Vox Pops

A fireman and a koala regard the destruction of both of their environments When you make the decision to move away from your home country, you know that you can come back. You know that if this decision to uproot your life goes tits up, the worst is that you just simply move home. It’s your safety net. You move away and you’re a novelty – your accent is different. Australians are loved overseas – we’re known for our animals (both cute and dangerous), the reef and the outback. People know it’s a long way away, and they often want to come and visit… one day. It’s easy to be proud of Australia’s uniqueness. We’re a safe Western society on the other side of the world. We have such an interesting mixture of environments, animals, cultures and beauty. We have more of an Asian influence than most other English speaking countries, we are a total curiosity. People are often shocked when they understand that the land mass of Australia is roughly equivalent to that of the contin...

I was almost drunk on excitement when I landed in Cambodia. It looked so foreign as we descended. There were no homes as such to be seen in Siem Reap (near the airport anyway), just a vast expanse of flooded rice paddies, as far as the eye could see. I'd been nervous about the Cambodian visa - I made an effort to learn some Cambodian phrases before I disembarked to make sure I sweetened up the immigration officers, and it worked. Ah kohn is thank you in Cambodian, by the way. I had also been nervous about coming to Cambodia in the first place. I'd heard varying reports on how safe it was to travel there, with pickpockets, robberies and scams apparently commonplace. Also, I'd never been to a country which had been in a recent civil war before, with such horrific consequences. I wondered how much of this would remain in the Cambodian psyche and way of life? I was picked up by Tom from my hostel - he was riding an open tuk tuk pulled along by his scooter. I was stupidly excit...

From the moment I left for The Sanctuary, I can only describe my mood as apprehensive. Apprehensive that I wouldn't know how to get there from Koh Samui airport (Which ferry? Which pier??), I didn't know what to expect when I got there, whether or not I would like it, or whether or not I would be able to go through with it. From the outset, I had committed myself to do a 14 day 'raw fast' - nothing but raw fruit and vegetables and no beer or coffee. Beer I can live without (believe it or not) however coffee is something entirely different. All I could think was "shitshitshitshitshit"... Let's just say things got easier when I got to Big Buddha Pier: And caught a long tail boat to Koh Pha-ngan (after some wrangling over the price, of course). I have to admit, when I first got off the boat, I thought "uh oh, this is a mistake". There were some seriously cool and beautiful people sunning themselves on the beach, looking at me over their hipster Ray...

Tonight is my last night in Phuket. It's hard to believe that it's been just over a week since I bid farewell to my friends and family and buggered off overseas for an undetermined period of time. Speaking of which, it's not surprising how tense I was by the time I got here. At the beginning of June I found out that after ten years of service, I was able to take a voluntary redundancy. I joined Pfizer when I was 20 years old - made heaps of friends, had a great time, and now I've left. It's hard to believe - it happened very quickly. Since then, I put together and presented a monster presentation, had several goodbye parties, organised my flights, packed up my house, put stuff in storage, moved to Brisbane for a week, then went overseas. It's been a big couple of months, and in a sense it all seems like a lifetime ago. This week has been lovely, from the point of view that I'm actually on holidays. Even though I didn't work for about 6 weeks after I...

I've had a few people ask this question - thought I'd chuck it on here so you can stalk me from a distance. Does that even make sense? In any case - here it is. These are broad plans - I'll be backpacking so I don't have any solid plans beyond Buenos Aires. 4th of August (maybe earlier) Leave Sydney, drive to Brisbane. 12th August fly from Brisbane to Phuket (with friend) 21st August fly to Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand for 2 weeks 4-6th September Bangkok Cambodia 16-27th September Vietnam tour (with Mum) 28th Sept - 1st Oct Hong Kong (with uncle) 2nd Oct - 12th Oct Tokyo (with uncle) 13-17th Oct NYC (with brother and his gf) 18th Oct Buenos Aires - learn Spanish for a few weeks Move down Argentina, go through Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego... Chile Peru Mexico - meet a friend for Christmas Honduras and Guatemala to do volunteer work Cuba Back to Mexico US - drive from Arizona-Las Vegas-San Francisco-Monterey-Vancouver-Salt Lake City (friends)-Winnipeg...