The sheer amount of temples, mosques,pagoda’s and shrines throughout the continent is mind blowing but this post highlights the top 10 that we wont soon forget.

10) The Enigmatic Bayon Temple of Cambodia

9) The Rat Temple of Bikaner

8) Big Dagobas in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

7) Jokhang Temple Lhasa

6) The All Mighty Angkor

5) The Dalai Lama's Previous Residence

4) The Holiest of Holy Rivers - The Ganges

3) Qomolangma or Mother Saint to the Tibetans, Mount Everest to you and me.

2)Beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda of Myanmar

1) Sikhism's Masterpiece, The Golden Temple

I am brave enough to generalize and say the majority of Canadian tourists fall into two categories; the Western Europe traveler and the all inclusive beach destination traveler.While I may be slightly prejudiced towards the all inclusive experience I understand that it may be just what some people are looking for. On the other hand I have met many people who seem to envy the freedom an independent trip can offer and for those people I have written my recommendations based on ease of travel and the rewards which come with venturing away from the typical all inclusive resort.

3. East Coast, Australia

Difficulty – Extremely Easy

While the flight may be a deterrent for many of my country men, what awaits on the far side of the pacific is a friendly nation with some of the cleanest and pristine beaches on the planet. For those who fear living without their creature comforts of home, East Coast Australia is a great destination as everything from restaurants to hotels are exactly what one would expect in a developed nation and for those who speak fluent English communicating with locals is not an issue. Australia is surprisingly easy to travel with efficient public transport options or even better, amazing roads which make a self drive the optimal choice for beach hopping. There are next to no cultural obstacles to overcome with Aussies being extremely hospitable although for those looking for a budget trip, Australia is just about on par with Canada in terms of costs. Our recommendations include Byron Bay and Fraser Island although depending on the season can be overcrowded with Australian domestic tourists seeking a little sand and sun of their own.

2. Boracay, Philippines

Difficulty – Easy

Ever close your eyes and imagine sand so white it looks like its been bleached, surrounded by the calmest, warmest, turquoise water imaginable? If that sounds too good to be true its not. Boracay is like something out of a dream and is certainly a place both Lianna and I still continually fantasize about on a cold day. Sure its getting a little over developed but for someone used to an all inclusive resort the ridiculous selection of international food will certainly keep them in their comfort zone.

With shockingly friendly locals and a host of activities from SCUBA diving, sailing, kite surfing or just kicking back on the beach no one could ever describe the place as boring.

The beach itself is MASSIVE and accommodation choices range from top end to bungalows set back a bit from the beach for less than 15USD a night. A short flight from Manilla and a quick ferry make getting to the island not as simple as an airport pickup from an all inclusive but still very hassel free if a little time consuming.

1. Corn Islands – Nicaragua

Difficulty – Moderate ( need a little sense of adventure)

For anyone who may have wondered what the Caribean might have looked like had the massive resort companies like Sandals and Club Mead had just stayed away. Big Corn and Little Corn lie just off the coast of Nicaragua and may require just a little effort to reach but the rewards are so breath taking it may just be the most inspiring place you ever reach in your life. Big Corn has more development but still retains that laid back island vibe but the jewel is really Little Corn. A small village of tin houses is located in one corner of the island while a handful of cheap accommodation options and restaurants serving up plates of rice,beans, plantations and fresh lobster are located near the jetty.

The rest of the the island is a tangled network of foot trails leading to a few truly isolated beach side bungalows inlcuding Derek’s Place, a seriously chilled out place with family style meals and bungalows made of coconut palms. The island feels completely untouched and the days or even weeks can pass with wandering to a new beach each day or undertaking something a little more active such as inshore fishing and some really great SCUBA diving.

Of course if gorging yourself on cheap lobster, fresh fish, cheap rum or spending your days self driving from breath taking beach to breakt taking beach doesn’t sound like that something that may interest you, by all means book that resort and head off on another all inclusive holiday but for those looking for something with a little more independence, try it, I’m sure you won’t regret it.

