I wheel travel in south-east Asia: challenge accepted!

By
Aurélie

20 June 2017

As I am writing this post, we have already left our apartment in Wellington. The departure date is getting very close: on Friday we will leave this country one year to the day we arrived in the middle earth… No doubt, this departure will break my heart a bit. Just writing those lines I already feel emotional. But leaving was our choice. We really enjoyed our time here, we could have stay but New Zealand is too far away from France for me. I can’t picture myself being so far during a few more years. I can live abroad but this is no mere 10 hours flight. Coming from France to New Zealand is at least 24 hours flight time!

So we will set off again but I will keep with me a lot a beautiful memories. This year has been filled with experiences, discoveries and meetings. In a just a year, I had so many first time: living abroad, discovering a lot of different landscapes, learning English, horse-riding, sit-skiing on a volcano, deciding to stop my legal career in order to dedicate myself to accessible tourism… So many changes!

Mount Cook, my favorite place in New Zealand.

Now new adventures are waiting for us: we are heading to Asia! More specifically: Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. After several months in Wellington my travel desire was coming back. There are so many countries to discover and so many things to see: it would have been a shame to come back in Europe directly.

Only two days before the departure! I am getting excited! I am eager to listen at new langages, to step into entirely different cultures, to tan in heavenly beaches… And on top of that Alicia, one of my sisters, will come to travel in Indonesia during three weeks with us. It has been a year since Franck and I didn’t see our families so I am really looking forward to share this discovery moments with her.

Looking at mosques and Hindu temples, enjoying the sun in golden beaches and being excited in front of all the local meals: all those amazement moment will have to be earn… Indeed south-east asian countries are not wheelchair friendly destinations. For now most of the countries I travelled were easy to visit in a wheelchair. The less accessible countries I have been to are Portugal and Cook Islands but each time I only stayed for one week and I didn’t move from one city to another.

A back alley in Kyoto.

This time it will be very different as we will spend a month in Malaysia, a week in Singapore and almost two months in Indonesia road-tripping. Although Singapore seems to be very accessible, Malaysia and Indonesia appear to be overflowing with inaccessible sidewalks, hikes without pathways and omnipresent stairs. Nevertheless I read that south-east asian inhabitants are so kind that they will often offer their help. Anyway André Gide said “there are no problems ; only solutions” so let’s go roll in south-east Asia!