11 Things you should pack when you travel around the World

Remember never travel alone.Always let the Hotel, B&B,family or friends know where you are for the day and more or less when you will be back.If you see all the missing persons posters on the police station wall on the Island of Mykanos in Greece you will understand why.

1. Your backpack

Technically you are packing everything into your backpack. A good backpack is going to make your trip practical and much easier. A poorly chosen backpack is going to make your trip very difficult. The smallest backpack you can get all of your stuff into is the key. Of course only taking a limited amount of stuff is what really dictates your backpack choice.Don’t pack many clothes especially in warmer places like Thailand and Greece it’s hot  so you will spend all day in your t-shirt and shorts anyway,most Asian countries have cheap clothing for sale so buy what you need there.

Or Take

Your Suitcase

Make is not important but it should be tough, lockable and have good wheels and a handle, or get a really cheap one and throw it when it breaks:)Most hotels you stay in will keep your suitcase for you for free if you stayed with them for a few days,or you can leave suitcases in a  trainstation locker or baggage claim.After after 3 days running around the jungles of Chaing Mai in Thailand  with a huge backpack weighing 40kgs on my  back  i wished i had  bought the smaller day pack instead, which should be just big enough for all your money, credit cards,food and drink ,a jacket and some blister packs or plasters,suncream and cellphone.Buy a prepaid phone card on landing in a new country ,then sms your family to tell them your new number and where you will be for the day.Don,t use roaming  very expensive. 

2. Your Passport

This may seem painfully obvious but you would be surprised how many people do not know that if they don’t have at least 6 months before their passport expires from the end of their trip they will most likely be denied access into some countries. Bottom line is make sure your passport has plenty of time before it expires.Never let it out of your sight!

3. ATM Card

The world is getting smaller and ATM’s are available in most major cities. Make sure you use a bank that does not charge much for international withdraws as this can cost you a small fortune.Also let your bank know you are going travelling or they will stop your card as soon as you swipe it outside your home country.Never let it out of your sight!

4. Drugs or more importantly prescriptions

If you take any prescription drugs make sure you have current prescriptions from your doctor.Eltroxin for thyroid seems to be one drug i just can’t find in China when iam living there. It’s also a good idea to get an antibiotic prescription before you go.Also keep tablets in original packages with their written descriptions or get proof they are not bad drugs or you will have problems  in places like Thailand.When you hang out in the bars in Thailand and in most places, keep your drink in your sight and watch it being opened and poured and never accept a drink from a stranger.When i was 20years old i was travelling on the train by myself from Nice in France  to Venice in Italy,a man came into my cabin said” friend friend drink drink” in Italian,and i saw him open the coke can and he poured it into a paper cup, which had the drug opium in it, and he gave it to me.Being thirsty and stupid i drank it,thinking what a friendly country.After 1 minute everything was blurry and i didn’t even realise he had cleaned me out,luckily i had money hidden in 2 places so he missed my travellers cheques,but i lost my walkman and a little cash.It took 3 days for the drug to wear off before i could think clearly.Don’t know how i found Venice,probably was thrown off  the train by the conductor:)Check under your seat in your train compartment,they sometimes hide there and stick you with a needle while you sleep.

5. Power converter/PlugAdapter

Remember most countries do not have the same power outlets as we do and if you are bringing any electronics you will need to recharge them. A simple travel size power converter and  multi plug adaptor available from any airport or AA is essential.

6. Padlock

Always lock your stuff up with a quality padlock and the chance of theft goes way down.They have a new alarm padlock now.

7. Pen/Notebook

While this is something easily purchased on the road you are going to want to take notes from day one. You will not always remember everywhere you have been but with a quick note in your notebook you can always look back for a reminder.Or take your iphone and it has plenty of room for snapshots and videos and memos.

8. Netbook/iPad

While some people may say you don’t need this because there are internet cafes throughout the world for me this is a must have. Make sure you keep it small though because you will be lugging it everywhere.I have a 650 gig small samsung hard drive i carry everywhere with me to copy photos, music and movies to and to back up laptop incase of theft.Internet cafes are dirty and smokey and expensive in some countries.Nothing better then relaxing after a hard days travel with your ipad.The internet prepaid cards are expensive, so keep downloading to a minimum and use it just to let your family know you haven’t been sold to the slave trade yet!

9. Contacts personal hygiene stuff

On the road  take stuff you can’t do without,otherwise you can find most things where you travel.Condoms are essential for the frisky few,as 90% of backpackers tend to stray after a few wild parties, at least you will know if they are new and in working condition.When you are young you think you are invincible.In Thailand a German man infected countless prostitutes until he was caught because one of them gave him aids.

10. Take your Mate/GF/BF

If you want to know if shes the one?Take her backpacking around Europe,use caravan parks like in Antibe France or use a tent like i did in Northern Greece(The mosquitos poked right through my tent,hard to forget,scary…)Istanbul in Turkey‘s campsite is just outside the city walls,very cheap.Remember things will not always go right but with the right attitude it will always be an adventure.A couple that travels together stays together.

