Touchdown in Melbourne
I’m writing this blog on train from Melbourne to Sydney which has given me time to reflect on the first week of my Churchill Fellowship and what a week it’s been!
Final Countdown to my first flight
As I’m writing this blog I’ve got one eye on the calendar. The countdown to the start of my Churchill Fellowship is almost into single digits. An adventure to countries I’ve never visited before.
Itinerary confirmed and flights booked
It doesn’t seem that long ago I received an email confirming my success for my Churchill Fellowship application. It still all feels a bit surreal.
Making innovation more inclusive
In this blog, I’m going to talk a bit about innovation. My understanding of the word, what I see the word mean to others and an exciting opportunity that has come up for me to explore that word a bit more.
Rebooting my blog for an unexpected journey
I haven’t written a personal blog in a long time. I’ve been writing regular blogs since setting up my social enterprise last year, but the last time I blogged on this page was when I travelled around South East Asia at the end of 2014.
Good morning Vietnam
My original plan for Vietnam was always to head up to Haolong Bay for New Year. No particular reason other than the pictures that I’d googled looked fantastic. However, travelling needs flexibility and heading to North Vietnam for this one thing seemed like it would be expensive and time consuming and after hearing from Laura-Lynn on Christmas day that it wasn’t that great if you didn’t have the weather I thought the last week of my travels could be better spent somewhere else.
Christmas in Kep
Before leaving Phnom Penh there was one more thing that I wanted to check out – the killing fields. I knew the story about what Pol Pot had done but there’s definitely a sense of reality that’s brought by walking round the compound where the massacres took place, seeing the graves, listening the stories told first hand by survivors on the audio tour, the clothes and skulls that still come to the surface after it rains.
Say hello to my little friend
Early morning on the 20th I was waiting at the dock ready to leave Don Det and it seemed like everyone else had the idea. There was a mass exodus with about fifty people all leaving for the 8am boat that would start us on our journey to Siem Reap, including the kayaking team from the day before which meant there were a few familiar faces.
Kayaking down the Mekong River
Fitting Inle Lake into my travel plan was going to be a tight squeeze and it was. I had to be in Yangon for 6am on Monday for my flight to Laos. My first choice of getting there was by bus, but with only night departures I’d have to leave on the same day I got to the lake which didn’t appeal after having no sleep the night before. The flight to Yangon was $120 and got me to the airport 12 hours earlier than my morning flight.
Central Myanmar – Bagan and Inle Lake
I’d booked three days at the Yaga youth hostel before getting to Yangon and because of their cancelation policy I couldn’t get the money back for my last night, that’s thirty bucks down the drain but on the plus side it meant that, still feeling ill, I could chill out in my room later than the midday check out time. As I checked out I asked the girl working on reception to call a taxi for me. She looked a little confused at first, which confused me, then walked over to a girl who was sat in the lobby and said that she had a ticket for the same bus going North to Bagan. It made much more sense to head there together and split the fare.