Lift off!

Just a quick update before we leave: in an hour and a half we set off for Heathrow Airport.

And now, for the first time, PICTURES!

Below is everything I'm taking with me. This is all I have for at least the next year of my life...

I've just repacked my bag for what must be the 20th time this week. Worryingly, I have already lost my toothbrush. This does not bode well for the rest of the trip.

Here it is all packed...

I have included a tin of Pringles for scale.

So that's it. The next time you here from me, we'll be in Delhi eating aloo paratha and drinking mango lassi (thanks Shroff).

To everyone we're leaving behind - we miss you already!

Sad Goodbyes

Here I am, just days away from setting off to Delhi. An 11 hour flight is all that stands between us and the rest of the world. I am excited.

I'm typing this on the M4, having just left Bristol and my friends behind. I am sad.

Alice and I have almost whittled our worldly possessions down to a single bag each. We're basically homeless. I have no fixed abode. I am scared.

So it's with a strange mix of emotions that I contemplate our onward journey. I thought this would be a good time to record my first ramble on this blog. Hopefully, I'll have the opportunity to keep a record of what happens to us on the road, keep in touch with everyone in the UK, and not plunge into a self indulgent word wank and bore everyone to death.

Off to a good start then...

I've been thinking a great deal about what to take with me on our travels. Packing light has been a key consideration so I'm only taking a few books. One of them is called The Narrow Road To The Deep North by a guy named Matsuo Basho, a Japanese poet who lived in the 17th century, in what is now Tokyo. Basho threw away his posessions, left the city life behind and went walkabout through what was an unforgiving and dangerous countryside. He travelled thousands of miles on foot through Japan and penned what was basically a travel diary as he went: beautiful prose punctuated with haikus. It chronicles his adventures whilst distilling some serious Japanese wisdom, boiled down into a kind of fruity Zen chutney.

Well, I'm no poet; I'm rubbish at haikus, and I haven't even left the UK yet so I've no exciting tales to tell.

Instead, I'll leave you with a quote from the man himself (thanks Wikipedia)...

"every day is a journey, and the journey itself home."