happy new year

In australia, rants, travel on 1 January 2010 tagged africa, australia, battery pack, blackmail, burma, camera, country, customs, dhl, europe, family, ipod, life, lunar new year, mongolia, myanmar, new year, package, tiger, travel, turkey, visa, world cup with 1 comment

the year 2009 was the most amaz­ing year of my life. i quit my job and spent 10 months of the year on the road. i vis­ited 20 coun­tries and spent new years even in myanmar.

2009 was a year of extreme highs and lows. i had a lot of fun trav­el­ing and see­ing so many new places. i returned to aus­tralia for the first time in 8 years. on the reverse side, i didn’t get to see some import­ant fam­ily mem­bers when i went home, i had my ipod stolen in mon­go­lia, and i endured some hor­rible bus rides, embassy black­mail and con­stant struggles to nego­ti­ate visas.

while the year ended on a high by reach­ing myan­mar in time for new years, it was soured by the fact that cus­toms won’t clear my cam­era bat­tery pack (delivered via dhl) and it looks like i could lose the bat­tery pack forever (the govt doesn’t return stolen con­fis­cated items).

for me, 2010 will hope­fully eclipse 2009 in terms of sheer awe­some­ness. i’ll be bag­ging at least 50–70 more coun­tries, hit­ting africa and hope­fully get­ting out before the crazi­ness of the world cup. i’ll be meet­ing up with “the girl” in tur­key. i’ll be driv­ing through europe this time next year.

well, that’s the end of 2009 and i’m sad to see it go. i’ve had a great run … so far.

happy new year to one and all … i hope your 2010 is as pros­per­ous and incred­ibly awe­some as mine will be (if i sur­vive it!).

btw, 2010 will be year of the tiger when lunar new year passes.

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