Our trip to Thailand didn’t get off to the best start.
After an exhausting but incredible three weeks in the Philippines we bid a sad farewell to our mountain retreat in Sagada and headed back to Manila, excited at the prospect of meeting our friends and family in Thailand in just a few days’ time. As we settled down in our Manila hotel for a day of badly needed rest, Andrew received an email from Tiger Air. Our flight to Bangkok had been put forward to the early hours of the next morning and what’s more, we were due to leave from Clark airport – not Manila.Yes, that’s right - we were in the wrong city.Ever heard the saying: Nothing worth doing is ever easy? Well, we’ve certainly learnt the truth of this sentiment since we’ve been travelling. As I noted in our six-month travel update, none of the most memorable experiences I’ve had so far on this trip have been easy; they’ve all been physically, mentally or logistically tough and have pushed me well out of my comfort zone. Our trip to Batad in the Philippines was another travel experience that drove me to my absolute limits but in doing so, I achieved a kind of strength I never knew I possessed.
Ever since we left the Philippines it has been haunting us; we just can’t shake the nagging feeling that we have unfinished business there - that we simply left too soon. We may have only spent three short weeks there but the wildness and the beauty of this incredible country, the challenges it presented us with and the adventures we had there have stuck with us in a big way. Of all the countries we’ve visited so far, I find the urge to return to the Philippines is the strongest – but why?
Exactly six months ago today we were jetting off to begin our travel adventure in New Zealand. I still remember how strange and surreal those first few days felt as we struggled with jetlag and tried to absorb the fact that we were literally half way around the world without a job or home to go back to. As I sit typing this outside my beach bungalow on a beautiful Thai island I can scarcely believe all that’s happened since then or take in how incredibly lucky we are to be living this life of travel. Getting here was a long, hard slog but I can absolutely say that all the years of dreaming and saving, all the painful goodbyes and the bouts of homesickness we've experienced since we left were absolutely worth it – there is nothing I’d rather be doing right now than travelling the world.