over and out!

March 23, 2007 by zankbennett.

Well, the trip has come to it’s near conclusion.
I am at home. San Diego, CA.
The best part is now starting to emerge…the music…and the video.
When it’s done, I will have assembled a telling documentary of the past seven months from the 18 1/2 hours of video, over 10,000 pictures through 21 countries.

Please take some time to listen to the music I’ve been working on. You may find it here

People keep asking me if I had a good time. That’s a funny question! I’m often asked of my favorite place. It was more the people than the places, but some places were very special.

The most amazing experience of my life was motorbiking through northern Vietnam in the frontier region along the Chinese border. Nine days. No words work to describe it.

The places (all documented herein) that all tie for second (in the order I visited them)

Albufeira, Portugal
Vilnius, Lithuania
Melbourne, Australia

Thanks to everyone who checked up on me and who posted comments; it was wicked to get the support of friends and fellow travelers during the trip. Some places were deep and cold and it was tough at times. These were rare, but the correspondencs was golden!

For the record:

I never slept in the street.
I did beg a hotel to let me stay when my CC got cancelled.
Yes, they do eat dinner at 1 am in Madrid.
The pyramids aren’t all that.
Angkor Wat IS!
Yes, a massage in Thailand is about $3 for an hour. No, I never got one.
The people in Bali are so kind it’s ridiculous!
The best food (in the world) is in Thailand. No, you can’t get anything even close here!
Mexican food is better than Thai food. Oops!
$1 gets you three meals in Vietnam. If you finish all the food you’ll be so full that walking may be difficult.
For $20 extra, T-Mobile with give you an international Blackberry plan. It gives you internet access + email in nearly every major city in the world. It works and rocks!
This trip marked my 14th trip to Europe. I am dumbfounded. Why go east when Australia is SO AMAZING! My #1 recommendation is a trip to Oz. It’s closer than Europe and well worth it.
Everyone knows that no one voted for GW. (so who did?)
Everyone wonders why we elected Arnold.

The best thing you can do is go travel and meet people. It’s very difficult to make the first jump…sell possissions, rent homes, leave jobs…but it can be done. There is nothing like it I have ever experienced. A common misconception: travel is to see things…like monuments or museums or famous places. People want to know about how beautiful this place was or how cool it was to see that particular painting. I would say those things are about 10% of the magic of traveling. Missing a train in the freezing cold, there’s an experience. What do you do? Maybe the person at the ticket counter feels bad for you and offers a warm room somewhere. Maybe you end up taking a different train to a new destination you didn’t even know about. The point is, it’s the journey and the people along the way, hardly ever the destination. It’s a tired cliche, but one that people don’t pay enough attention to.
Going to Bali for 3 weeks? Have a hotel booked in advance for each night? Going with a tour? That’s not traveling. That’s a vacation (also a great animal and close relative to traveling). Getting to Bali and realizing that you’ll never find the hotel you had in mind and instead meeting a few people who were on your shuttle bus, donkey or camel (never a taxi!!!) from the airport…they have another place in mind and the next thing you know, you’re having a $2 dinner with four people you would not otherwise have met. One of the guys has been there before and brandishes a map, hastily pointing out the best surf spots in the area!
Or, you could be in the Hilton with the A/C on, watching Leno on an international channel.
Go travel! There are billions of people out there who would love to meet you.

…the places and the stories we told, they’ll be with me as I’m growing old.
-z

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