Though it may not come as a shock.....more preparation than you think goes into organizing a 6 MONTH AMAZING ADVENTURE TRIP OF A LIFETIME which begins for Dorothee and I in Amsterdam overland by train (hence the "choo choo") to Asia and back again (by air).
In fact..... it has become my part time occupation of late.
Where do we want to go? When do we want to go there? Who will fill my position at work? How many visas will we need? Which visas should be organised before we leave? Which train tickets can we organise now? Which class? and on which train should we choose? When should we fly? With which airline? Which accomodation should we organise before we leave? Cameras? Video? How many Gb of memory? Batteries? Adaptors? Which travel insurance? To vaccinate or not to? First aid kit contents? Where to store our belongings whilst we are away? Do i even remember the pin number of my credit card? Should we organise a home in amsterdam for our return before we leave or after we come back? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggh!
And these, are just some of the questions i have faced or am still faced with looking at the calendar hanging up in the kitchen which is now also our study/dining/library and seeing that we have only 10 weeks to go. How fabulously exciting?!?!?
You see....I guess i am going with (my) theory that a little organising now (well actually loads of organising now) should??? lead to less big costly time-consuming nasty surprises along the way. With some of these countries though, you just never never know!
And as far as communication goes, we are not taking our mobile phones and are aware that in some off the beaten track locations our calls and/or emails may be few and far between thus this blog is my attempt to.....keep everyone posted on our whereabouts, share our adventures, detail our culinary delights encountered (hence the "momos"), help/warn/inspire our fellow travellers in any way we can, be my online journal and hopefully generally entertain you.
Upcoming posts will include.....
* The link to Dorothee's blog - hers will be in French to avoid that 2 people trying to type together on one computer thingy, and of course upsetting all her friends and family in France!
* List of essentials we are taking
* Some websites we have found useful in our preparations
* Any other bits i can't think of right now
end-note 1: if you are wondering what a momo is, check out
Momos
end-note 2: apologies to my dutch friends who may have hoped this would be in dutch... i know you will forgive me!?!? :)
end-note 3: The lonely planet books we have purchased reveal our main destinations in addition to Bryn Thomas's book which reveals how it all begins...... sort of. ;)
So... sit down, saddle up, and switch on and the enjoy the ride.
It hasn't even begun!
