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SAM & DAVE'S BLOG.
This is a collection of online pictures and diary entries which will map our year of travelling for everyone at home to read. To contact us, there is a message section on this site which will send an email straight to us; just say who you're writing to in the message title. We will also be using Facebook and updating the blog regularly with new stories and pictures of the things we've seen.
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PRELUDE - DAVE:
All of life is a journey. It does not seem too long ago that this gap year seemed merely an impossible dream, a horizon that couldn't be chased down, though it has always been precisely that, a dream. For as long as memory allows me to recall, I have always been passionate to travel, to learn and to explore. There is no distinguishable moment that led me to the verge of this gap year, an innate desire to travel was always enough to inspire me.
The preparations for the gap are now all but complete. After so much organizing, scheming, not to mention purchasing it feels fitting that a reflective word or two should be written. This year has been a challenging one, but in being so probably my favourite one yet. Trying to juggle a social life, sporting commitments, A levels and organising this gap year has been at times extremely difficult. Though I feel now, approaching the end of this year that I have grown substantially as a person due to the various hardships I have faced, persevered through and overcome and have finally arrived here, at a point where I find myself desperate to continue growing as a person, by realising my long held dream of taking a gap year to travel.
I must confess though that this experience will be owed to others as much as my own work. I am about to mention a few special people without whom I would not be able to do this.
Dad - In so many ways, the love of my life. I know this is something you would have loved to do, and something you will be extremely proud of me for doing. When so much could be said, i think the thing i most want you to know, is that you have been, will be and are with me every step of the way.
Mum - I can't thank you enough for your unquestioning faith and support, you made it all possible when you had the power to prevent it from happening. Mark twain said that "The truly great make you feel that you, too, can become great" and that's the best way to express how I feel about your contribution. When it would have been so easy to, you never gave up on me, you are superwoman.
Steve - One of the very best men I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Your tireless work to provide me with employment (and Sam as well) has been essential in this all being possible. This as well as your unerring support has been so generous and I hope you know, vastly appreciated. I admire you greatly.
Jon - My brother and my idol. You have constantly incited a passion for adventure within me due to your various exploits. You are a source of great inspiration to me. You were one of very few who supported me when I first fathomed the idea of a gap year and have continued to support me wherever and whenever possible. I will miss you dearly, as my brother, but also as my friend, I am profoundly proud to be your brother.
Nan & Grandad - You are incredible examples of what hard work, and open mind and generous souls can achieve. The family always comes first; you are the kindest people I know. My security and my calm. You challenge me to achieve, you support me whenever needed and no words can do justice to the part you have played in getting me here.
Sam - With so much awaiting us, and with so much now behind us I feel as if our journey in many ways is reaching its halfway point. It is true to say I probably owe the most to you. So many helped me get here, you made me get here. We made it possible for one another. For every low moment we are now about to experience the most prodigious highs. For never letting me give up even when it felt as if we were running on empty (metaphorically and literally - the petrol), for always being there (in the attic) and for generally being an absolute hero, thank you. We made it, together.
Charlotte - This is for you, 14. Only you can know and understand this, similar to so much of me. You made me courageous, confident and granted my lofty ambitions your kind support for so long. I love you very dearly. I won't forget.
To those not mentioned I hope you know I am greatly appreciative of your support too, all of my friends and family have contributed to what is going to be the experience of a lifetime. I cannot thank you all enough for your help.
The organisation process for this gap year has been taxing at times, mainly due to our Sta rep abandoning us at half mast, most likely due to a breakdown caused by our persistent and somewhat unnecessary questioning of things such as "Should I spend a mere 7 or a more rounded 10 days exploring Fiji?". So the hero that is John, Mr Flowers has picked up the pieces and run with the them, taking us on quite an adventure, and expertly parting us with our hard earned cash. On a serious note, thanks to Sta who have always remained friendly and most helpful throughout the whole process and provided us with alot of peace of mind. We recommend highly! (Sta does not accept responsibility for the views presented in this blog or any ensuing gap year deaths that might/are likely to occur. All rights and responsibilities remain firmly in the hands of those that perish in the Cambodian/Peruvian strongholds)
Spending 3000 pounds in one go is quite the experience, especially when all you receive for such expenditure is a printed copy of your travel itinerary. Sam and I dearly hope that upon presentation at passport control this can be redeemed for a gap year. Multiple trips to Sta and various camping stores, has resulted in a serious amount of money being spent, but also has allowed us to gather some really cool resources and book some brilliant adventures.