An obvious observation is that the longer you are away, the weirder it is when you return. Coming home from a 2 week vacation on a tropical island will have you wishing you had more time to relax, but walking in your front door won’t feel much different. Coming home from a 6 month trip in a completely different culture than my own had me heading home from the airport staring in wonder at the roads I used to drive everyday, when I realized they hadn’t changed at all in my absence. The day after arriving home I went to the grocery store and found myself completely intimidated by a place I’d been countless times, not knowing which way to navigate the aisles, and finding the vast selection extremely overwhelming. I can imagine how strong that feeling might be after traveling for an even longer period. (un?)Fortunately, that feeling only lasted about one week, after which I started to feel as though I had never left. That feeling got me completely terrified. It got me thinking about the not so mild panic attack I experienced on the last leg of my journey home, sitting next to a giant Texan who wouldn’t stop babbling about his disappointment with our 6 hour delay. I sat ignoring him trying to calm my nerves. These weren’t the same nerves that had me clutching the plane’s armrests after our plane had landed in India for the first time – those were nerves of uncertainty and the unknown. These nerves were of certainty and the very well known. On my departure, a long 6 months previous, I had a small cry for the people at home I would miss, and on my arrival back home I fought another small cry for everything else abroad I would never know.

Spending countless hours in the travel section of Chapters, and picking up guidebooks along with highlighters, I grabbed a novel set in India.   After reading the first few pages I found myself yearning for ridiculous things such as the complete lack of ability to do my hair/make-up (what an invigorating feeling, simply stepping out of the shower and walking out the door), the freedom of not being able to drive yourself, or the wanted-it-at-the-time-but-don’t-now dreaded cell phone. Ya it can be convenient, but I don’t really need it. I also wonder why all our buses have the same boring paint job? Why don’t strangers smile at each other in Western society? Why are our streets almost void of people? Why do I feel a pang of irrational jealously whenever I see a plane in the sky? (which living 10 minutes from the airport, is often) I know that at times when traveling I wanted nothing more than to blend in, but really, I even miss being the centre of attention. I miss not knowing where I’m going to wake up 3 days from today. The one thing I miss most, though, is the feeling of missing home. When I was forced to be in common situations with no power, no food for extended periods besides chips and coke, no bed to sleep in and not a drop of warm water, I was so completely aware of how privileged my life is at home. I could see my life from the eyes of the less fortunate that I was often surrounded by, and when you are back home living your life, it is hard to keep that realization on the surface everyday.

In a borrowed term, I have come to realize I have ‘away-sickness.’ Away-sickness can be a dangerous thing if you have begun to settle down and have found a great job that you don’t want to leave. Thankfully, Nick and I have already purchased our tickets out for our next escape, (hint: these destinations will also satisfy our love of food!) and having thrown myself into the planning, my unbearable wanderlust is numbed with the excitement of future potential.

Being with Nick for 7 years, I am confident that I’m not terrified of commitment on a relationship level, but I can’t help but feel that in every other aspect of my life, I am unable to commit to one path, location, or lifestyle. Not knowing what will come next month is what keeps me happy everyday. Uncertainty might scare some people, but for me it represents possibility, and that’s nothing less than exciting.

To quote myself and my parting words on my last post, ‘I’ll be seeing you soon,’ our faithful blog readers, and not as a post from my comfy couch, but preferably from a terribly hard bed in a city I can’t properly pronounce. I can’t wait!

Komodo National Park is made up of hundreds of dry barren islands but the main two are Rinca and Komodo and both offer a chance to see dragons. Rinca is much closer to Labuanbajo and is the best choice for a day trip. Rinca’s Savannah-like landscape makes it much easier to find dragons than the thick bush on Komodo island but also makes the experience all the more sweaty.