11.Take COMMONSENSE with you-Don’t leave her at home:)

I rewrote  most of this article  to adapt it to my own experiences. original link Budget Travel, Travel and Leisure.

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Drink Scotland

On our way around the loch in our little rented blue Polo VW,we stopped whenever the occassion presented itself to have a wee tipple as the Scots like to refer to it or a wee dram.Did nothing to affect my driving of course.After a few hours on the road we soon spotted Nessie in a little cove up the road,next to a great spot for tea.

Didn’t look anything like in the movies of course  but then again the wife is braver than most….

Lochness Monster?

 

Our B&B was next to this famous church in Inverness with a nice bar about 100m’s  down the road as well,with some good live music from a Jimi Hendricks wanna be.

Autumn leaves are falling

Scotland the Brave

BraveHeart Liberation of Scotland

Famous in history and famous for the Braveheart movie.

BraveheartFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
For the House, M.D. episode, see Brave Heart.
Braveheart

20th Century Fox
Release date(s) May 24, 1995 (1995-05-24)
Running time 177 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $53,000,000
Gross revenue $210,409,945

Braveheart is a 1995 epic historical drama film directed by and starring Mel Gibson. The film was written for the screen and then novelized by Randall Wallace. Gibson portrays Sir William Wallace, a 13th century Scottish knight who gained recognition when he came to the forefront of the First War of Scottish Independence by opposing King Edward I of England, also known as “Longshanks” (Patrick McGoohan).

The film won five Academy Awards at the 68th Academy Awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director, and was nominated for an additional five.

1280 A.D., after the King of Scotland dies without an heir, King Edward “Longshanks” (Patrick McGoohan) of England, occupies much of southern Scotland, declaring himself King of Scotland. His oppressive rule leads to the deaths of William Wallace’s father and brother. Years later, after Wallace has been raised abroad by his uncle Argyle (Brian Cox), he returns to the highlands, intent on living as a farmer and avoiding trouble. Later, (Believed to be in the Scottish town of Lanark,) Wallace seeks out and courts Murron, whom he knew as a child in the village, and the two marry in secret to avoid the custom of primae noctis. After an English soldier attempts to rape Murron, Wallace rescues her, fighting off other soldiers while she escapes. However, while he manages to get away, Murron is captured and executed by the local magistrate. Wallace gets his retribution on the magistrate by killing him; his actions inspire the local villagers to rebel against the English and capture the town.

Wallace then leads an ever-growing army of rebels to successive victories, eventually annihilating the English Northern Army and capturing the town of York. Wallace is knighted “Lord Protector of Scotland” by Scottish nobles, who quarrel amongst themselves for his loyalty. He also wins the respect of young Robert the Bruce (Angus Macfadyen), the chief contender for the Scottish crown. Robert is dominated by his scheming father, who wishes to secure the throne of Scotland to his son by bowing down to the English, despite his son’s growing admiration for Wallace and his cause.

Longshanks sends Princess Isabelle of France (Sophie Marceau) with peace overtures to Wallace and the Scots while at the same time secretly planning a full-scale invasion of Scotland. Wallace flatly refuses the offer and Isabella, sympathetic to his cause, reveals that a large English army has already marched northward into Scotland. Eventually, she and Wallace begin a love affair, after which she becomes pregnant. Two Scottish nobles, Lochlan and Mornay, planning to submit to Longshanks, betray Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk the following year as a new English army invades Scotland. The Scots lose the battle and Wallace discovers that Robert the Bruce has aided the English, at the bidding of his father. However, tormented by his betrayal of Wallace, Robert helps him flee the English when they attempt to capture him on the battlefield.

For the next seven years, Wallace goes into hiding, fighting a guerrilla war against English forces with his remaining band of Scotsmen. In order to repay Mornay and Lochlan for their betrayals, Wallace brutally murders both. Unable to gain total victory by himself, Wallace eventually agrees to meet with Robert the Bruce in Edinburgh in an attempt to unite the clans behind him once again. However, Wallace is caught in a trap set by Robert’s father and the other nobles. Learning of his father’s treachery, the Bruce finally disowns him.

In London, Wallace is brought before the English magistrates and tried for high treason. The court sentences him to be “purified by pain.” Isabella begs a now infirm and dying King Edward to release Wallace, which he refuses. During his torture, a defiant Wallace refuses to cry out in pain, using the last strength in his body to shout, “Freedom!” Wallace is beheaded, his body is quartered, his arms and legs are sent to the four corners of Britain as a warning against rebellion, and his head is set on London Bridge.

In 1314, nine years after Wallace’s death, Robert the Bruce, now a king but still guilt-ridden over his betrayal of Wallace, leads a strong Scottish army and faces a ceremonial line of English troops at the fields of Bannockburn where the English are to accept him as the rightful ruler of Scotland. Just as he is about to ride to accept the English endorsement, the Bruce turns back to his troops. Invoking Wallace’s memory, he urges his charges to fight with him as they did with Wallace. Robert’s army then charges the English, who were not expecting a struggle. The film ends with Mel Gibson’s voice intoning that the Scottish won their freedom in this battle.

