This is my life

When you travel for an extended period of time, you do a surprising amount of mundane things.  When spending hours and hours on uncomfortable journeys or wondering when there will be a clean room with hot water again, you can forget why this travelling lark was such a great idea.  But then suddenly you realise that you are having one of those "Wow, this is my life and I'm living it!" moments.  Some are high-adrenalin but others are more contemplative.  As a conclusion to my trip, here are some of the selected highlights of when I sat back, grinned and thought... "Yes, this is why I'm here".

• Arriving into Istanbul by train, the Bosphorus glistening in the early morning sunshine.
• Exploring Syrrhus archeological site in northern Syria - just me, John, our driver and a French archaeologist
• The locals' hamam in Damascus -  the building was 800 years old and no English was spoken
• Enjoying the silence and solitude of the hiking trails of the Dana National Reserve in Jordan
• Spending an hour with the Sabyinyo gorilla family in Rwanda
• Serengeti Balloon ride, lying waiting for the balloon to tip upright and take off
• Driving through the early evening sunshine in the Serengeti, head out of the top of the jeep scanning the "endless plains"
• Helicopter ride (front seat) over Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
• Okavango Delta, Botswana - being poled through the reeds on a hot day
• Listening to the lions roaring at night at the campsite waterhole in Etosha National Park, Namibia
• Standing at the Cape of Good Hope - the south-western most point of Africa and a long way from London
• Eating fresh fish and drinking cold beer all afternoon at the fish market in Maputo, Mozambique
• Attempting, and failing, to cross the Lowari pass (northern Pakistan) by jeep in the dark, due to landslides.
• Stepping off the side of the hill at Sarangkot to (tandem!) paraglide above Pokhara, Nepal
• Enjoying the majesty of the Himalayas, in particular the Annapurna mountain range from the viewpoint just below Poon Hill
• Lying in the meditation room at Sadhana Yoga, watching the paragliders against the deep blue sky
• Gazing at Mount Everest on the overland journey (Friendship Highway) from Kathmandu to Lhasa
• Idling away my time on Koh Rong island off the Cambodian coast.  Swim, eat, read, snooze, swim, read, eat, take a stroll, swim, beer, eat, play cards, sleep...
• The wind in my hair on the back of an Easy Rider motorbike for five days from Dalat to Danang, Vietnam
• Crossing the Gokteik Viaduct in northern Burma; standing at the open door at the end of the carriage
• Watching the sunset from the top of the ferry while travelling down the Irrawaddy River from Katha to Mandalay
• Pathein to Chaung Tha in Burma - sitting in the front seat of the bus watching chickens being  thrown up to an empty wicker basket
• Watching the leopardess teach her cubs to hunt a wild boar in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka
• Enjoying the view from Ella's Rock over the tea plantations in Ella, Sri Lanka after the long tough climb.
• Watching the fishermen haul in their catch on Uppuveli Beach (near Trincomalee, Sri Lanka), with a cold beer in hand