UK Financial Slump

"The UK is expected to suffer the worst slump of all advanced nations in the "deepest recession since the Second World War", world economists have said.

All major economies are expected to experience steep falls in output in 2009, but the drop for Britain is forecast to be substantially greater than the average, according to the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) World Economic Outlook.

Official figures last week confirmed that Britain fell into recession at the end of 2008. The UK economy contracted by 1.5% in the final three months of the year - worse than expected by analysts and sparking fears of a deep and prolonged recession.

Overall, UK gross domestic product (GDP) for 2008 as a whole fell to 0.7%, the poorest full-year output since 1992.

The UK recession has been all but inevitable in recent months as the financial crisis escalated in the wake of the credit crunch, which caused a crippling lending drought. This has hit the housing and construction markets hard, with all sectors across the economy now suffering."

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With news like this it is very hard for me to make a decision about when the best time to come home would be, or how much to keep spending and borrowing for my trip.

I don't want to cut my trip short if when I get back to the UK there is no job or security, but equally even the credit card and loan facilities will run out eventually so I can't just stay away semi-permenantly til the economy recovers!

As such, current thinking is that I will stay for as long as originally planned with either cutting the return through Europe short or elongated depending on financial markets at the end of April.

Airline Misery

I just contacted the Australian airline that I am with to see how I can get to Asia quicker as I am wanting to get back sooner and they are no help whatsoever.

All the flights are non refundable, non transferable and they won't even let me cancel the flights and use the combined cost to put towards a new far from here to Singapore.

I can't afford another seperate flight to reach Singapore, or anywhere else for that matter, so I am stuffed with just sitting tight and staying on my original flights and then continuing on through Asia, at least as far as reaching China is concerned.

I still want to visit Thailand and Cambodia, those two I feel I really must visit, but after them two the rest are becoming less and less appealing as the days go on and so I might just skip a few and come back a month and a half early, if I can.