The majority of the trip is going to remain unplanned, with the emphasis firmly being on flexibility and being backpackers not standard tourists! We have both agreed that the only true way to travel and explore is to totally immerse yourself in the culture and land you find yourself in. With just a matter of days to go now, it really is upon us, 8 months, 28,000 miles, 2 companions. I feel it is fitting to allow Tolkien and Tennyson my final words pre travel, seeing as their words have most ignited a passion for exploration within me. Thank you.
J.R.R. Tolkien
"Not all those that wander are lost"
Alfred Tennyson
"Tis not too late to seek a newer world, To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the Western Stars. That which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
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PRELUDE - SAM:
The people who helped me.
Mum. Constructive and critical about all of my plans, berated me for dancing in and out of complaining about my financial situation when I should have just swallowed my pride and asked for more money. You are the person who put me first, gave me the willpower to work so hard, and did all the thankless Mum things. You helped me when I helped myself. Thank you for being so generous as well!
Jonathan. Set me up with so much improvised work when I was in and out of jobs, probably the most dependable friend I have and generous to go with it. Thanks for all the effort and running around you did, even when things were hard for us at home. If anything, it's been better for us; I never really appreciated the value of a safety net because I never had to fall into one. I write this before I've gone away, but thank you in advance for bailing me out and giving me the peace of mind that I can get away from all this without anything changing.
Anne. My second mummy and a total machine who sleeps for about 4 hours a day, made our lunch, gave us our money for the toll bridge every day, did my cleaning and washing up and didn't even expect a thank you... on top of looking after a house full of animals and holding down a stressful job! It's really something to support your son and his mate to go away for so long, but another thing to invite me into your house and look after me for 2 months. I owe you!
Steve. The best boss ever! Thank you so much for sorting me and Dave out so much work somehow... we would have done anything to make this happen, and you certainly got us doing just about everything from pouring acid to digging trenches. We can't tell you enough how much we appreciate the deals you did for us, and the lie-ins we got working in the van!
Dad & Alison. You always managed to keep me off guard with your surprise presents! The Leatherman and the Rough Guides are rapidly proving to be the most invaluable things I have, and I wouldn't have been safe or prepared without your help. Thank you Alison for the little press cuttings and articles that inspired me... and thank you Dad for lots of pints down the pub to make up for time we'll miss together next year.
Josh & my friends. Nothing needs to have been done - just by being there, smiling while I told my stories and plans, saying "I wish I was doing that" and keeping things the way they've always been while other things in my life are changing so rapidly is enough. I realise now, having been living away from home and getting prepared to leave everything, how much I miss and value my old friends. Especially my brother!
David. A truly genuine friend, packing serious support and enthusiasm -without whom, I'd be happy at Leeds enjoying student life, without cuts and calluses on my hands or a painful 6am start to every day! The last 8 months has been a pleasure.
There are many great proverbs and quotes which say that travelling is a journey of self-discovery. I've already learnt a lot about myself before even going away, smothered in degreaser at a chemical factory in Enfield. I've laughed and joked with people who ordinarily I'd have been scared to stare at in the street for fear of being given a good kicking. I've found new depths of courage and determination in myself, and done things which, without such a massive goal to achieve, would have point blank refused to do.
My journey to where I am now, living with Dave's family and packing for Thailand, began at the beginning of the year when I got the results of my Cambridge interview back. I wasn't expecting to get in and I definitely didn't deserve it but having one childhood dream crushed paved the way for a much cooler one. I was tied up in a performance but as soon as that was finished I got stuck in with finding a job, ringing every place in the Yellow Pages and letter-bombing High Streets with my CV.
I eventually got a few calls back from local pubs, went to an interview with the nearest one and landed my first job as a barman at the "White Horse" in Sandway. My brief and tragic stint with this odd family-run 'business' ended badly due to it being crap. I had to stand there for 4 hours with no punters and stare at the lonely small change in the tip jar, which never seemed to get bigger. The managers were a bickering brother and sister who seemed to resent me being there, and I looked for work elsewhere, finding a job as a food runner at a very posh restaurant called the Mulberry Tree, near Maidstone. Work clashes and a screaming desire to escape the pub shift led me to abandon the White Horse one night - I produced a feeble lie about why I couldn't make it, which was met with acid-tongued bitterness, and I was scowled at for unnecessarily harsh periods of time across the room when I went there the next day. By this time I'd already bagged my 3rd job as a waiter at the Limetree Hotel & Restaurant which was right where I lived, so I took my chances and handed my notice in at the pub... only to be confronted by the 3 owners who were 'just about to sack me anyway, you were unreliable and rubbish'! I left feeling pretty smug that I'd got in there first, when I looked at my tips bag which I'd saved up for about 2 months to find a big "IOU" note inside where they'd borrowed my hard-earned money. It was only a few quid so I took the hit and didn't ever go back.
