I am fresh from my first ever Couchsurfing experience and it was pretty amazing. I stayed with a local girl in Kaili, a small city that I am really impressed with. She’s part of the local minority Miao people and has started her own business teaching English to local kids. She and her twin sister have made names for themselves by teaching themselves English after having left school at age 14. I stayed in her apartment she shares with her father and his girlfriend and even sat in on her English class one morning.

The night I arrived I found myself out at a local nightclub which was an experience complete with drinking beer in shots and a flamethrowing bartender. The following day we headed off with some of her friends to an area a bit out of town where locals swim in the river, drink beer, have BBQs and play mahjong and cards. It was truly the sort of place I never would have discovered for myself and I loved every minute of it.

So I am definitely a fan of Couchsurfing but I never would have expected not to be. The only downside is that it’s pretty much impossible to get work done if your host is good enough to show you around. If you get a host who might be busy with work of their own then you might be able to spend your days getting things done.

But then again, for me the whole point of Couchsurfing is to immerse yourself in the local culture and hiding yourself away on your computer sort of defeats the purpose so work be damned! At least until the next stop.

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I’m in a little village whose name I can’t remember in a provence whose name I can’t even attempt to spell and I don’t have a guidebook with me at the moment to be able to fill in the blanks. One name I do remember though is the village I spent the past three nights it. It’s called Dazhai and is located amongst the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces. It’s a pretty awesome place with friendly people who are part of a minority group I never did get the name of. But the women have super long hair and wear it sort of wrapped around their heads like a hat. Combine that with their pink outfits, wicker baskets on their backs, and towering rice terraces as a backdrop and you’ve got a pretty cool place to chill out for a few days.

My hotel was an hours hike from where the bus dropped me off. I Had spent 6 hours on buses by that point and when I saw where I was supposed to be hiking to, I nearly aborted the mission and stayed in a closer hotel. But the trek was worth it, the views were amazing, and they even had internet way up there! I was amazed. Plus they had a festival today and I managed to get some serious photgraphy practice in. I love taking portrait shots but feel bad about getting all up in people’s faces. Well festvals are pretty much a free for all and I think I got some good shots that I’ll post when I get a chance. Improving my abismal photography skills is on my list for sure.

So now I’m in a new village - I think it’s called Changyang but don’t quote me on that - and the hostel has a fast connection and the hugest monitor I have ever seen in my life. Unfortunately there’s no wifi and even worse, there’s nobody else here! That always happens to me and it’s annoying I tell you. I’m hoping to head off to the provence up north to a city called Kaili to try couchsurfing for the first time but I’ve heard that the roads might be blocked due to landslides. I think the gods are against me when it comes to couchsurfing but I’ll try my best to get there.

So getting to the point of this post… internet is everywhere these days and will only continue to spread around. It’s starting to be more of a shock when a place doesn’t have the internet than when it does and that’s good news for us nomads.

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I met up with Erik yesterday. He’s a guy who has been living in Shenzhen for about a year and a half and is plotting his transition to the world of mobile working. It was great to sit down and talk shop with someone who knows a bit about earning online and has lots of ideas and plans for the future.

I’ve met a few people so far who are internet entrepreneur types and it’s great because I love talking about web marketing, websites, mobile working and all that good stuff. Most people tend to be interested in what I do but it’s nice to meet other people who are doing it because the conversations go beyond just ’so like, what… do you get money per visitor to your site or what?’

So with that in mind, I’d love to meet up with anyone else out there who might be in my moving neighbourhood in the coming months. If you’ll be around and want to go for a drink, drop me a line and hopefully we’ll be able to make it happen, whoever and wherever you are!

Here are my (very) rough plans for the next little while:

• July - Yuangshuo and around Southern China.
• August - Beijing
• September/October - Hopefully volunteering in Sichuan with HODR. Otherwise float around SE Asia.
• November to January - Teach English with the Burma Volunteer Program in Northern Thailand.
• February - I need to be in Perth for a wedding at the end of the month so might head to Indonesia first. Or visit Laos and Vietnam if I haven’t already.
• March to May/June - Get an apartment in Sydney and hop around the rest of Australia visiting friends.
• June/July onwards - Cargo ship to South America and kick around there for awhile. Maybe get an apartment in Buenos Aires.

