Countdown

I did one of those all inclusive holidays once. It was a while ago now. The sort where you rarely venture beyond the boundaries of a large hotel, spend the majority of your time by a crowded pool or trying to eat your own body weight in buffet food. It was okay I guess, the weather was nice. Don't think I'd want to do it again though. I just get itchy feet after a couple of days, sometimes even less. I don't need 5 star luxury and luckily neither does Mrs B or the offspring and we have certainly discovered some considerably less than 5 star accommodation on many occasions. A room in a swamp in Costa Rica, a bathroom guarded by two cockroaches the size of tortoises in Thailand, sticky brown bed linen in Ethiopia...

On this trip, we shouldn't be plummeting to any real depths of squalor. Not even close. This trip is backpacking for softies. Doing the gap year student thing but with a little bit of style and panache. Twenty five people ranging in age from ten to sixty-something setting off in to the unknown....Well, obviously I know where we are going, I've booked the trip up. The others don't know where we are going though. They'll find out the first destination on Friday when we get to the airport. Then subsequent destinations as we go along...

So, what are we going to see you ask ? Well, there are some things that I can't reveal. Actually many things I can't reveal yet. There is no point not telling people where we are going, only to tell them that we might see kangaroos, or the Taj Mahal or Inca ruins. You get the picture... I have mentioned the possibility of turtles, of scuba diving and weather hotter than England in the Autumn. I'm hoping that is vague enough and that it hasn't dashed too many dreams. There will, of course, be a lot more than that to see and do on a Windy 500 Global Tour. Considerably more, assuming all goes to plan.

On the last Windy Global trip two years ago, we visited four countries. We washed elephants, rode mopeds, swam in Halong Bay and saw the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. We ate fine food in Hanoi and Bangkok, ate street food in Laos and bugs in the Bug Cafe in Siem Reap.

Just about everyone who came on that trip has come back for more, along with another twelve wide eyed, unsuspecting newbies lured in by tales from the last trip. I hope they won't be disappointed. Hell, I'm pretty certain they won't be. We have some quite acceptable accommodation lined up, we will no doubt have some wonderful, non bug related food too and a fair few mind blowing experiences along the way.

Roll on Friday !!!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Birthday Cake

Image
The Komodo National Park. It’s a group of islands off the coast of Flores with flora and fauna of World scientific interest. Very few of the islands are inhabited by humans but there are a few small fishing villages including one on Komodo Island itself. Here the mainly Muslim population live a peaceful existence for most of the day. They are a devout bunch, having built three mosques in the village. And so it was at the end of the day we found ourselves moored up on our boat 100 metres off shore, admiring the sunset, recounting the experiences of the day, dragons and turtles mainly, and looking forward to food and drink. Elena’s birthday. Two years ago we were in Hanoi and picked our choice of restaurant very badly. I had vowed to do better this time around. Certainly the scenery had been better. Pointy, rugged hills and islands, white sandy beaches and turquoise water. Under the water when we made a few stops we were seeing coral and fish of many different colours and a grazin...
Read more

Sweat

Image
Our room is 113 big steps above the restaurant. I know as I counted them last night as I climbed them for the seventh time that day. It’s a nice room, the views of monkeys, trees and river are great, but boy do we pay for it in tired legs and sweat. On the subject of monkeys, I feel the need to share with you my wife’s comment last night that will stick with me for a while. “I’m not wearing that shirt of mine any more. It’s had monkey arse on it.”. She had left it on the balcony. The local residents had visited and plonked their arses on the clothes to watch Jo trying to shoo them away. To be honest, we are getting a little monkeyed out. The critters are everywhere. Whatever we are doing, walking, swimming, eating...they are there in the background waiting for an opportunity to steal something or just wipe their arses on something. Aron and Martin were burgled yesterday. Well, it was more of a walk in theft. They slept with their door open and the offenders got away with chocolat...
Read more

Bintang Boys

Image
I emerged from Le Pirate restaurant on to the main drag in Labuan Bajo and immediately found myself surrounded. It was a gang of bikers. Horrible looking lot too they were. A few dodgy looking tattoos and dubious Sun tans. My pulse quickened...strangely though I envied them with their carefree lifestyle, their cameraderie and their ability to get around. How I longed to be like them. Fortunately, for the princely sum of £4 a day, I too could have a moped and could go where the rest of the Windy gang could go. The freedom of the highroad was mine ! No more taxis for me for today. The highroads of Labuan Bajo are a bit like the town, in a poor state of repair. In fact, large sections are just gravel and stones. The rules of the road are also a mystery. It’s sort of left hand driving but not always and junctions are just a free for all. Challenging for a bunch of novice bikers and not conducive to speed. With Lucas on the back of mine, wrapped up in long trousers and long sleeved sh...
Read more