Final thoughts

This is the end of my journey, my adventure and my blog :( It has been absolutely amazing; beyond any expectations. It is like having lived an entire life in only 6 months. Of course it sucks as well, but that is of course part of it.

Hilights: Gibbon Experience, Meditation Retreat, Monk for  Month, meeting Anouk and Jen, Going out in Surfer's paradise, luxury hotels, surfing, Whitehaven beach, making out with girls in Cairns, Angkor Wat, the killing cave at Battam Bang, meeting the senior monk at the end and coming home.

Travel has brought me:

- insight into impermanence of things. The only thing that stays the same is your backpack, the rest always changes
- Somewhat better view of how poor a lot of people on this planet are, with which a new perspective on your home situation arizes
- Improved intellectual knowledge of Buddhism
- Greatly improved meditation practice and the development of mindfulness in daily life
- Some great friends.. actually mainly Anouk and Jen.
- A small Thai vocabulary
- A little bit of understanding of (South East) Asia
- Appreciation of rise and noodles
- Less naivity about people trying to screw you over in any kind of business deal
- Slightly more muscle
- Greater capacity to deal with wide range of bizarre situations
- A skillset with chopsticks
- Generally broadened reference frame and life experience
- More enjoyment in giving to people
- A gundam worrier (fuck yeah!!!!), Buddhist books, a suit, a jacket to go with my suit, a leather jacket, two sarongs (:S??), fishermans pants and an awesome Thai jacket to go with my fisherman pants, new flipflops, a mindfulness reminder bracelet, two red strings around my wrist, brown bracelet (that a cute 17 year old Cambodja girl gave me), a necklace with a buddha image hanging from it, a buddha image and Qantas PJ's. Oh and some presents I gave away.
- Appreciation of the Buddha
- Appreciation for Mahasi Sayadaw
- Belief in rebirth (not reincarnation)
- The belief that being a good person is very important in life. I mean actually... not like "yeah, yeah, I guess I should", but a real necessity.. like if you don't strive for this, you will only cause yourself and others more pain.
- A better understanding of communism in relation to capitalism. And generally an idea of capitalism's effects on countries (good and bad)
- Some great talks with Buddhist monks
- Traveling with Mark and meeting Wendel in Australia
- A better balance between patience and effort (and awareness of the importance of this balance)

What traveling has not brought me
- A job
- Working experience
- A girlfriend / the perfect mate
- Money
- Less of a craving for cheesecake
- A real idea of what kind of career I want to persue
- A Ferrari
- Enlightenment
- Rabies (almost though)

What sucked
- Getting ripped off
- Being lonely (although that is very educational)
- Sweating
- Having a small, insect infested rooms
- Insetc bites
- Spending A LOT of time in buses, boats and planes
- Not being able to communicate with people
- Prostitutes trying to rape you
- Being lazy
- Only spending money without making any
- Being away from friends and family
- Not being able to play volleyball
- Having to apply sun lotion EVERY day
- Your feet being digusting at the end of every day from walking through dust covered roads on flipflops
- People ALWAYS trying to sell you stuff, like you're a walking ATM
- Having to explain I'm not from America, nor Canada
- People raping my name
- Finding out that buddhist monks are people too and there are quite a few not so good ones
- Always having to leave behind your friends
- Getting a girl's number / facebook, but not being able to do something with it, due to her or you moving on to the next place
- Having to take malaria pills
- Monkeys

Traveling is an amazing life style and an amazing experience. All good things come to an end however. Attachment leads to craving, which leads to suffering. I love you all! Thanx for reading. A book with pictures and some of the stories shown here will be coming out and will be order-able through the author of this blog!

sathu.. sathu...........sa...thu

:(