DUSSELDORF - GERMANY

There was no messing about after finishing work, spend the weekend having a bit of a leaving party in the pub then it was off to the airport Monday morning. For a world trip that was going to involve far flung locations such as Sumatra, Samoa and Taiwan it was a bit of a strange place to start. Flybe seemed an ok airline but it was difficult to judge since I was only in the air one hour. Landed in Dusseldorf in what was a grim and rainy Monday afternoon. Made the mistake of getting a taxi but later found there was a train coming from the airport at a fraction of the cost, this was a mistake a seasoned traveller like myself should not have made. Checked into Dusseldorf backpackers which was a clean and modern hostel. The owners however were not the most cheerful of people, when the power cut out for 10 minutes I made a joke about them not paying their electricity bill and they gave me a right funny look.

As expected the hostel contained only a handful of people, mostly Germans working away within their own country. There were however 2 lads from New Zealand who had picked a strange time of the year to go backpacking in Europe. One asked me if I was a football thug after telling him I was English which I thought was funny. Done little else on that first night apart from a quick walk round the block.

On my only full day there I went out to explore the town. It reminded me of Amsterdam with it's old historic tall buildings mixed with some shiny new modern ones. It looked a great place to be in summer by the river but being there as the end of October it was rainy, empty and a bit grim. To the north there was a street full of bars which would have been good if there were more people in the hostel to go out with. To be honest I was not feeling too great after spending all weekend in the pub. I spent a lot of the time sitting in the hostel talking to the others. Overall it was a bit of a dull and uneventful start to my world trip.

On the day I left I still had a good chunk of time to kill since I was not flying to Bangkok until mid afternoon. So I spent the whole morning walking to the airport stopping for food and to take a few pictures. I did guess most of the way which would have been a problem if I had got lost. It was over 8 miles but I done it in about 3 hours carrying my backpack.

 Air Berlin got top marks when it come to value for money, I was not expecting a lot from such a cheap flight but the service was great. I was probably the only none German on the flight, did not get hardly any sleep on the plane as per usual. Landed in Bangkok the following morning......................................