100 days after travelling

 I wrote this post 100 days after travelling, but never got the chance to post it. Here is a brief synopsis of what I was feeling at that time.

399 days on the road and the trip has come to an end, we were excited for the plane ride home. No one wants to stop travelling, being free from stresses of life and worry, we didn’t want to go, but we also didn’t want to stay, keep moving, travelling, always a different bed, another room, different people, a different language.  We were ready to see our family and friends again, see whats changed at home, people getting engaged, married, pregnant; birthdays had passed, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, Easter,  New Years… all of our favourites to celebrate with the ones we loved, a whole year had passed without truly celebrating our traditions.

Soon we realized, even though we have learnt about a dozen different cultures, celebrated those traditions, learned about people, religions, destinations, life outside the 9 to 5, at home seems as though nothing has changed. Our friends and family are the same, with maybe a minor detail of a promotion or a new house. Nothing can compare to the motion picture in my head replaying everything that we just did for 399 days; the good, the bad, the stressful, the fun and exciting, the high off life exhilaration of not knowing what the day will bring.  It made me think, who made up this life rule of working more then living? Everyone knows it’s a horrible deal, but we still do it, every one of us, five days a week with only two days off, doesn’t seem like a very good deal to me. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

I see our generation changing. I did, Ben did, the people we met along our travels seemed to have the same views. Live now, as much as you can, right now! Don’t wait until retirement or always the excuse of ‘later’, maybe when I get more money, more opportunity, always waiting for the right time to go out and explore. True, more of our generation is taking advantage of the Now, but not enough are.

Shouldn’t it be compulsory to travel as an elective in school, get out there and observe, not just stick you head in a text book. The world will expand your mind more than any book you read, If only we took more chances, make our opportunity’s instead of wait for them.
When I was younger I could remember so much, the days were slow because everything was new, everyday brought something different. 

The first bit of travelling went very slow but eventually the days would go faster as we got more accustomed to moving to the next destination every few days. I find that with age my memory is diminishing, I look back on my travels and it’s almost like it didn’t really happen, it was just a dream of an amazing time but only the highlight reel flipping through my head. Did I actually take off for longer than a year? Am I seriously done already, I feel like an old high school  quarter back, 40 years later trying to relive and retell the experiences of the best time of my life but no one is truly interested. No one will really know what took place, the daily thoughts, emotions, the endless moving and meeting of different people, the language barrier of not understanding anyone around you, to consistently be on guard of all your items because without it, your life would seem to come to an end. Then when you get a helpful hand of a complete stranger, the instant smile and relief, It’s almost like growing up all over again, all the stages or being afraid, learning to trust, being lost, and making new friends come flashing back at you. I just get the feeling that no one will understand what happened in that 399 days of my life.

Then comes the ‘What Now’ stage. I feel lost, anxious, unmoved from knowing that I now have to go back to work, re-save, and try to think of a new goal that could compare to travelling for a year. Do I really want to move through the basic stages of life? get engaged, buy a house, have a stable job and then what?.. raise children, wait for retirement and then sit and wait until the day my world is no longer there. That might be what I want, or it just might not.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

Our Happily Ever After...

This happily ever after started just like any fairy tale, I got swept off my feet by my shinning knight in a faraway place, something like never ever land.. but this place was a bit chillier, Fort McMurray, Alberta. 

Two years later we were off to travel the world, no excuses, no fears, just two kids madly in love with the idea if travelling while being completely infatuated with each other. Looking back on it now, a year travelling flew by. I cant believe that all those experiences have already come and gone, and our forever is just about to begin. 

Tofino, BC was where Ben and I first said we loved each other and it is the perfect place to relax and be in what we call “our bubble”. 

Although many people say they saw it coming, I had no clue. We had been working in Mali, Africa for our first shift, we hardly ever spend anytime away from each other, I didn’t think he had anytime at all to prepare. The ring, the place, the photographer to catch the moment, everything was more then perfect. 

