Counting down

Hard to believe that it's less than a month before we leave for our first stop. Most days our to-do list just keeps getting longer--no matter how many things we check off, there is something new to add.

We have another round of immunizations (2nd Hep B, and maybe meningitis) scheduled for next week, but with only 2 shots, this one should be a piece of cake in comparison to the last time.

We have most of the equipment we'll be taking--a good camera, netbook (so we can keep up with the blog ;-) ), and we pulled out backpacks and have started testing our packing skills. We are planning on taking one backpack each, and have been narrowing down clothing based on that. Yesterday Tom suggested throwing caution to the wind and taking a 3rd bag--felt like the floodgates opened! But then we checked and the weight limit for the domestic flights in Kenya is 15 kg, so maybe not. Ahh, for a moment there I thought I could manage another pair of shoes!

The idea of packing for 2 months is still a challenge. I'm lucky in that my clothes and shoes are half the size of anything Tom has, so I can fit in twice as much. I keep trying to narrow it down, but can't quite get behind that rule of three (wear one, wash one, have one back up). Even so, I think this isn't too bad for the variety of climates and circumstances we will be in. Throw in my hiking boots and a pair flats and I'm good to go. With the vacuum travel bags, I'll still have plenty of room in my pack.

We've spent the better part of the last year studying travel guides and need to start bookmarking sites on the netbook so we aren't lugging around the massive books. My favorite sites so far are Lonely Planet and TripAdvisor. Love to hear any other suggestions.

Since languages are not our strong point in any case, and with the variety will be facing, we decided it would be a good idea to get a couple of picture books (thanks for the idea, Susan). Hopefully we won't really need them, but it's nice to know that we can figure out a way to communicate "hospital" if we need to!

Speaking of hospitals, we completed our CPR and First Aid certification last weekend. Glad we took the CPR, but the first aid may not help us too much. Every section started with "call 911." Hmmm, what is the 911 equivalent in Xian or Dubrovnik?

Making progress

With about 6 weeks before departure, we're finally making some progress on reservations and narrowing down what we are planning to do.

For China, we have the hotel in Beijing and I just made reservations at the Li River hotel in Yangshuo. That leave Xian--we may wait until we get to Beijing to make that move. So much will depend upon being able to get the "soft-sleeper" train from Beijing to Xian and again from Xian to Guilin. While I love the idea of traveling by train for both of those legs, they don't open up reservations until 4 days prior to departure. The soft-sleeper is a compartment with 4 bunks and a door, as opposed to a hard-sleeper with 6 bunks and a curtain. I don't mind sharing with a couple of other folks (in fact would like that) but if our only option is a hard-sleeeper or a chair, we might just fly. Yes, we are a bit spoiled.

We've gotten the Kenyan camp issue resolved as well. For the first leg of the trip we'll be at Joy's Camp--it's built on the site of Joy Adamson's home. For those of you old enough to remember, she wrote/lived "Born Free." It looks beautiful, but then I was reading how she was murdered by a disgruntled employee, and her husband was murdered a few years later as he was trying to rescue some tourists from poachers. Hmmm.

Well, back to obsessing about packing.

This is why we have trip insurance

We've made progress on booking some hotels. I really don't want to spend a lot of time going from place to place, and when you can get what sounds like a great place in Beijing for $38 how much more of a bargain are we really looking for?

The last few mornings I've been waking up around 4:30 and while trying to go back to sleep will sometimes listen to BBC news radio and NPR. For once, it paid off. I heard reports yesterday of massive flooding in Kenya (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8550840.stm). Looking into it further, the Samburu park was pretty hard hit, with most of the safari camps being washed out--think helicopter rescue from rooftops. This particular flood didn't result in any deaths, but sadly, I've read that other flooding of villages has taken a toll.

After hearing about the Samburu floods--one of the parks we are scheduled to visit on the safari--we contacted the tour company and did a bit of research. Turns out the camp where we have reservations was one of the ones hit, and is pretty much gone. In fact, of the 10 camps in the park, only three are remaining. None of the damaged camps are expected to open until at least July 15, and perhaps not until next year.

So, we wait. Mike, the tour operator, is suppose to be trying to find alternative arrangements. We are suppose to be sending the last payment next week and don't want to do that until we see what we are getting. On the upside, the three camps still standing look even better than the one we had booked.

Reality is setting in

We've realized two things: from yesterday until the day we leave will be just how long we will be gone (giving a bit of perspective on just how long this trip is), and this time in two months we will be sitting someplace in Beijing, likely having tea.


