Round the World
A few years ago, I spent a whole year travelling around the world, living out of a backpack and seeing and doing lots of things. It was amazing! I did so much and saw so many new sights.
Because we had lots of time, we were able to get a real feel for each country, meet locals and experience some sense of what life in each place is like, rather than just cramming all the important sights into a short visit.
Here are my top 20 experiences from that year:
- Visiting a rat temple in India where hundreds of live rats scurried around our feet
- Shopping in the witches’ market in La Paz, Bolivia, crammed with stalls selling dried llama foetuses and armadillo shells, aphrodisiacs, alpaca toenails and bewitched carvings
- Locked in with murderers, embezzlers, smugglers, arsonists, drug-traffickers and burglars during a visit to a real prison for 1,300 prisoners in Bolivia
- Sliding on my belly through the cramped black tunnels where hundreds of Vietnamese people lived, fought and died during the Vietnam War
- Camping in the jungles of Peru with tropical birds, monkeys, bears, mongoose, pumas and millions of mosquitoes
- Canoeing down Bolivian jungle rivers infested with crocodiles, piranhas, pink dolphins, capybaras and water snakes
- Climbing through the sun gate overlooking the ancient Incan city of Macchu Piccu in Peru as the dawn sun pierced the clouds
- Crawling through the hot dark tin and silver mines in Potosí, Bolivia, deep underground, and struggling to breathe in the choking, sulphurous air
- Visiting the vast gleaming salt lakes of Bolivia and a hotel made from blocks of salt
- Eating kangaroo, crocodile and llama in Australia, and Peking duck and sea slimy sea slugs in China
- Flying over Mount Everest
- Hiking along the top of the ice-coated Great Wall in the depths of rural China
- Jumping out of a plane 3km above New Zealand with a parachute strapped to my back
- Using ‘hole-in-the-ground’ toilets missing doors and walls in India, Vietnam and China
- Seeing a mummified Incan child princess, sacrificed to the Gods and buried in a volcano in Peru
- Sitting on an elephant as a rhino charged us during a jungle safari in Nepal
- Searching for anacondas in the Bolivian pampas swamps
- Experiencing 18m sperm whales up close and personal in the oceans off New Zealand
- Swimming with sharks, sea lions, turtles and dolphins in Australia
- Trekking among live volcanoes in New Zealand that spewed hot lava and reeked of rotten eggs