We had planned 4 nights in Tofino, and we walked the dog each night on a different beach, this night, our last night in Tofino was no different. There were so many moments during the day that I should of known something was up, but I never caught on. 

I am extremely excited to say that all was caught on camera when Mr. Ben Scott got on one knee on November 26^th, 2015 and “ I said Yes!”  

Working Abroad in West Africa

What’s next for us?

Opportunity always awaits. We headed home to Canada a touch early, to reminisce with family and friends before heading out on our next escapade. We are still travelling, but this time were not constantly on the move,  we are back to being employed. The extraordinary life of spending money rather than making it has unfortunately come to an end. Our next stop? Mali, Africa.

Enjoying the view of rural Mali

 Why Mali? If you read our Namibia blog post you would know we were hosted by Bill and Sherri, coworkers of Brian’s (Ben’s dad) while travelling through.

Bill is the Vice President of Africa for B2Gold.  We had visited the gold mine in Namibia and hung out with them in Windhoek for a little over a week. By the time we were saying our goodbyes, we were leaving with a job proposal for the new gold mine in Mali in 6 month’s time. We had laughed it off and declined the offer as we wanted to start a life in Vancouver. Settling in Vancouver was our original plan and we were excited for it. In February we were only half way through our travels, the last thing on our mind was accepting a new job.

Part of the job site, just the beginning stages

Our trip was coming to an end while in South East Asia, a month or two left of traveling when Bill got ahold of us again, and an offer was laid on the table. It took us over two weeks to decide but we happily accepted and are currently working abroad in Mali, Africa. Ben as the Site Civil Engineer and I as the Site Travel Coordinator.

Our surroundings in camp

What’s in Mali? Not too much. We fly from Toronto – France - Bamako, the capital of Mali. Just over 20 hours of flights to get to work. Then we drive 7 hours on mostly dirt roads full of speedbumps to the middle of nowhere where we are located across from a village called Fadougou. This village is made of mud huts, no electricity, and there is a great amount of goats, donkeys, and cows all over the village and road. The village is widely expanding due to the increase of job opportunities from the gold mine. The main language is Bambara (native language) and French, as you can see the language barrier is still haunting us.  Our camp is surrounded by the Faleme River and lush green jungle with a view of Senegal across the way. The living conditions could be better, seems like working abroad isn’t as luxurious as it might seem. With a rotation of 9 weeks on and 4 weeks off, life is still an adventure. Where will we go on the 4 weeks off? Even we haven’t decided that yet. 

Fadougou Village

Coming into Fadougou Village

Coming into Fadougou Village

Our residence in camp

Our room

Bali

Indonesia to some would seem foreign, a place that you would only imagine to visit. Ben and I had been looking forward to Bali for our entire trip, but always knew that once we arrived, our trip of a life time would soon be coming to an end. 

As the days got closer to heading home we started splurging here and there, getting ready for home life, or just getting fed up with constant low class accommodation. We arrived in Kuta and booked a beautiful hotel with a pool, free breakfast and reasonably close to the beach and nightlife.  Our flight arrived late, but that didn’t hold us back from indulging in a steak dinner next to the pool. Kuta is a very popular and touristy spot, the streets were populated with bars and cheap nik-nac shops in between, totally catering to the short term vacationer. We found an overpriced beer house, with pretty horrible service but great beer and burgers. We would walk up and down the main drag at least 3 or 4 times and try to find a place other than this lavish beer house but in the end it was the best spot. At night the back of the Beer House turned into a club, complete with waterfall pool, beer pong tables and an extravagant seating area with butler bar service. We ended up moving hotels for a shorter walk to the action. The hotel was not as luxurious but definitely above our regular standards. This is where a plan was made and our adventure on Bali began.