My employment at the Mulberry Tree properly introduced me to what it means to be a minion. I joined a team of 9 very good-looking young girls on the waiting staff, and waded in there with a bucketful of male cockiness and misplaced enthusiasm for what was to prove a baptism of fire. After one painful trial shift where I was thrust into full contact with guests, I was quickly relegated to the kitchen. At first I took this extremely well, thinking that it was just an initiation until I found my way around. Unfortunately, after seeing many new female staff being admitted straight onto comfortable door greeting and laid-back waiting and drinks orders, I realised I'd been shunned and put behind closed doors where I was verbally ravaged by the most angry-sounding and high-pitched Scottish man I have ever met. The head chef was constantly screaming at me in an incomprehensible way, so I was inevitably failing to complete his tasks and making him more and more angry. This went on for about 4 awful weeks until, determined not to break down and throw the job in, I started to understand what he was saying and made friends with some of the chefs.
My other job at the Limetree was great - my bank balance was finally able to fend off the scary gap year payments without resorting to borrowing money from Mum. After I left school in June, I stopped getting regular shifts and lost contact with the Mulberry Tree, and went into regular part-time employment until full-time work was sorted with Dave. Unfortunately, the Limetree job ended horrifically badly... a group of four slimy-looking geezers in flash suits came to eat, and paid with an invalid credit card. My boss went mental and demanded I pay for the £200 accident, which I refused. After 3 weeks of not getting paid I confronted him and asked for my wages... "Compensation for your mistake". Brilliant. I walked out straight away. Lawsuit pending!!
My real knuckling down came in August when I got working on my stepdad's farm. I got to do a few crazy jobs, like spray-painting cattle pens, getting my feet burned and dyed black by chemicals and getting left on vast expanses of countryside to take soil samples (may have done a bit of apple scrumping too). This left me knackered, but was really varied work out in the open air so I couldn't complain. At some point in August we decided I should move into Dave's attic, where I am as I write this, so we could work together, save costs on petrol and work together to make it more bearable. Dave's awesome stepdad Steve got us work blasting graffiti and cleaning social housing in East London, among some odd jobs like digging 5ft trenches in a gargantuan Berkshire Estate for Sheikh Mohammed Maktoum, the Ruler of Dubai! This sort of work dried up for a spell, so we went to work in the Chela Chemical factory in Enfield, North London. I have long-lasting memories from this place... the stench of various industrial cleaners (I currently smell of toilet cleaner)... the thousands upon thousands of little blue bottles we had to fill, label, box and pack for days... being stuck in the back of a lorry with the stinkiest man I've ever known... and also the things which I did to keep sane, like joyriding a motorised mini forklift with terrifying speed, and epic two hour debates with Dave about Fate vs. Luck & mathematical probability, the death penalty, abolition of Grammar schools, and David Blaine vs. Derren Brown. The most important take-home experience from the factory was the characters we met... the men who, whilst appearing to be (in no particular order) a neo-Nazi tyrant; a mentally backward misfit; an annoying, high pitched broken record and a shadow-lurking axe murderer, actually turned out to be really hard-working and kind people. Some of them looked out for us and our 'debatable' rights at temps, let us take unlimited tea breaks and encouraged us not to take rubbish from anyone. There's no getting away from the fact that the job was really mind-numbingly bad, but we would have done anything to achieve our target of going away with a few grand, and we succeeded purely by sticking it out in really bad situations. I also owe it to Steve and Jonathan for getting me some of the work, Mum for the lifts and Anne for the jumbo packed lunches.
We have only a week or two before we leave, and it's an alien feeling. Eight months of work, mostly on the minimum wage, countless hours spent on planning and dreaming, moving away from home and leaving my school year behind all to culminate in the events lying just a few days out of our reach makes the clock tick slower; I feel like I am living in momentous times.
My cost breakdown:
SPENT
Injections = £450 (Thanks Mum!)
Gap year spending (tours, first night accommodation, transport, trips) = £1395.50
Flights & Tax = £2196
Gear = £396.50 (Approx. £180 bought by Dad)
Van for NZ = £490
Work & board = £80
Foreign currency = £350 (Thanks Jonathan!)
TO SPEND
Malaria tablets & medication, Inca Trail tour, visas, extra clothing, mosquito net, foreign currency, books = Approx. £840
ESTIMATED LIVING COSTS
South East Asia: £600
Australia: £1000/£1500
Fiji: £200
New Zealand: £2000+
South America: £800
= £5000/£6000?
Pre-travel cost = £6198
Projected cost for the year = £12000
Dave's costs are similar, but he doesn't have an obsession with bargains, savings and being a Scrooge so has been much less meticulous with his records, hence the omission.
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