Home

Well, we're home at last. We've had a fabulous adventure, but we're ready to be home and get on with life.

Our "Beaches of the World" leg took us to:
- Karon Beach, Phuket, Thailand
- Whitehaven Beach, Whitsunday Island, Queensland, Australia
- Bondi Beach, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (albeit after dark)
- Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, USA
- Dickenson Bay, Antigua

So I'm calling that a success! The "missing" beach would be Fiji, where we chose a resort on the coral coast at the south of Viti Levu island with a pleasant but not epic patch of sand. There were apparently well-known beaches nearby, but we were too busy relaxing to shift our bums that far.

Looking back over the whole time, it's impossible to feel other than extremely fortunate and lucky/blessed. From so many aspects, the way everything worked out has been perfect.

For example, we found ourselves in so many places at just the right time:
- Peru for the "rainy season", when there weren't many tourists but it didn't actually rain. A highlight was the Candelaria festival in Puno, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, where it absolutely teemed down one evening, leaving us hopping through rivers on the streets with trainers that didn't dry for days.
- China (for example, Suzhou) where we strolled around in comfort being told we were visiting weeks after cold and ice, and a month before sweltering heat.
- Kyoto, where we managed to catch the very end of the cherry blossom season.

The three legs turned out to be in a perfect order, somewhat unintentionally. Leg 1 was anticipated as the most adventurous, with a month driving around. This had to come first, before the southern hemisphere winter closed routes around the Andes (although we didn't get as far south as originally planned). As it turned out, Argentina and Chile are extremely developed, and any European would feel very comfortable there. So it turned out to be more sightseeing and less "fearless explorer". It might have turned out rather different if I hadn't (somehow) retained a surprising amount of my schoolboy Spanish.

Peru was the leg 1 destination most different from home, and so most interesting to visit, although all the comforts of home are available there. We resisted the McDonalds and Starbucks in the main square of Cuzco without difficulty.

Leg 2 turned out to be the big adventure. The things we saw were quite interesting - Tianenmen Square, Forbidden City, Terracotta Warriors, Shanghai Bund, etc. However, it was seeing through those to society, economy, politics and people's daily lives which was the most fascinating. I feel that we Brits know very little about China, and the tour was a real eye-opener for me. Their development has come so very far, with modern tower blocks everywhere and roads busy with so many nice cars. China is so powerful. I don't think they're "expansionist" (per se), but they do feel that they should own places they see as historically theirs. I'll be keeping an eye on Taiwan and the islands in the South China Sea.

Japan was also amazing. As I expected, even more "developed" than the UK. It was so incredible being in settings so familiar, but unable to read a single word. It brings home how one "navigates" at home, even around a shopping centre, by picking up on a thousand little clues (in writing, colour, style or arrangement) without realising it. Such a learning experience.

Leg 3 turned out to be in the right order too. The China tour was so fast-paced, and Clare's poor health in Japan so sapping, that we were really ready for something more restful. The city-beach-city-beach mixture and rhythm worked well, with cities we really liked, three of which I knew from before and really enjoyed introducing Clare to. The beaches were all good too. We saw the Whitsundays in a poor patch of Aussie winter weather, which was a shame (but almost the only one during our whole journey). I was very relieved when we really liked the place in Antigua, as I so hoped to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

Other aspects of planning feel like successes too. We prepared as well as we could for problems, such as crime, by splitting credit cards into three wallets, never kept in the same place and each containing enough so we wouldn't have to head home, with different bank accounts behind. However, the biggest thing we unintentionally parted company with was a beloved multi-year travelling companion mini shampoo bottle. INCREDIBLY fortunate.

A few of the things we took with us proved far more useful than we'd ever have foreseen:
- Whilst driving in Argentina and Chile, the SatNav that Clare bought me for Christmas and I filled with local maps (on the off-chance), turned out to be vital, and without it the month driving would hardly have even been possible. We'd have needed street maps for a different city ever night, which would have been very hard to get before arriving in the city itself. Mobile data (from my iPhone) let us down whenever we really needed it.
- Clare developed a profound affection for the Kindle which was her Christmas present from me, and the game of finding cheap ways of overfilling it.
- ZipLoc resealable plastic bags turned out to be really useful. I took a large bundle and we used them liberally, helping to organise things and keep them or everything else dry. We nearly ran out during leg 1.
- A luggage scale got used every time before we headed to the airport. In leg 1, with so many different climates, we knew we'd be fully loaded. However, we were right up against 20kg limits on cheaper leg 3 flights too, as the souvenirs started to accumulate.
- iPhones. Incredible. Hardly ever as a phone. Carrying copies of documents (itinerary, passport, emailled vouchers, etc.), booking hotels - particularly through the Booking.com app - and referring to confirmations saved as images, Skypeing with friends at home, researching destinations on websites and via Wikitravel (including the offline iTravel app), checking in to flights, and games and podcasts when there's time to fill. And blogging. Clare borrowed mine so much during leg 1 that we had to get here one before leg 2, and now they're inseparable.

Friends have asked what highlight(s) was/were. SUCH a hard question, with a deluge of new experiences in so short a time.

We keep coming back to Machu Picchu, and probably the Iguazu Falls.

As the Spanish swept across South America, with their superior military technology, Machu Picchu was abandoned. However, the Spanish never found it. Hence (apart from being lost and "found" amidst dense vegetation), the place is just as it was left - just minus wood-and-leaf roofs. A real insight into a fascinating civilisation, in a simply stunning location.

The Iguazu Falls are spectacular. Clare and I have both been to the Niagara Falls. I think Iguazu takes the edge - wider, higher, more varied and in a better setting, whilst Clare thinks the comparison of experience is more even. We really enjoyed our visit anyway.

Clare was blown away by the chance to cuddle a koala, and to climb Sydney Harbour Bridge. I remain fascinated by our insight into China, described above.

Our nearly-first and last beaches were the best:
- Ramon's Village, on the edge of San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize
- Siboney Beach Club, Dickenson Bay, Saint John's, Antigua
Although a close runner-up is:
- Mövenpick Resort & Spa, Karon Beach, Phuket, Thailand

Possibly the biggest lesson from the whole experience is how welcoming, helpful and kind the people of the world are. Obviously there's "bad people" everywhere, but we didn't meet any, and we received help well beyond the call of duty on many occasions.

The world is friendly - I think we'll go there again.