I am still alive / journey to Australia

Jet lag is setting in - and it's fair to say I am not feeling my best.

I’m being dramatic, I’m literally not even in Australia yet. I just had a 13 hour flight from London to Manila, Philippines. Seeing through a couple of hours of dozing before catching our connecting flight to Sydney. I’ve kept myself as awake as possible to attempt to get myself onto Oz time ahead of getting there at 10am tomorrow, however I’ve just worked out that I haven’t slept for 30 hours, so I think it’s safe to say I’m screwed regardless.

It’s been a while. Since travelling, since writing for this blog, since being back over on this side of the world. Being in Manila brings back memories of solo traveling to South Asia 3 and a half years ago now. It strikes me now just how young I was when that whole - fiasco? - occurred. I know Australia is hardly Sri Lanka, but it still feels good to be out in the world again. England becomes a bubble, which seems very small when you’re out of it. I made this blog 5 years ago now, simply to fulfil 2 major passions - travelling and story telling. Between then and now, I’ve let life get in the way and used that to create excuses as to why this blog was dormant for so long. Truth is, life is short, and it’s certainly too short to stop yourself doing things you love. I’m going to be in Oz for 3 weeks, and I’m excited to write about it here. Fast forward a few hours, and we are 41 minutes away from landing in Sydney. Dramatics aside, the flights honestly haven’t been bad at all. I have had a grand total of 2 hours sleep so I could simply be delusional, but it hasn’t felt as long as it has been. Let me check in with a huge bitch out about the jet lag in a few hours.

Comments

How to do Brighton in 24 hours

I think Brighton is probably the most fascinating place I've visited in the UK, purely because of its dissimilarity to anywhere else I've been. Although the weather wasn't ideal and I wasn't there for a long time, I still managed to thoroughly enjoy the visit and get to see most of Brighton’s infamous attractions. After dropping the luggage at our hotel- The Amsterdam Hotel, situated right opposite the pier on the seafront, and will defiantly be staying there if I come to Brighton again- I went to The Lanes, which had been highly recommended to me by numerous people. The Lanes is an area in Brighton with lots of individual and vintage shops, bars, cafes and restaurants, as well as a few high street shops. They were pretty much deserted due to the awful weather, but this didn't prove to be a bad thing as I would wonder around in peace and have a proper explore without the hustle and bustle that I can assume the sunshine would usually provide Brighton with. ...

Sri Lanka days 15-27: Hospitalisation!

In true Ari style, it was all very dramatic and very sudden. One minute I was sat on the poolside stargazing and joking around. The next minute I was upstairs doubled over in the most indescribable crippling pain I've ever been in all down my left side, before passing out on the bed for the rest of the night. Even rushing to hospital the next morning I thought nothing of it, and when the doctor said I needed to be admitted, I asked how long for because I was due to walk up the beautiful Lion Rock, something I'd been looking forward to the most about my trip. Unfortunately for me, the answer was 'a few days.' That same day I was moved to a hospital closer to where I was based, 5 hours down south. It was there I spent my first night in hospital. In Sri Lanka there are two types of hospitals- private, and government, where similarly to the UK government hospitals are funded by the government, and private hospitals are funded for by the patient. Most of the p...

Sri Lanka: days 4-6

By day 4 I felt well and truly settled into the Sri Lankan way, and spent the next couple of days doing some exploring and spending time with my new housemates. One morning before project we spent the morning on Ambalangoda beach, our most local beach at a mere 10 minutes tuk tuk away. At the time I was in Sri Lanka and the area I was in, the sea was very rough and choppy so difficult if not impossible to swim in, but it was nice to have a morning attempting (and failing) to tan. The beach literally looked like a postcard, with bright turquoise sea and white sand, dotted with palm trees. We then spent the afternoon at projects before a brilliant if not eventful house party at one of the volunteer houses. The next day we went a little further afeild towards Hikaduwa and visited the Tsunami Photo Museum, a place created and run by an inspiring family in the very same spot the tsunami of 2004 took over their home and their lives. Their makeshift house faces the coastline a...

Travelling Ari

Search This Blog