We had 5 days in Bali, and we were going to see as much as possible in that time frame. We looked up the must sees’ on the island and rented 2 scooters from our hotel for this long haul trip. We started with heading north up the coast. We had read on reviews that you have to watch out for traffic check stops, since the police are on the lookout for unsuspecting tourists without international driving licenses (or any other obscure violation, headlights on during the day) to pay a “ticket”. We were pulled over within the first hour of leaving Kuta. Ben handed over his international license and the officer decided to refuse it because it didn’t have scooter/motorcycle circled. It’s a scooter! Come on... there were 5 year old driving scooters without helmets all over the place. All of this added up and I knew that they were just looking for a payout. Finally they asked for my international license, and I surly didn’t have one, but advised I clumsily left it at the hotel. The officers were trying to play good cop/ bad cop. One was making small chat while the second was threatening to withhold our scooters if we didn’t pay a fine. Since we had suspected what was going on Ben and I started to play the game they were playing with us. I was the bad guy and Ben the good. I threw up my hands and said that is all fine and dandy, ill sure pay a fine for not having an international license but I will be paying a fine at the local police station when I receive a ticket, I will not be paying without an issued ticket, especially not on a street corner.

The officer had decided he wanted to withhold my  actual driver license until I came back with the receipt of payment from the ‘ticket’ he was about to issue me. When I saw him writing the ticket on a lined piece of paper, I knew that we had called his bluff. Within minutes I had my license back in my hands and they were letting us go, they told “You never come back!”. Most tourists would of probably had just paid the $60.00 fine but after travelling for a whole year, and the constant day after day of people trying to rip you off, we were wiser. Beside money wasn’t the issue, it’s the principle of the matter. 

 

We were already running late for this fantastic trip we planned, and what looks like a short distance on a map wasn’t the case. The roads were curvy, the traffic was heavy and there was construction and detours in most areas. It was a maze, thank God we had the Maps.Me app, absolutely saved us. Our first stop was Tanah Lot Temple, this temple sits on a large offshore rock which has been shaped continuously over the years by the ocean tide. We read that along the Balinese coast there are seven sea temples, each of the sea temples was within eyesight of the next to form a chain along the south-western coast. Once arriving we took off our shoes, and walked through the water to the temple to give a donation and be blessed by some temple dudes. We only spent a couple hours mooning over Tanah Lot before heading to Ubud.

 

When you think of eat, love, pray.. you think of Ubud. The over grown vegetation, the weaved roads, the temples at every corner and the smiles of everyone around you. We again found a nice hotel and planned our night and next day in Ubud. We had a suggestion from a fellow traveller that when in Ubud to look for the traditional fire dance show. The show was held in a temple sanctuary where plastic chairs were around the small stage. The show must have had 50 people who were taking part in this traditional dance, many changing into different roles behind the stage, dressing up as different gods, girls dressing up as belly dancers and  It was said that all these people were volunteers to ensure that the story keeps on living. The next morning we toured the rice patties, before heading further north into the chilly mountains.

 

 

The roads to Pura Bratan were steep and crazy, we got to such a high elevation that we were freezing while driving on our scooters in our summer clothes. We were on a mission to see the ‘temple on the lake’, Pura Ulun Danu Beratan Temple. You could see when arriving that this was the only attraction that Pura Bratan had. The views were spectacular with the temple situated right on Bratan lake, combined with the refection of the clouds, and the hills behind it made us happy that we took the time to come this far north and see it. We didn’t stay long as we were about to head all the way south to Uluwata area.

If we would of made Uluwata our first stop on our scooter tour we wouldn’t have made it anywhere else. Pura Luhur Uluwatu had the best beaches for surfers and had a famous cliff-hanging temple. Many people refer to this area as Bukit, the whole ocean front is lined by cliffs, which make the sunsets world class. We only had one night, before we had to head back to Kuta. We had a met a traveller in Vietman that said if we were on our way over to Bali, to ensure we hit a surf shop/restaurant/bar on the edge of a cliff called Single Fin. This was one of the best suggestions we received in all our travels. This place was packed with surfers, locals, and vacationers all taking in the surfers riding the waves below for sun downers. This was an absolute perfect way to say goodbye to Bali. Bukit will now forever be my screensaver, a place we definitely will never forget and a place we surly know we will be back to.