Our adventure is nearly over. Almost 12 months ago we packed, what seemed then to be the bare minimum but now feels excessive beyond belief, and set off to Argentina. When we arrive back in England we will have visited 14 countries and worked on 7 different volunteering projects. We have lived in hostels, hotels, huts, houses, tents, cars, monasteries, schools, orphanages, boats and caravans. We will have dealt with one bout of Gardia, one bout of vomitting on a bus, 3 months of diahera, a few suspected infestations of head lice and countless mosquito, bed bug and sand fly bites. We will have met many people who have shared their homes and lives with us and we would like to thank them all, especially:

Our Argentinian family, Bill, Liz, Christine and Mikey.
Our Peruvian Family Enrique, Pepe, Victor and Eybe.
Our New Zealand Mum and Dad Olive and Graeme and of course Karmin.
Jak and Lynne our Australian family who put up with us over Christmas and all the people from the QUT project who we sweated and swore with from 5am to 8pm for 6 weeks. 
Our beautiful little sisters from Yogaswami Hindu Girls Home in Sri Lanka who we lived with for an exhausting month and Thivaa and Sangeeta who let us recooperate at their house afterwards.

Anyone can travel and see the sights. For me, it's the people we have met who have made this trip special. Volunteering has allowed us to get off the beaten track and meet people and see things most 'travellers' never experience. Hopefully we have given a little bit back to the countries we have visited and I hope that one day we will meet our new friends again. I would like to mention a few of these people who we will never forget and have taught me to try to be more grateful for all the things I have.

Samu and Lucio- Argentina
At our first volunteering placement we met a little family that consisted of mum, dad and twin 3 year old boys, Samu and Lucio. The family was living in a tent through the Argentinean winter, at the foothills of the Andes. At night the temperature dropped to minus 4. They had no income and no home. The family washed in water from the stream. The little boys had to compete with stray cats and dogs at meal times, as their mum tried to feed them lentils from the pan.

Yanet- Peru
We volunteered at a school in Peru for two weeks. The children lived at the school during the week as their families could not afford to transport them to and from school every day. Yanet, the head teacher has her own house and family but lives at the school through the week. She does this as a volunteer to ensure that these 22 children from rural families get an education.

Aki Ra- Cambodia
As a child Aki Ra was recruited by the Khmer Rouge and forced to lay thousands of landmines that killed hundreds of people. Then, as a 12 year old, he was recruited by the Vietnamese army and made to shoot and kill many of his fellow Cambodians. As an adult, after the war, he has devoted his life to the disposal of landmines in Cambodia, first by defusing them himself by hand, then by training teams of local people, opening a museum to raise awareness of landmines and then by setting up and orphanage for children affected by mines. 

Olive- New Zealand
It's a good job this lady is retired. As well as taking in waifs and strays like us, Olive practically runs the National Party single handedly, is in the process of redecorating her house, solves family emergencies, eases racial tensions in the Mangere East area of Aukland, adopts asylum seekers and makes a lot of gluten free food, all whilst recovering from her second battle with breast cancer. A round of applause for our Kiwi mother!

Lynne, Jak and QUT students- Australia
Our Ozzie family who were so kind to us over Christmas have been so kind to many other homeless travellers before us. After surviving the terrible floods of last year and witnessing the death of neighbours and close friends, the community of Murphy's Creek is still in shock. Lynne and Jak spearheaded the project to rebuild the destroyed trail hut this Christmas which hopefully goes a little way to help rebuild the lives of the people who live in this area of Australia. I thought I'd take the opportunity to give a huge round of applause to all the students who gave up their holidays to hammer, dig and paint for hours that wouldn't be out of place in a workhouse to finish the job.....clap clap clap. X

Vino- Sri Lanka
19 year old vino lives at yoga swami girls home in batticaloa. She's lived there since she was 5, after her mother and father committed suicide in a house fire after a family argument. All three children escaped, and we're sent to different orphanages. Every morning she wakes up at 3am to study for her a'levels. She goes to school at 7am come home at 2pm, then goes to after school classes until 8pm. She has dinner and then revises until 11pm. She does this everyday. She's kind, gentle and quiet and wants to be a lawyer. Here's to vino! 

Kavitha and Devi- Sri Lanka
These two ladies run the Girls Home we stayed at. They live there constantly, with the girls. They never have a day off. This is not a Monday to Friday job for these ladies, it is their life. Davi plans to get married next year but instead of setting up home with her new husband, she plans to go home to make his dinner in the evening and then come back to the home to sleep on the floor with the youngest girls like she has been doing for ten years.

Mad Jack- Cambodia
Jack is English. He visited Cambodia 6 years ago and never left. After witnessing the plight of working elephants in Cambodia he has spent that time raising money to buy land for a sanctuary. He now has a team of people working with him, including vets and volunteers. 6 elephants currently live at the sanctuary but dozens more benefit from Jack's outreach veterinary care. It takes on average 3 years to negotiate the sale of an elephant, many of which are suffering not only physically but emotionally from years of abuse. Jack has to save up for 2 years to buy a ticket to England to visit family. 

