in the mi-cro-phone!

Testing, testing, one, two, three. If you have come to this page on purpose then you are a friend and loved one who has been invited here to peek into the worlds that I will soon be exploring. This is officially my first 'blog' and I aim to entertain. I leave on October 29th, 2007. I return on January 8th, 2008. There's a lot of time in between for wonderful adventures.

My first stop is Laos to meet up with the man who has helped me plan my travels and a journalist from the Financial Times. We will tour together for a little over a week and then I will travel on to Thailand to explore by myself for a while. On November 24th, I will meet up with my baby sister in Adelaide, Australia. Claudia is studying in Townsville (northern Australia) for the semester and she and I will explore the outback together when she has completed her classes. Once we have had our fill of camel-back-riding and learned some gardening techniques from the Aborigines, we will travel to New Zealand and Fiji. On our way home we'll get to stop by our cousin, Albiona's house in Hawaii and visit with her and her sweet daughter, Noel!

We are very lucky women to have the chance to explore the world. Hopefully we will be able to not only learn about the countries and cultures that we visit, but also have the opportunity to give back to the cultures that welcome us. In my attempts to plan the perfect adventure, I stumbled upon the concept of 'voluntourism.' There are a few companies out there now who specialize in eco-tourism with a twist. Instead of simply supporting the environment, you help to improve it. New Zealand native and Hands Up Holiday director, Christopher Hills, has been incredibly helpful in planning this trip. Christopher's company is similar to that of a eco-travel agency in that it has trips all over the world that offer extensive environmentally friendly tours of whatever country you wish to visit; only, through Hands Up Holidays, you have the opportunity to volunteer in the country for roughly one third of the time you are there. I am hoping that this will give us a truer understanding of the cultures we are going to visit. I contacted Christopher a few months ago expressing interest in a trip to Australia and New Zealand and from the moment I contacted him, he has been unbelievably helpful in planning my dream exploration--right down to booking us a room in a Hobbit Home hotel in New Zealand and signing me up for a batik workshop run by tsunami victims' widows in Thailand.

I had the fortune of adding the Asia leg of the trip to my itinerary because Hands Up Holiday wants a patron to partake in their Laos trip with a journalist from the Financial Times (British newspaper). I have been asked to join the Laos trip with the director of the company, his wife and the journalist for a discount fee! After this trip, I would have had over a week before Claudia finished classes, so I decided Thailand would be a wonderful place to taste.

Wow, wow, wow. I can't believe I'm about to go on such an adventure! I hope to 'blog' whenever I have internet access, and hopefully will also be able to upload photographs--little morsels for you to suckle until we meet again... I've set this thing up so that Claudia can join in the banter when we meet up and/or she can keep us posted on what is going on in Australia, but no one will be forced to write.

I don't know how to end a blog.

Love always,
AM