I guess that one of the first questions to sort out, once one decides to do a long 'expeditionary' journey to some exotic place on the other side of the world, is *where to go*. Obviously, the answer will be different for each person, and will range from a sad and boring "Why bother, you can see it on TV", to many different potential destinations like New Caledonia, Tierra de Fuego, Nepal, South Africa, Japan, Yucatan, the Maghreb...
In my case is South East Asia. I'm not ruling out trying to visit all the abovementioned destinations as well, actually some of them come very shortly after SEA in my Top Ten Destinations, but one has to start somewhere, and after already having done a few InterRails in Europe, one needs something a bit more 'adventurous'.
Why South-East Asia? Well, I guess I have adquired that image of exotism and adventure that is closely related to a landscape of green jungles and lost temples peering above the foillage. Early influences for that surely include TV series like those relating the adventures of "Sandokan" in Siam (Thailand), together with the films of the adventures of Dr. Quatermass in the jungles of Africa of the weekends of my childhood. Later came Tintin comic-books, Indiana Jones' films, and more recently Joseph Conrad novels.
Having very adventurous friends and family also helps a lot to develop this thirst for this sort of journeys. Finally, in less than a couple of months, I'll be taking a flight to Bangkok, to start my own exploration of Thailand and Cambodia.
:-)