Debbie, jimmy, Thivaa, Sangeeta and Tom- Sri Lanka and England
Some people just get on with helping make people's lives better without fanfare or expectation of reward. These are some of them.  They are mostly related to Tom in someway or another and spend their free time helping (in the most direct way) countless numbers of children in Sri Lanka whose lives have been blighted by the loss of one or both parents. This is not just a one-off event, their help is on-going, meaningful and savvy. They ensure that the right support is made available, whether practical like buying a generator for an orphanage or emotional such as mobilising a group of grandma's in Britain to knit teddy bears for the children who live there. 

All in all we've met some pretty amazing people on our journey and done things that we never
thought possible. Most of all I'd like to thank Emma who has put up with my whining for a whole year, there's no one I would have rather shared this adventure with. Thanks you for looking after me! What a woman!

R x

Hi,
If you follow this link you'll be able to view our Kathmandu, Lumbini and Bandipur and Bardia photo albums. X

http://photobucket.com/albums/ff385/workerbee30

Nepal Blog

We are currently sitting in a jungle being eaten by Mosquitos, better than being eaten by a tiger but still quite uncomfortable! 

We arrived in Bardia National Park (south west Nepal) this morning after a 16 hour bus journey on a local bus complete with drunk men sleeping on the roof. To be honest the roof seemed preferable to our seats which by hour ten had become harder than the hardest thing ever recorded on a hard-o-meter. Our bottoms had become as leathery as a rhino's and have bruises that rival my worst rugby injuries. Nevertheless we arrived at 5am, and slept until 2pm. We then proceeded to eat our own body weight in carbohydrates including, rice and soup, chow mien, chips and momos. Emma, having recovered from a bout of food poisoning (this time, the cucumber, not the pineapple, is getting the blame) hadn't eaten for 3 days so was pretty hungry! Our room is a little shack made of bamboo and clay with running water, all be it cold, and mosquito nets to keep our old nemeses at bay. We're hoping to stay for a few days and do some jungle treks to spot the elusive Bengal tiger, along with maybe a rhino and elephant!

Our previous stop was Pokhara, the last destination west for most travellers to Nepal, and the start of many of the famous mountain trecks. Having decided we were a. Too skint and b. too scared to attempt any real walking we opted to do a few little jaunts on our own. Armed with our Lonely Planet guide we set off around the lake to try to find the world peace monument, a must see in Pokhara. After a few wrong turns and cross words we found the rickety bridge which crosses the river to the hill where the beginning of the trail up to the monument begins. By this time, both of us had had a sense of humour  bypass and the sign warning about the likelihood of being mugged, was too much to take, so we about turned and went back over the rickety bridge to seek the sanctuary of our luxurious, if a little overpriced, hotel room at the butterfly lodge. The irony of being mugged on the way to the world peace pagoda would have shattered our faith in human kind. The rest of our time in pokhara was spent whiling away our time haggling with shop owners and eating momos (a delicious snack, like steamed dumplings, filled with vegetables, rice, or cheese and spinach, and you get 12 for 50 pence). Like any responsible traveller, we tried to spread our money around by eating/shopping at different places. However (because we are very close to the indian border) we found an amazing punjabi restaurant that we went to twice, where we feasted on mushroom panzer, spinach aloo, garlic nan, curry, riatia, dhal and a huge bottle of Everest  beer! Perfect.

We like Nepal a lot, even though we have been unable to enjoy ANY mountain views, due to the smog which drifts across the country from India and gets stuck between the southern planes and the Himalayas. There are lots of different cultures here. Many Hindus, and Buddhists, lots of Chinese and Tibetan refugees and Indians of course. Hundreds of dedicated outdoor pursuit types come from all over the world to conquer mountains (who drag their infants along too) and there are hippies who never left after arriving in 1975. It's a really chilled out place, with delicious food and prices that make it easy to linger for longer . With the exception of Kathmandu, you can get a decent twin room for 450 rp, (£3) a meal would set you back 250rp (£2), and an excruciatingly painful 16 hour bus journey is a tenner. We don't seem to get hassled to buy things here as much as is some places either, which is a relief! Unfortunately, Nepal is one of the poorest countries we've visited and women are the poorest of them all. The Illiteracy rate amongst women is 70%, and it's still legal for a man to take a second wife if a women doesn't bear him a child within 10 years. Diabolically, over 100,000 Nepali girls have been 'sold' to brothels in India. Girls are considered a burden and if a family can afford to send only one child to school it will inevitably be the son. Despite this, we have seen many a happy family scene and lots of children, both boys and girls, making their way to school, so maybe, hopefully things are changing. 

We have two weeks left of our great adventure. It's hard to believe its been almost a year since we began. It has been the best experience imaginable and we are both so glad we had the opportunity to do it. We are planning to visit Lumbini, the birth place of Buddha and then to Kathmandu ready to catch our 3 flights which will eventually take us to heathrow (Delhi, Mumbai, London).  HOME SOON! 

Love Roo and Emmalington Brown-pants xxx