Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
He had described his excitement about having his braces taken off his teeth.
Then, at the very bottom of the letter, he noted that I had never even seen him with
braces on. I hadn't been in Australia in twenty-seven months. Especially for teen-
agers, a lot could change in that time. For heaven's sake, Cameron was thirteen
when I had last seen him, and he would be almost sixteen by the time I arrived
home!
Jon, two years younger than me, had completed school and was late into his
second year living away from home, studying at university. The picture I carried in
my head of him was still of a Year Eleven schoolboy. In childhood he had been my
best friend, someone I did everything with. I hoped we hadn't grown too far apart.
Then there was Natalie, my seventeen-year-old sister. I had been shocked to see
how she had grown during her visit to Russia last winter. I wondered how things
were panning out in her life as she approached her last year of school.
Somewhere underneath I was beginning to accept the reality of returning to
Australia … and I was looking forward to it. I also had a sneaking suspicion that
if we worked damn hard, we could even write a book as well as make a doco! The
faster I got back, the faster I could set off on a new journey.
Mongolia, I thought, was the perfect buffer zone. On the home-straight,
everything seemed to be crystallising rather than falling to pieces.
Although I had mentally overcome a hurdle, I couldn't afford to assume that we
would have a clean run to the finish line. Just outside the small town of Choyr, I
was reminded that our journey wasn't all about rosy contemplation.
All night I tossed and turned with growing nausea. It felt as if someone was
playing a game of pinball in my stomach and bowels. It verged on agony as I farted
heavily, and knew with a sinking feeling that my diarrhoea was far from gone.
Eventually, it came in one great rush. In my desperation, I dived outside and
made it just two metres from the tent before an explosion splattered the earth. It
was below zero outside, and in my underwear and bare feet I was instantly a shiv-
ering mess. The bouts continued for twenty minutes. Progressively I froze in the
squat position, unable to grab my down jacket. The wind was the worst of all -
it cut like an evil, cold knife. Although it was a relief to return to bed, in half an
hour I was out there again. The constant activity made me thirsty, and I discovered
to my dismay that our scant water supplies had frozen solid. I scampered out five
times before I lost count and began to worry about the deadly landmines that I was
leaving around the camp.