So if anyone thinks they might be in a similar place at a similar time, get in touch and hopefully we can meet up!

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China is a strange place. The Olympics are fast approaching, thousands of tourists will be descending on the country, and what are they doing? Making it a lot harder to get a visa. I thought I was in the clear. I got a double entry visa in Hong Kong at the end of April and then later found out that I could extend it twice. I took this to mean twice per entry so my evil master plan was to stay for three months on the original visa and two extensions, leave the country to activate the second entry and then extend another two times. Viola! A six month visa just like that.

But things are never that easy. When I dropped my passport off on Monday for my second extension, I asked the immegration lady whether I would be allowed to extend after my second entry. She politely told me that I didn’t have a second entry anymore! Apparently once you ‘extend’ the visa, it’s replaced by a whole new 30 day visa that is no longer a double entry. I’m really happy I found that out before I found myself stranded on the wrong side of the border with Mongolia.

My current visa will expire on July 17th so I need to leave China before then. There are rumours that getting a visa will be really tough after July 1st (no idea why this is the magical date) plus I’m not sure if extensions will be granted on my new visa. So rather than mess with the visa people after July 1st, I’m going to head down to Hong Kong on Tuesday to get a whole double entry new visa. Rather than worry about being able to extend the visa at the end of July, I’m going to travel for a month down south then pop over to Hong Kong to activate the second 30 day entry, and then head back up to Beijing at the end of July.

These visa hassles are a pain in the neck and kind of go against the whole freewheeling travel style that I was really looking forward to. But now that I’m sort of being forced out of Beijing, I’m looking forward to it. The plan is to head to Yangshuo to Zhuo Yue English College where I can exchange a few hours of conversational English for food, accommodation and Chinese lessons. A couple of my friends worked there and really liked it and I think it’ll be an interesting way to experience a town that is known for being backpackerland in a different sort of way.

But of course I really want to be volunteering with Hands On Disaster Response in Sichuan. Still no word on whether there will be a deployment, but if there is then I’ll be heading up there to do that. So between English teaching, a bit of travelling, and hopefully some volunteering, it should be a busy and interesting month.

New Chinese visa pending, of course! Here’s hoping I don’t find myself stranded in Hong Kong!

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I’ve been in Beijing for just over a month now and feel like I’m pretty settled in. I still can’t say more than five words in Chinese but there’s always that thought that maybe tomorrow will be the day I make the leap up to to six. I like to aim high.

One thing being here has shown me is how much I love just hanging around and getting a feel for a place. I still haven’t been to the Great Wall, visited Mao’s creepy carcas or checked out the Forbidden City but the beauty of spending so much time here is that there’s no rush. Instead, I’ve been meeting new people, having some debaucherous nights out, exploring the art scene while attemping to get back into painting and, of course, working on my sites.

Being able to unpack, relax and do what I want with each day has done wonders some days for my production and other days for my procrastination but the point is that I never feel like I should be doing something because there’s plenty of time for everything. I might not be saying this in three months when I haven’t seen a thing and haven’t done any work but for the moment, it feels great!

Travelling slowly is something I’ve always tried to do and have combined it in the past with working abroad. This time around my work is portable and renting apartments in cool cities around the world is how I see myself spendng the next few years. I’m heading to Australia in February 2009 for a wedding and think I’ll get an apartment and hang out in Sydney or Brisbane for a few months at least. I can use that as motivation to get my earnings up since Australia is a lot more expensive that Asia. I keep hearing that Buenos Aires is a great city so might do the same there and attempt to learn Spainish… hopefully more successfully than my attempt at Chinese!

