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Antarctica was for me an extraordinary experience. The best part of the trip, the most beautiful trip, the best trip full stop. I was kind of worried that this continent would not be as good as I was expecting.  I couldn't have been more wrong. Extraordinary is a word that has been created for places like this. 

Before leaving last year, I had checked for last minute prices and what we should be expecting when we got to Ushuaia. We got there on the 5th of December, decided to find the best deal. The minimun t ime for a cruise is 8 days. I thought we would have to be very quiet about asking uncomfortable questions, but it is actually a thriving business at the moment. Every single agent has last minute deals and they are very open about it. Since a lot of people asked, yes it is very expensive, even with the discount we got, we ended up paying about a third of the price, it was still about 4,999 USD. Each. Saying that, it is the most well spent money in my life. 

After researching we decided (it didn't happen that easily, considering the price, we had to convince one another that it was worth it.) to book an 8 day cruise with Quark expeditions. This was 2 days to embark and disembark, 2 days to cross the Drake passage and finally 4 days of expeditions. This one was also finishing by a flight from the South Shetlands islands to Punta Arenas in Chile, which allowed us to shave off a few hours on a bus. 

Embarking was faultless, and I don't know how I can explain how excited I was at this point. it is a magical moment. The boat can welcome up to 119 passengers, but we are only 89. I was a bit scared that it would feel crowded but the boat is big so it was very easy to have your own space. We are travelling with a lot of Americans, Chinese, a few brits and Europeans in general. A few South Americans, but so few. Our crew onboard is great and very international, they all have their own specialty: ornithologist, marine biologist, glaciologist, historian, geologist, specialist of the Antarctic laws etc...During the first couple of days, we follow our progress along the Drake passage, and go to the conferences in the main lounge where we learn about the history of the white continent, and the specifics of the animals we will see. it is fascinating in between our promenades on the deck to discover more about this very unknown continent. We also get our itinerary which I included below:

Borneo is stunning ! It is tough to pick a favorite country at this point of the trip, but I think it is one of mine so far. We tend to do top 5 of our destinations, in general there is always one place in each country that stays with us, but in Borneo I have several. Nature is the main appeal to the island, cities are completely unremarkable they only facilitate your travelling, that’s about as much I have to say about them. 

We waited for the Philippines a long time, especially Alex ! If you follow you know that this is one of his main countries. Islands everywhere. We met quite a few people who were a bit blasé, and told us that visiting one was seeing all of them. For me it is as ridiculous as saying that all wine bottles are the same and that there is no distinction between a beaujolais and a Bordeaux. Absurd. Yes, they are all islands, with beaches, the sun and the sea, but some have dramatic cliffs, a different shade of sand, the sea might be agitated or not, the fish are not the same, activities either, you find corals, or shells, or just sand. Anyway, it changes all the time. We travelled a lot because we wanted to see as much as possible. See the map below. 

Coming here ranks as my most unusual arrival into a country in my life so far. The boat we'd taken from the Malaysian side arrived into Tarakan. A typical border town, with zero to recommend it. It berthed not against the pier but adjacent to another boat, with the only door on the side facing the open ocean. Fully laden with all our belongings we climbed around one slender hull, then delicately across a second before hauling ourselves up on to the rustiest, most derelict pier in southeast Asia. Welcome to Indonesia.

I didn’t think it would happen, but we are there now. As a French person who has lived in the UK for the past 10 years , I was very much against Brexit, Alex and I have discussed this at length and I wanted to add my bit.

I am not going to lie, I am disappointed. It feels a bit personal, but I know it shouldn’t, it is a business/political decision, not much to do with me. From the moment I first came to the UK in 2000, I fell in love with country. Coming from Lyon, I lived in Colchester in Essex for the first year a bit of a culture shock, and it was an incredible experience, which led me to decide a few years later to settle in London. Originally I thought ‘2 to 3’ years, but then life goes on and I felt welcome and at home in London, so I stayed. I love the cosmopolitan side of London. Nowhere else in the world you find such diversity, open mindedness and I even want to add freedom. There is something « grandiose » about it, when you see old buildings mixed with the Shard and the Gherkin. Here lies my mistake, London is not Great Britain, in the same way that Paris is not France. London does not represent most of the country’s point of view, because it is a big pool of people coming from everywhere and who live in relative wealth.

So, I will not linger on what will happen next because, frankly, no one knows what will happen next. We can all speculate, the future is now different and everybody in Europe and in GB will have to adapt to new rules and we will see what comes out of it. We all have an opinion about it but it doesn’t mean it is the right one.

One of the main reasons to create the EU in 1957, was to ensure peace between all nations that decided to be part of it. Later on, the EU became much more and created a parliament, a court , foreign and safety policies etc…. We can agree and disagree about a lot that is being decided in Brussels but it is so much bigger than any of us. I dare say that most of us do not even understand how this all work. It probably is in need of restructure as it seems that a lot of the countries part of it right now feel that too  much power has been given to the UE.

