I’ve been playing with for a while, so it fits neatly in with my long term travel plans.  So my map has been updated to reflect the new destinations. (more…)

Lots of people make comments along the lines of “I’ll come with you!” when you talk about world trips, with varying degrees of sincerity of course, but either way there isn’t anything stopping people hooking up with me for parts of the journey. I’m not planning on having a full time travel partner since I want to be free to randomly go where ever I want without compromising.

On the other hand, the more people come out to join me for shorter periods of time - say a couple of weeks to a month - the better. It’s easy enough to plan to be at a particular airport to pick them up, and drop them back either there, or another location down the road.
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When anyone dreams of traveling by road I’m certain the only thing people think  driving is a VW Camper Van, they are after all iconic and capture that carefree spirit you tend to want from your dreams.

However, when it comes to seriously planning a round the world trip and making it a reality, a Volkswagen from the 70’s isn’t quiet as attractive when you actually have to deal with unmaintained roads, mountain passes and extreme weather conditions.
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I love gadgets and as such part of the appeal of driving around the world as oppose to backpacking is not only can I carry all the gadgets I want, but the vehicle it’s self is essentially one big toy with loads of scope for tinkering.

Without really looking into the practicality of any of these, here are the first five gadgets that leap to my mind: (more…)

Yesterday, I might have made light of the fact half of the Middle East and Africa is torn up by war, and when you’re just looking at a map and crossing of places you can’t travel it’s quiet easy to gloss over that fact, but actually it’s pretty depressing in a way and the countries that are off limits have some amazing sights that would be amazing to see.

Still, I can’t do anything about war zones, but the other problem - not been able to drive though Russia at more then 43 miles per hour, I have a solution for.
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