After that, who knows but I’ll be keeping a lookout for cities of interest. I’ve always wanted to spend some time living in New York City but I think I’ll need a bit more in the bank before I can afford one of those closet apartments in Manhatten.
If anyone can recommend any cities you’ve loved living in (or even just dream of living in) let me know!

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Now that I’m all cozy in my earthquakey Beijing apartment I thought it might be interesting to retrace my steps. Well not my steps exactly because I didn’t take many - retrace my flights would be more accurate since I’ve flown practically everywhere so far. Sorry environment.

People always seem pretty interested in whether they should buy a RTW plane ticket or just buy flights as they go so I figured a little list of what it’s cost me so far hopping from place to place might help out a bit.

You can check ouy my travel map for a quick glimpse of my somewhat ridiclous route and here are the airfares for the whole thing:

January 2008

• London to Manila - £393 (Expedia/Cathay Pacific)
• Manila to Kalibo - £25 (Cebu Pacific)
• Manila to Cagayan d’Oro - £31 (Cebu Pacific)
• Cebu to Manila - £31 (Cebu Pacific)

February 2008

• Manila to Legaspi (return) - £22 (Cebu Pacific)
• Manila to Dhaka - £275 (Travelocity/Malaysian)

April 2008

• Dhaka to Hong Kong (stopover in Kuala Lumpur) - £235 (Travelocity/Malaysian)
• Hong Kong to Beijing (return but only used one-way) - £230 (Travel Agent/Dragon Air)

My London to Manila flight was booked two months in advance. All of my flights in the Philippines were booked a couple of days in advance except the Manila to Kalibo which was a few months I think because there was a festival on. I booked my Manila to Dhaka flight about two months in advance and Dhaka to Hong Kong only about a week before. The Hong Kong to Beijing was bought two days in advance.

I had to pay a fee of £58 to move my flight to Hong Kong forward so the grand total for all of my flights including changes is £1300.

From my days as a very bad tavel agent in London in 2002 I know that RTW tickets with the One World or Star Alliance networks cost about that price at an absolute minimum. But these tickets have several limitations including the direction you travel, countries their member airlines go to, change fees (sometimes), number of flights you can take (or kilometers you can travel) and the ticket has to be used up within a year. Plus if you want to make changes it depends on availability and there’s no guarantee of a seat.

I’ve only really taken three long haul flights for that price so maybe the value isn’t there but I have no intention of going around the world in a year anyways so buying a RTW ticket was never an option. Plus I think the flexibility buying tickets as I go has given me is hard to put a price on. It’s a great feeling not having the next leg of your trip planned and not something I think I’ll be willing to sacrifice on my future trips for the sake of a cheaper set of plane tickets, even if I was planning a trip that conformed to the RTW ticket rules.

RTW tickets have their place for sure and will save you some money (although with all the budget airlines these days that’s debatable) but you have to conform to route and time limitations. Travel to me is about having the freedom to wander around wherever I want on a whim so I’m sticking with buying as I go. The extra money is worth it for me!

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I’ve arrived in Dhaka, Bangladesh and things aren’t nearly as scary as I’d expected! I’m staying at a great B&B where the owner has practically become my PA for the day and has me all set up with a new phone and I’m even online with it! I can pay monthly for unlimited web browsing for something like $15 and no contract. Bangladesh might be the surprise country for online workers.

I’m heading down to the volunteering place tomorrow morning early. I just wanted to do a bit of begging before I go. I’ll be working with Hands On Disaster Response and on their website they say that they can build a family a house for $425. I thought it’d be a good idea to try and raise enough for a house so I’m hoping some of you might want to help out.

Donations can be made on their secure donations page. If you’re a web nerd like me and have a site to promote I will add a link to Wanderstruck on a permanent sponsers page (that I have yet to create) for anyone who donates $25. Help a family, get that warm, fuzzy feeling and get a cheap permanent link to boot! It’s win win win.

This will be a bit of a test to see if I can use my websites to raise money for volunteering projects I participate in. The sponsers page will be linked straight from the homepage so I think in the long run it will turn into a valuable link. The idea is to keep adding links as more people donate… sort of like a wall of fame, I guess.