While buying the tickets was certainly a reality check, for some reason it is now starting to feel bit more imminent. I think part of it is that we've finally told just about everyone we work with that this is happening. And we are realizing how much there is to do between now and then. Trips to visit family, still looking for the perfect pair of shoes (though that one may be in the bag for me), taking a first aid and CPR class, need to get one more shot and packing still seems impossible.


It seems like we've been doing the planning for months--wait, we've been planning for more than a year--and we still don't have a single hotel reservation. We do have a house in Spain, where friends and family will be joining us late in the trip, and the Kenyan safari is taken care of, but everything else? Nada (just practicing my Spanish ;-) ).


The hotel thing is kind of tricky. Many times in the past we've just made sure we have a place the first and last night and wing it inbetween. Apparently, in China the way to get the best deal--40-50% off--is to not make reservations and just make the deal on the spot. In lots of ways this is very much the way we like to travel. On the other hand, how much time do we really want to spend trudging from hotel to hotel to guesthouse to find a place?


And all of it is going to be a bit arbitrary. Aside from a recommendation from friends for a place in Istanbul, I'm mostly relying on travel books and Trip Advisor. Anyone out there been to Dublin? How about Split, Croatia?

Tickets in Hand

We've booked our airfare and have our tickets in hand. Well, they are e-tickets so they are actually PDFs at this point but ready to print out. The whole process took a couple hours on the phone with Airtreks. I dislike talking on the phone for any significant length of time, but Basel (their booking rep) was very help and friendly so it's wasn't too bad. We've booked a week-long safari in Kenya, too. Now, just need to find the perfect house in Spain and get that box checked. Moving right along...

Feeling Like a Pin Cushion

Before long, we'll be wandering through a world full of particularly nasty diseases. I think schistosomiasis sounds particularly gross, but dengue fever wouldn't be much fun either. So, we have taken precautions - lots of precautions. Of course, that meant we had our arms stuck repeatedly with needles at the Travel Clinic. The nurse was counting on her fingers the number of shots, trying to figure out "if we have enough arms" for all of them. She managed.

It was quite the presentation, really, and took more than 2 hours. Now we have a thick stack of reading materials that highlight all the bugs, bacteria and viruses that we may come across during our travels. For some, they don't have vaccines available (at least in the U.S.) so we'll just take our chances. The nurse emphasized insect precautions (mosquito spray and netting) and avoiding fresh-water swimming (see schistosomiasis, above) pretty much everywhere we're going except Spain.

Today, Robin and I had typhoid for breakfast (actually, just a capsule containing an attenuated version of the bacteria). Yummy!

A long delay

Over the last few months work, and life in general, blocked any progress we could make on the trip. But, it has dawned on us that we are coming down to the wire on a lot of deadlines, and our departure for the trip seems right around the corner.

We've spent the last two weeks doing lots of research, as we still are trying to finalize our destinations--always a good thing to do before buying plane tickets!

The broad strokes are still in place--China, Africa, Croatia, Spain, perhaps Turkey and India. We know the beginning of the trip (China) and the end (Spain), it's the stuff in the middle that is still a bit fuzzy.

Originally we thought we would be in China for 3 weeks, but I've had to accept that going to Tibet is really out of the question. Besides the cost (time and money) to get there, additional visas are required and you have to hire a guide to get the visa and entrance to many of the sites--just adding up to be too much. So for the moment, the China itinerary is: Beijing, Xian, Yangshuo.

Since we are cutting the China portion a bit short, we could either have a brief--4 days or so--stop in India, or spend more time in Africa. I think we are both leaning toward skipping India and making that another trip in itself at a later date. For Africa, the plan had been for 7 to 10 days in Uganda--the parks sound reasonable and wildlife abundant. But, because of current political issues in the country I think we are both reluctant to give any of our hard-earned tourism dollars to them.

Kenya seems like a good option--we can hit one of the parks and then head to the coast for a trip to the beaches at Lamu for a breather. But, since we may have a few extra days we can spend, we're thinking about a brief stop in Kenya for the wildlife, and then heading a bit south to Tanzania and going to Zanzibar (I just love saying Zanzibar) which looks terrific.

After Africa we start heading for Europe, Croatia in particular. There may be a few days that we can spare in Istanbul--I've heard great things about that city (and hope to hear more) from our friends Brooks and Beverly. A week in Croatia and then on to 2 weeks in Spain, the last being in the south where we hope to rent a house and just relax a little before heading home and back to work.

As always, I'd love to hear from any other travellers who have been to any of these places. I get tired just thinking about all of this.