We started out with a short introduction to our Ranger armed with a forked stick to keep any curious dragons at bay and set off walking towards the kitchen. We immediately saw about 8 large dragons sitting out front lured by the smell of the rangers cooking lunch. Most seemed pretty docile and comatose in the mid day heat but we were instructed not to get too close for a single bite from one of these animals could kill an animal as big as a buffalo due to the neuro toxins in the creatures mouth.

When our hike actually started, we were told it was sometimes very difficult to see the dragons away from the bait of the kitchen as they were often laying low in the grass but not more than 10 minutes it we caught a glimpse of our first dragon scampering away down a riverbed.

The remainder of the 2 hour hike we came across some buffalo wallowing in their water holes as well as a few dragon dens which are used when the mother is laying eggs. The landscape can only be described as prehistoric and had a Tyrannosaurus Rex came down the path I would not have acted surprised. Sweaty and dehydrated we arrived back at the ranger station and said farewell to our guide.

Not wanting to simply fly back to Bali I had signed up for a boat trip with Perama tours which is a common way to get across the islands from Lombok to Flores. I still had a day to kill on the tiny beaches around Labuanbajo which was a relaxing and pleasent day to spend although the beaches are a little on the dirty side. I showed up for the boat trip that night just in time for the welcoming party and was surprised to find many people who had arrived on the boat that night were also doing the return trip back to Lombok. The boat wasn’t full for there were about 18 travelers aboard which made sleeping on the deck a comfortable experience instead of being crammed in beside one another. We were lucky for both nights were clear without rain and those of us with sleeping bags could lay out on the roof and stare out at the stars before falling asleep.

Our boat trip was not simply a direct route to Lombok and there were many scheduled stops along the way for snorkeling and swimming as well as my second time around trekking on Rinca Island. This time we started hiking at 7am and were rewarded with the dragons being much livelier and on our hike we came across 7 dragons moving around the grasslands including a few encounters which were probably a little too close.

The wildlife spotting didn’t stop there for the 2 days on the boat we saw literally too many dolphins too count, often throwing themselves completely out of the water. It came to the point when someone would call out “dolphins” and no one cared to even get up and look. We arrived late at night two days later in Lombok and I must say that although Perama has had some bad reviews on the conditions of the boat being basic, I found the trip from Labuanbajo to Lombok great and the food as well as the staff of the boat really made the experience. I would highly recommend it although it is surely no luxury cruise.

I spent a night in Sengiggi, Lombok before spending my final few days on Gili Trawangan. A lot of people I had talked to seemed disappointed with Gili T as it is affectionately named. How this could be I just couldn’t come to grips with. It may not be the perfect idyllic island with perfect beaches but a more laid back and slow paced place I had not come across. Aside from the large parties every third night there is next to nothing to do here which may have been many peoples reasoning for complaining. It was the perfect place to end my 9 months in Asia and I certainly did nothing more than drink more cocktails than I had in the past months and try as hard as I could to put back all the weight I had lost. The days flew by and the end was near but when I left Gili T that morning as I headed to the airport for my flight back to Canada, I had no regrets for I got to see some of the most incredible sites this world has to offer with the girl I love most over the 6 months we spent together and even got to challenge myself on some wild adventures to some truly remote places in the 3 months I spent traveling alone. I certainly enjoyed writing these blogs and hope everyone enjoyed reading them but I really don’t think this is the end of anything, in fact I really believe its really just the beginning.

Bali has a reputation as one of the worlds great tropical island getaways but upon arriving in the dirty congested and hassle infested streets in Kuta, I began to wonder just what everyone was raving about. Kuta is where everyone heads to upon arriving in Bali due to its proximity to the airport and is also known as Party Central of the island. Blaring disco’s jossle for space with massive resorts and tacky tourist vendors attacking everyone in hopes of making a sale of their junk. I hated it! I was faced with a decision to move to a quieter part of the island to spend my last few precious weeks (in Bali’s defense, Amed and Lovina are supposed to be nice) or head off to another far flung corner of this amazing country. My time on the beach was going to have to wait as I opted for the latter and purchased a flight out the next day to Labuanbajo, the gateway to Komodo National Park.

