Some things just call for a big massive drink.

Such as goodbyes, especially when it’s to your best friend and you’re retreating to opposite sides of the WORLD. Yes for the last two weeks I have been lucky enough to have my best friend Fiona come join me in the islands of smiles and videoke, the Philippines.

“Mate, we could have fun in a cardboard box. I just want sand and cocktails”

With such detailed guidance there was only one place I had been that I knew could deliver in abundance: Boracay.

I must admit I was worried as to just how much fun we could have there, or anywhere for that matter, as experience told me that together we are a power house of good times. Such as the time we kept the only bar in a sleepy German village going until 3am, or made an impromptu onsey party with strangers. Together my cheeks ache as we don’t stop laughing.

After a planned hiatus of rice terraces where we trekked, made friends with village elders and discovered Sagadas only late night lock in, we spent a week in Boracay.

It may have only been a week but any longer and we would have needed another holiday. Island friends, cool Koreans (man they can party) invites to Chinese condos, parasailing over crystal clear seas and almost missing our plane, is to scratch the surface of what we got up to.

Impending arrival…

Ready to go

Tribal friends

Sagadas only lock in…

The Korean Selfie

Rice terraces

Parasailing!

It was the best of times and it wasn’t until we got to the airport in Singapore that I realised how great it had been to be with my oldest friend and the realism that I wasn’t going back to the world we had shared before.

“Enjoy your new life in Melbourne!”

Words not intended to but made me freak out! My last plane ticket, I’ll have to get a job, a house, I have no normal shoes, what am I doing! After we said an emotional goodbye and I watched her walk away for what felt like forever I felt the weight of my aloneness bear down on me. Everywhere I looked people were together, off to wherever on holiday or maybe starting a new life, and here I was dragging myself off to the other side of the world for who knows what.

But then I remembered the girl who five months to the day previously had sobbed and sobbed boarding that first plane, who had sat shakily in Qatar en route to Delhi and who looked around the first hotel room and thought, now what? It had all turned out good, better than good and I realised how far I’d come and those butterflies I was feeling were actually excitement more than fear.

So as I sit here with a glass of wine I cheers myself (partly because I’ve got no mates now), to starting a new chapter, to the unknown, to new friends whilst never forgetting the old. I hope you will stay tuned to join me….!