Hello Everybody,

Welcome to Buddha, Marx and Me which is the story of my six month Round The World Trip. Feel free to look around and email me if you have any questions.

I have now started up a podcast. It is a Pubcast or thepubcast. If you would like to listen to that it is www.thepubcast.com or you can click here.

Thanks,
Richard

Hi Everybody,
I have started travelling again (across the USA and Canada) and have a new blog. It's called Coast to Coast: A Road Trip and the address is http://blogs.bootsnall.com/richard/2/ alternatively you can click here. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Richard

So I'm home now and have been for a little while. My trip lasted 164 days and took us through nine countries. I'd been looking forward to coming home for a while as I explained in the previous article. This meant that the actual coming home was pretty good. I don't think it would have gone so well if I didn't feel ready for it but had been forced to for money or time reasons.

It's all a bit strange. I had been planning this trip for nearly a year before we actually went and we bought the flights about six months ahead of time. It's hard really to describe what it feels like to be done. I think I would be having a lot more of a severe and vivid reaction if i didn't have a plan going forward but I do really and it's all quite structured. I have a period of about 5-6weeks to 'chill out' and do some work experience before starting another trip, so I'm starting to focus on that.

Hi Everybody I got back yesterday, but as always I'm well behind on the blog so there will be this entry (about my time in Cuba) and then one about coming home so stay tuned.
I wrote this mainly in Cuba but i just couldn't find the time to write it up at an internet cafe so here it is now...

Havana is an amazing city.
I generally don't enjoy being in Cuba.

This is my contradiction about visiting Cuba but it was one of many that I found.

Going to LA was born out of necessity rather than a real desire to go there. (There aren't many direct flights between Samoa and Cuba you see). But once we knew we were going there then we decided to make the most of it and give ourselves a full week there. Also this means we could be there over christmas and so see my girlfriend's friends who live there.

LA is such a disparate space with many different areas of interests in the different districts (Hollywood, West Hollywood, Downtown, Beverley Hills, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Malibu and err South Central to name just a few). It was pretty hard to work out where to stay but we decided to stay first in Venice beach and then move into the heart of the city.

After leaving Tonga (thank goodness) the complete difference in attitude of Samoa was evident immediately. At the airport there was a full Samoan band playing pretty good music at the baggage claim (good move Samoan Tourism authority). The capital Apia was a complete contrast to Nuku'alofa (and not just because they have McDonalds here). It is a lot cleaner and more modern (they have things such as street lights and pavements here) and definitely friendlier, we had people tooting their horns and waving at us.

I had looked forward to going to Tonga since before I came away on this trip. The idea of this tiny little pacific island (or group of islands) which few had heard of and even fewer had been was enchanting to me. I read about how Tonga still had their royal family with their palace and how it was basically a bit corrupt. (There is an absolutely farcical true story that happened a couple of years agoi about a man being appointed 'Court Jester' and who was allowed to invest millions of dollars of tax money in crazy schemes. Inevitably he lost all the money and had to flee the country. You just couldn't make this stuff up. If you want to read the whole story click here ) Either way the country sounded great to meand I was looking forward to getting completely off the beaten path by going there.

I know I haven't written in a little while but I am in Tonga now so it is hard to get good internet access. So on with the concluding story of my time in New Zealand.

After leaving Te Anau we drove up the west coast of the South Island. This is very remote and the most sparsely populated area of the New Zealand. We decided to pick up a hitchhiker (which was my idea). His name was Tomas and he was German. It probably wasn't the best move because he was a very precise guy and to be frank about it rather humourless. I would try to start conversations by bringing up an area we both knew something about. "I know" he would flatly reply. Then after we had given him a lift to one place he asked us for another lift which we gave him and then after that we tried to avoid him. The moral of this tale I suppose is to pick up hitchhikers but make it clear it that this is not some ongoing relationship but a 'one-ride-stand'.

After the leisurely two months that we gave ourselves to just do the East Coast of Australia we only had three and a half weeks for New Zealand's South and North Islands. In hindsight this was clearly a mistake. We had two weeks for the South Island - flying into Christchurch and then out of Christchurch to the North Island. We decided on doing a loop of the South Island and renting our own car. This was clearly a good idea because buses are slow, don't go when you want them to and not really that cheap anyway. But more important than all of that is that the scenery of the South Island is stunning and driving the roads is I'm sure a hell of a lot better than looking at it through a small bus side window.

Back with the second half of the story. Click on the left of the page if you haven't read the first part yet.

The evenings over the two week period weren't exactly stimulating. I have watched so little TV over the past three months that to have it at the centre of our evening every evening seemed a little strange. 'So do we watch two Simpsons episodes every night then?' I naively asked. To which Lyndsey matter of factly replied; "Yes the schedule is Simpsons-Neighbours-Simpsons apart from on Wednesdays when it is 'Simpsons-Neighbours-Simpsons-Simpsons". I started to become engrossed in Australian Idol, hating the sulky fat girl and rooting for the jolly fat guy. Fortunately the week came to an end and we were sent back to Geelong.