Sunday’s Inspiration: Just A Nervous Tequila Sunrise #grodigbet

“It’s a nervous tequila sunrise stirring slowly cross the sky to say goodbye.” (altered lyric by Glenn Frey/Don Henley, original word is ‘another’ instead of ‘a nervous’).

The photo above was taken in Prague in the Czech Republic in 2007. The photo was taken by the famous “Lock In Lee” Adams, my friend, long lost brother, comrade, former flatmate in the Lock-In, backpacking buddy, Nottingham Forest fan, top lad. We sat by the river in Prague and watched the sun go down with a cocktail. I chose a Tequila Sunrise that day. 9 years later and we’re heading to Austria together. Only because of this hashtag (use it wisely):

#grodigbet

This week sees another reunion for us as we head on the truly wacaday trip to Grodig in Austria. It’s a tiny town which hasn’t exactly dominated news or travel headlines. Lock in Lee and I will be touring Austria and Germany together, hostelling it, culturing it, footballing it and beering it. We plan to do the “Sound of Music” tour (I’ve never even seen the film), try Austrian food and beer in one of Salzburg’s famous beer halls, but ultimately, the reason for this trip is sheer lunacy on its head. We are really just going all the way to tiny Grodig to watch a football match! As I said:

#grodigbet

But life doesn’t stop on route and I’m working around the clock. I’m trying to write a lot more along the way, about my travels, about my life, about whackpacking. About how many countries there really are (487 on my list so far – I backpacked through 128 of them).

When we get time in life to contemplate what the heck we are doing on this planet, it’s when our creative juices flow. I wrote six poems on a night train to Chennai in India in March. I went four days in India sleeping for a total of 8 hours out of 96. I almost tripped over a dog on my final journey out of New Delhi last month and I made it back to what I described as “magnetic Kyrgyzstan” before it had even magnetised me.

“Women they will come and they will go. When the rain washes you clean; you know. You know.” – Fleetwood Mac.

Places, faces, names, they mean nothing to me. They mean nothing to us. Shymkent, Sonsonate, Bandar e Golmaniyeh, Osterweddingen. We come and we go. We whackpack our way through a hat-trick of museums and off we go on our merry way. How many buses have we been on in a hundred cities nobody has ever heard of? Who cares?

This is a nervous time in life though and I’m not sure why. I don’t know what’s ahead in Grodig but I’ll be sure to keep myself busy and happy and keep you all updated along the way on my Facebook Page and Instagram Feed. The next 3 months I’ll be in Europe EXCEPT for one secret little adventure. Yes, I’ll write more about that in May, as long as it goes ahead. At present, it looks like I have a secret tour coming up.

Here’s an idea what’s coming for me in the next month, for once, I’m well planned:

• A tearful farewell to mighty Bishkek and my home in Central Asia – Apple Hostel
• Organising another pub crawl of Bishkek
• A beer tour of Munich with Size Matters Beer
• A Sound of Music tour with Panorama Tours
• My hostels will be the 4You Hostel in Munich, YoHo hostel in Salzburg and the Five Reasons Hostel in Nuremberg
• Millwall Neil and I will be drinking in London together again, both free and liberal, working for ourselves now 😉
• A visit to another “fake country“, hopefully with Millwall Neil
• Touring the top backpacking sights of Grodig
• Going naked in Munich’s legal nudist park
• Watching AFC Bournemouth play Everton at Goodison Park

There will be more to come as I wheel my backpacking journey through a few more towns, cities and disputed countries on route to a change of plan. With every tequila sunrise, there’s an air of nervosity about it. Bishkek today, live:

And finally, come and meet me on the way please. Just follow my social media to see where I am, or email me: [email protected] .

One of my Indian followers and travel enthusiasts, Sapna met me in New Delhi last month.

“it’s a nervous tequila sunrise and this old world still looks the same” – (altered lyric by Glenn Frey/Don Henley, original word is ‘another’ instead of ‘a nervous’).