 The brexit campaign in the UK has played its hand very well. In a similar fashion to the Front national in France and other main western countries, it used a couple of very successful ingredients : Fear and Nationalism (Fear of immigration and on a larger scale terrorism, nationalist views regarding unemployment). Clearly it worked. This has contributed to put in light the clear distinction between London and the rest of the country. If anything the next prime minister should start thinking about how this can be changed.

The bottom line of all this and what really does annoy me is the following : More than ever, the world needs to be a place were communities hold on together, where people help one another and decide to actually think of the greater good. GB , like France, is one of those countries which has largely consumed and benefited from the wealth of so many other countries, and this for decades .  The UE for me is just this: A big community of people who do disagree on most things, but also try to work together for the greater good.

Travelling around the world currently, just shows how much some countries are in need of help. And it is in those places that have so much less, that Alex and I have been received with the greatest kindness, regards and respect. Because people who do not have anything, show such generosity that I wish my countries would show the same enthusiam to be part of a project I believe in.  It seems to me that many people have lost faith in the UE project. I hope that this will be a wake up call for Brussels to actually rethink the overall organisation and legislation before it collapses Let’s see what is coming ; As for me, I am still very much a European, half French – half Londoner and proud of it. 

My experience of Myanmar / Burma is full of contradictory feelings and impressions. Similar to India, it is a country undertaking big changes. The borders of the country opened to tourists a few years ago, the northern part of the country is still very much closed, and the south completely off the beaten track.  Not so long ago, it was still very hard to get there for tourists. In 2011, the military gave the power back to the civilians and partly       to the very famous Aung San Suu Kyi, Peace Nobel Price 1991. Htin Kyaw, the new president elected in March 2016 is one of her close friends. Despite the evident positive influence she has had on the country in the past few years, she is not allowed to become president in her own country ( the article 59F explains that any person having foreign relatives, husband or kids, can not be made president. This disposition stops her then as her kids are british. )

It's 85 days since we left the UK on our big adventure. Assuming the longer end of our time scale this puts us at a tiny bit under 20% of the trip so far.

As several friends and family have acknowledged, 12 to 14 months.com is yet to see the number of intended updates and posts detailing our journey so far (although Céline has been much better than I, especially if you're reading in French). 

The amount of things we have seen and done so far has been truly breathtaking in their scale, and many of the experiences almost defy description. The last two weeks traveling through Borneo have been particularly notable, with superb wildlife both on land and under water. In just the last week we found the kind of island paradise which at points of my life I've wondered even existed in the world - just the two of us and our boat man, and the most beautiful blue sea and sandy beaches with not another soul for miles.

Malaysia was not part of our initial route. Flying from India directly into Myanmar was quite a mission, so Alex found out that flying via KL would allow us to save money and reach Yangon easily. This is how we ended up there and therefore decided to make the most of it and spend 10 days in Malaysia. 

After India, arriving in Malaysia feels like going back to civilisation, especially in Kuala Lumpur. We land there in the afternoon and it is about 34 degrees. Some of the locals tells us that it’s been roughly 20 years since it was this hot (usually it is about 29°) , Hello Global Warming !

Here I find people less smiley and less friendly. Is it because it is a city …probably. KL is a city of 1.5 million inhabitants, pretty rich and growing so fast. We walked around it a lot ; in order to get a feel for it (Alex already went when he was younger with his family, it was my first time). The museum of islamic arts was very interesting and we ended up in KL Park for a bit of shade and calm as the city can be quite manic. We ate quite a lot, especially in Penang, where  food was incredible. Hawkers stalls are such a great thing. This is one of the main difference with Western culture that I like a lot. In Europe, I wouldn’t necesarily eat in a street stall for my evening meal. I would probably be scared to catch some bug, or that the products wouldn’t be fresh etc… In Malaysia, no need to go to the restaurant to eat well.  Food is incredibly cheap. For 1 pound you eat such good things and a lot of them !

I therefore wondered what was the role of a restaurant, which seemed obsolete, if the hawkers are such good value. The main difference is in the time you spend there. One could also say the service, but we have been to restaurants where the service is appalling, and hawkers who treat you like family. In a restaurant, you take your time, to choose, to eat and to ‘savourer’ or indulge. We tried a couple which were just as good, but obviously three to four time the price of a stall.

Little note regarding their breakfast. Awwwwww Roti Canai. I love you. French people are one of the few that eat sweet food for breakfast. I lost that habit a while ago, and I have always loved English brekfasts. Here we discovered Roti canai, which is a kind of crepe, but with the consistency and layers of a croissant , for lack of a better description, it is savoury and you eat it with a curry sauce. Very fatty, very good ;)Our second stay was in the Pehentian Islands (which I still cannot pronounce), because we wanted to test diving in Malaysia. Beautiful clear water, 28 degrees, a dream. Night bus, ferry and we arrive in the small island at 8 am, and start looking for a romm fo the next three days.