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by Hannu
All good things come to an end they say, and this one hell of
a trip of mine is getting close to just that. I intended three years
when I left Sweden, and on the 12:th of April it will be 3 times
365 days I've been going. I would have liked it to continue, but
I recently received an email from my work back home (from where
I have been on a three year unpaid leave) that they will not extend
my leave with another year as I had proposed, but that they expect
me back behind the postal counter on the first of June. And I will
go...
It's been simply amazing. I have been able to take three years
off from reality to go and do whatever I have wanted to do, day
after day of endless almost completely unplanned fun. I have been
to great places, I have met so many wonderful people, I have seen
such incredible things, it's been a dream come true to have been
out there on the road and taking days as they come, lazing, hiking,
riding on trains, buses, camels, waves, boats, bicycles, rickshaws,
taxis, hitchiking, flying - anything to get from A to B.
And time seems to have been flying away. Where did all those days
go? Where are all those people today? All those friends I've made
- they must be numbering in the hundreds. The mailing list I have
on my Hotmail account nowadays is close to 200 people, and to those
comes all the people I've met more briefly than getting to the point
where one exchanges email addresses. Where are they all today, indeed?
Going home too will be what one normally is confronted with when
going abroad - a culture shock. Will I manage? Will I be able to
become a "Mr. Smith" again? Routine, rules, appointments
and the days regulated by the watch - it all seems so distant and
far away from my reality of today! I will probably not be able to
cope very well for a while, and will soon long to get back on the
road again, standing with my thumb up by some isolated mud track
in some far distant corner of the world, not knowing what will happen
that day or where I will eat or sleep or whom I'll meet - but I
will feel alive! Well, let's not think too much about the sadness
of returning home now...
One final travel I will make though, before Sweden. It's another
4 weeks of teaching here in BJ, and then, the 28th of April, I will
go to the worlds least visited country on a weeklong tour. North
Korea. 1490 US dollars it will cost, but that's the only way one
can get there - they don't allow backpackers or people on a budget.
The country has less than 500 visitors a year, and I think most
of them must be foreign politicians and diplomats. Tourists? Maybe
one or two hundred... That will be my 65th country to set foot in,
a fine farewell to the life on the road that I have so enjoyed,
and something special to round it all up with. I'll get you guys
a report about that when I get back from there - either written
and sent here in Beijing, to where I return from N. Korea, or then
from my parents place in Sweden...
Take care and keep tha flags raised!
Hannu
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