Mel Gibson as William Wallace, the film’s tragic hero. When his father and brother are killed fighting English soldiers, he leaves Scotland and travels abroad with his uncle. Upon returning, he marries his childhood friend Murron. After Murron is summarily executed by an English magistrate, Wallace leads an uprising demanding justice that leads to the Wars of Scottish Independence.
Patrick McGoohan as King Edward I of England, the primary antagonist. Nicknamed “Longshanks” for his height over 6 feet, the King is depicted as a tyrannical psychopath. He is also shown to be emotionally and physically abusive to his son. Determined to ruthlessly put down the Scottish uprising, he intends to ensure his rule over all of the Britain. Despite serving as the film’s villain, he and Wallace do not share a single scene throughout.
While the crew spent six weeks shooting on location in Scotland, the major battle scenes were shot in Ireland using members of the Irish Army Reserve as extras. To lower costs, Gibson had the same extras portray both armies. The opposing armies are made up of reservists, up to 1,600 in some scenes, who had been given permission to grow beards and swapped their drab uniforms for medieval garb.

According to Gibson, he was inspired by the big screen epics he had loved as a child, such as Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus and William Wyler’s The Big Country.

Gibson toned down the film’s battle scenes to avoid an NC-17 rating from the MPAA.[5] The film was Rated R for “brutal medieval warfare.”

In addition to English being the film’s primary language, French, Latin, and Scottish Gaelic are also spoken.

Release and receptionBox officeOn its opening weekend, grossed US$9,938,276 in the United States and $75.6 million in its box office run in the United States and Canada.[6] Worldwide, the movie grossed $210,409,945 and was the 18th highest grossing film of 1995.

 Reviews Braveheart met with generally positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 77% with an average score of 7/10. The film’s depiction of the Battle of Stirling Bridge is often considered one of the best movie battles in cinema history. In a 2005 poll by British film magazine Empire, Braveheart was #1 on their list of “The Top 10 Worst Best Pictures.”

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Zhuihaigo Crystal Clear Glacier Lakes

Stunning place we went to for our Honeymoon(one of them)Crystal clear glacier lakes falling down the mountains in ice cold rivers of diamond blue waterfalls.

After a 13 hour bus ride along a gravel road passing alongside the Mother of all riversYellow river  in China,we left from Chengdu in Northern part of China.

 

Known as the mother river by all the Chinese people, the 5,464-kilometer (about 3,395 miles) Yellow River is the second longest river in China after the Yangtze River . The headwaters of this mighty river lie in Kunlun Mountains in northwestern Qinghai Province. It runs through nine provinces and autonomous regions on its way to the Bohai Sea. It is not exaggerating to say that Yellow River is a melting port, because there are more than 30 branches and countless streams feeding it through its course. The vigorous upper reaches of the Yellow River starts in Qinghai Province to Hekouzhen in Inner Mongolia. This magnificent river flows quietly, like a shy girl in this section, irrigating the farmlands and nurturing the people. Its middle reaches ends at Taohuayu in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. Here the Yellow River splits the Loess Plateau in half, forming the longest continuous gorge in the whole drainage area of the river. The Yellow River’s lower reaches ends in a delta on the Bohai Sea.

It is agreed upon by almost all the Chinese people that the Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization, the spiritual home of the Chinese people. It is the waters of the Yellow River and its spirit that nurture the whole Chinese nation. For thousands of years, the Yellow River has been admiring by literary giants, artists, as well as by the common people. The Yellow River is not just several letters, nor is it just the name of a yellow-ochre-colored river. It bears special significance: the symbol of the Chinese nation, the spirit of the Chinese people and more importantly, civilization itself.

Neolithic (7,000 BC-3,700 BC), Bronze (3,700 BC-2,700 BC) and Iron Age Sites (770 BC), and so on can be found in the Yellow River’s drainage basin, which had been the center of ancient Chinese culture since the Azilian (Middle Stone Age). Here, the story of three cultural heroes: Suiren-shi who taught the Chinese to make fire by drilling wood, Fu Hsi who was the inventor of hunting, trapping and fishing and Shennong-shi who invented agriculture, was spread. It was these three legendary individuals that began the development of civilization in the Yellow River basin. After that, many ancient Chinese emperors, like Emperor Qin Shi Huang, Genghis khan (1162-1227, grandfather of Kublai Khan who is the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368)) pushed the Yellow River civilization to a wholly new level of refinement, grace and spirituality which drew the attention of the whole world.

Rich cultural relics, history and gorgeous natural sceneries make the Yellow River a fine place to visit.

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Genesis

In the Begining God Created The World in only 6 days,and since then i have been doing my utmost to see it all.Come with me on my travels as i recollect the highlights of a 38 year round the world journey of ups and downs from Asia to Africa,to Europe and America and beyond.So far i have been to over 40 different countries and still counting:)

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Travels around Asia

I have been from the North of China Harbin to the far South Xiamen

From Uk to SA to China

Around the world in 38 years