The only issue is that the donations go straight to the organisation so you will have to email me to let me know that you’ve sent them money and how much. Just stick my name (Kirsty Henderson) in the ‘on behalf of’ box so I can verify and then email me with your link and anchor text. No dodgy sites please!

That’s it for now. I was planning on being offline for the next five weeks but it looks like I’ll be sticking around after all thanks to Bangladesh’s surprise internet infrastructure. I’ll post a spending update for The Philippines shortly.

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I’m sitting here at Friendly’s Hostel in Manila on the roof and taking full advantage of their free wifi connection while I wait what feels like an eternity for my room to be ready. I’m stupidly tired so I’m not sure how productive I’m being but it’s still nice to be able to fill up waiting time with something semi-productive.

I tried to work on the long flight from London to Hong Kong but was sabotagued by the girl in front of me wanting to have her chair as far back as possible. It was all up in my face! I was able to keep it open but the keyboard was pushed into my stomach and the typing stance I had to adopt looked pretty ridiculous and was definitely not ergonomically correct! But what can ya do.

So I’m here, I’m stinky, I’m tired and I’m hoping sleep and a shower is on the horizon. So far so good on the work front though and if this free wifi in hostels thing is common then I should be laughing.

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The thing I’m looking forward to most about my fast approaching trip is my almost complete lack of plans. I’ve got a one way ticket to Manila and have to be in Beijing for the Olympics but everything in between is up in the air.

One of the things I want to do for sure this time around is volunteer. This is something I’ve never really made time for during my past travels for whatever reason (ie. too much time spent at the pub) and I think if I can find the right opportunity (ie. no religious affiliations and no ‘admin’ fees) then I’ll jump at it.

Well it looks like I’ve found it in an organisation I mentioned in a previous post. Hands On Disaster Relief offer support to communities that have been affected by environmental disasters. It looks like they’ve done some great work so far working on a handful of projects and a new one is starting on January 5th in Bangladesh to help out communities ravaged by a major cyclone.

Well I want to volunteer and I want this trip to be an adventure and I really cant think of many places more adventurous than Bangladesh! So I’ve been in touch and I’m doing some research about visas and flights and if all goes to plan I’ll be rocking up in Dhaka, Bangladesh in mid February to get my hands dirty and hopefully be a helpful part of a team of interesting people.

I’m all for this and will do it for sure barring any visa problems but the problem I’m faced with is a lack of internet access for my entire time there. The village they’re in has no connection so I won’t be able to add any new content or monitor my sites in any way for six to eight weeks. Plus I’ll be working six days a week and will probably be too knackered to write content for my sites. So in web publishing terms, going to Bangladesh will be two months of career suicide!

But it will be a hell of an experience and I’m willing to abandon my sites for a couple months… how many businesses can you even think about doing that with? It might cost me but even if it does I doubt very much that I’ll regret my choice!

Happy New Year guys, here’s to an exciting 2008 for us all!

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As slack as I’ve been with blog posting, I’ve been slacker with packing! Not to mention changing my address with various banks and creditcrds, sorting out stuff at work, selling a few more small things, getting my head around UK tax and so on.

Leaving a city you’ve been living in for five years is a bitch. It’s amazing how much crap one person can accumulate, especially one that’s as anti-stuff as I am. Normally I don’t have any problems purging my life of posessions but this time around I seem to have so much that I’m needing quite a few passes with the cull. Add that to my almost nightly boozy antics with work and other friends and the occasional trip into central London to face the horror that is Xmas shopping and I am starting to get more excited about those beaches in The Philippines each day!

So for the moment, the blog posts are scarce, the hangovers are fierce and the packing can throw itself into a bonfire for all I care. I just want to get home to Canada to kick back and enjoy having a lot of time on my hands.

In the meantime, sorry for the lack of quality posts! Things are about to start getting interesting though, I think. I’m really looking forward to my 3 weeks in Canada and am hoping to get a lot done and explore some new moneymaking areas.

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