"a wanderer" biapol's Profile

Born and raised in the country side of Holland, with yearly trips in the summer to southern Switzerland during my childhood, I started my real travel experiences during my study days. Traveled on a shoe string to places like Ireland, Turkey, and the United States. In those days backpacking and camping.

When I started working after I had worked in Holland for 1.5 years the travel bug bit me real hard and in between jobs I went to South-Africa, Cape Town area and backpacked there and started doing some adventure sports...
after this trip I moved to Malaysia for my new job. Did some projects in China, Shanghai and short one in Taipei and fell in love with Asia. My company then posted me back in Holland and when I was back in the office there, with dreary weather, and no project at hand, I took 3 months unpaid leave. Of course, to go traveling!

That trip I started of in Shanghai, visiting my Chinese friends that I had hanged out with during my working time there. Traveled a bit with a few of them who could take leave and then I headed off on my own along the silk route all the way across to the Pakistan border. Went to the beautiful Hindukush mountain range along the Karakoram highway, still one of the most interesting and beautiful places I visited. From there to India, Delhi, up to Kathmandu where I joined a 5.5 weeks tour through Tibet. Not for the faint-hearted, it was camping out in the wild, albeit with tour guide and cook who would find a suitable place with streaming water. One of the most amazing places ever. The 3 day trekking around the mount Kailash was one never to forget. I would say, marking the start of the next phase in my life.

After this trip, back in an interesting project at work in Amsterdam. But I couldn't stop thinking about Asia, how at home I had felt there with the culture and life style. After working for another few months (recover my funding of the trip), decided to make a move. I quit my job, packed a suitcase and booked a flight to Singapore. There I stayed with friends for 3 weeks and looked around for a job. That was in the year 2000, the Asian crisis had come to an end and the IT industry was booming. I had no problem landing a job and started working in Singapore soon after.

Though work in Singapore is exhausting at times, it also brought me to new places. I did some projects in Brunei, Indonesia, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong. And still had some chance to take leave once in a while to travel to the nearby countries, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, India for leisure trips.

I also picked up scuba diving in 2006, so I found a new reason to travel more... the world underwater is just amazing...

My upcoming trip will be to Thailand, when I'm having a friend over from Holland. We will be going to Bangkok - Kanchanaburi - Phuket and counting down! early July 2008...

check out my recent travel photos on http://whitecatsg.multiply.com/