I had heard some rumours about the incredible diving in the waters just off shore in Komodo and this was my primary draw but also the chance to walk amongst the unique Komodo dragons was certainly going to be a once in lifetime chance. My feet on the ground in Labuanbajo, Flores I liked what I found. An actual Indonesian fishing town lined with a single street of dive shops and a couple backpacker-esque restaurants and locals smiling ear to ear in greeting and I felt a million miles from the nightmare that is Kuta.

It took a little searching to find a suitable place to stay as their seemed to be a lack of accommodation options in Labuanbajo with most of the backpackers staying in Gardena which only had one very sad looking room available for what I thought was an overpriced rate. In fact, all the accommodation options in Labuanbajo seemed slightly overpriced for what they offered but eventually I was happy with a room I found for 12 USD at Bajo Beach.

I signed up to do some diving the day following with Bajo Dive Club since it was recommended to me back in Sri Lanka by some friends we met. I spent the remainder of my day talking to some dive masters from another shop in the small breakfast restaurant and getting acquainted with speaking the English language to native speakers again.

When it came time to dive, I was pleased to see our boat had only 6 or so other divers which makes things far more enjoyable underwater when you are not bumping into each other for space trying to look at a 1 inch long nudibranch. Our first site to dive was Manta Point which was going to be a shallow drift dive over a Manta Ray cleaning station where the giant rays come to be cleaned by small fish called cleaner wrasse. Having dived multiple sites in the past where these rays are occasionally seen and been unlucky thus far, I had my fingers crossed that here in Komodo I would see my first. Upon entering the water, the site is less than thrilling as most of the coral is damaged and pretty boring to look at. It was clear this site was going to be one of those where you are looking for nothing but the main attraction which the site is named after. After 20 minutes or so I was discouraged and felt the dive was going to be a bust, but just then out of the blue came 4 Mantas gracefully swimming against the current as they moved past us with ease. These would be the only manta’s we would see on the dive but everyone was ecstatic over it and I felt the dive was a great success.

The second site for the day was at Batu Balong, a small island with huge currents ripping by but was reportedly one of the best sites in Komodo. This time I learned why Komodo is commonly referred to as one of the best places in the world for diving. My neck was sore by the end for the entire dive I did not know where to look with coral gardens stretching as far as an eye could see.

There were large groupers, sweet lips and sharks crusing around in the deeper holes and psychedilic nudibranches and crabs hiding amongst the the fluroescent corals. What did it for me though was the sheer number of fish swimming surrounding our group of divers. It was an amazing dive and I craved more and immediately signed up for another days diving when we arrived back at the shop.

Everyone from the day before had moved on and I found myself the next day with just one other diver who had never seen Manta’s and hoped we could go to Manta Point. I wasn’t going to miss a second chance to dive with such an amazing animal and so I agreed it would be fine with me to go again on our second dive of the day. The first dive was at Tatawa Besar and was another sensory overload of colours with pleasent currents and plenty of biodiversity. My dive buddy was hellbent on seeing the manta’s and when we arrived at manta point and the rays were thowing themselves out of the water (think 4 meter pancake coming out of the water) we were both pumped to get in there. Thinking things could not get better than seeing four the day before I was again proved wrong. While hanging on to the bottom to remain still in the current we had a large manta pass infront of us before moving into the blue and returning back this time right over our heads.

In the end our manta total was 6 rays including a few black tip reef sharks as an added bonus. We had signed up for the three dives that day and after lunch we headed over to Tatawa Kecil aka Current City, a name that should not be taken lightly. Already a little tired from the previous dives the current on the third site was a sharp reminded of why we need to respect the ocean and despite my confidence in the water, I am not the most experienced diver and for the majority of the dive, struggled with the currents while also trying to admire  the underwater life.

I returned completely exhausted but still made it out for a little socializing in one of the few western restaurants serving up pizza and plenty of cold beer which was the perfect way to finish an already perfect day.