Travelling light

One of our most important decisions for our trip was to travel light - you can't take enough stuff for five months in climates that might vary from snow in the Jordan hills to tropical heat. And I keep telling people about the research done at airports where backpackers had their packs measured and weighed and were asked what they were carrying - a lot of dirty washing, books, and formal shoes they had never got to wear! We want to be carrying neither dirty washing nor clean clothes we are not wearing.

This way we have packs we are comfortable wearing, that we can keep with us on buses, trains and shared taxis, it means we can walk at least reasonable distances if we need to.

So we are going as light as possible. For Tess that means a 22 litre capacity pack, that's about two small cushions worth. Mine is 32 litre, think about one pillow size (I tried a very cheap 25 litre and that would have just about done).

How will we manage? Well its partly down to sensible clothes, Rohan mostly, one set to wear and one spare set, stuff that will roll tightly, dry overnight in the warmer places. We will both have light fleeces and a folding cagoule. We have taken Ahmed's advice who knows the desert cold and have a set of thermal underwear, an extra t-shirt, a silk sleeping sheet etc. We will only have one pair of shoes - treking sandels but will have some DVT socks for the flights which might also be useful in the cold.

We will have one book to read each and guide books for a couple of countries (others we will mail ahead). We need basic toiletries of course plus some medical kit. We will each have a mobile phone (doubles as mp3 player), a camera, small wind up torch, and I have my solar powered Power Monkey recharger. And of course a small moleskine diary or notebook for recording the experience. Actually when you squeeze that lot in its quite heavy enough.

If we need other things then we will buy them as we go, reading and guide books can get left at hotels and hostels as we finish with them. We will let you know how we get on!

Injections!

We are in the Masta travel clinic in Cambridge completing one of their forms prior to getting advice on immunisation. We had the standard jabs ones at our GP but were advised to contact the specialist clinic for more advice.

As we complete the forms it becomes clear that the length and nature of our travel (local transport, travel in the countryside, malaria infected areas etc) means that only in a few places (UAE, Singapore, Japan and Canada) does our itinerary place us in the low risk 'Tourist' or medium risk 'Reasonable' categories - for much of our travel we are in the high risk 'Rural' category and will need immunisation against Rabies, Hepatitus B, and Japanese Enchephalitus. Three injections at each of three visits - and at £40 plus per injection I leave you to work out just how much this is costing - there goes a big hole in the budget!

We are also given sheets of information about the countries we are visiting and the risks involved - a bit too much information really (30,000 deaths per year from Rabies in India for example!). We are also briefed on the three possibilities for anti malaria treatment - the first needs only one pill a week and continuation for only one week after the relevant areas, but costs a couple of arms and a leg for every pill, the second one you take daily but gives you nightmares ('and not just whilst you are taking it but afterwards' warns the nurse) and is clearly only for the most mentally robust and the third needs a pill a day, continuation for one month and will ulcerate your throat if you don't take it with lots of liguid and keep standing up afterwards! Some choice there! And our packs now need to accommodate a mosquito net.

Visa troubles and bigger troubles

After two hours filling in the on-line application, nearly £80 on the credit card and the best part of two days spent in the Indian visa agency I look at our passports with their new visas for India - and they are for the wrong period - barely covering two weeks of our planned six week stay! Back to the visa office:
'You have given me the wrong visa, I asked for six months I have only got three months'
'What is your occupation?' (my reply of 'management consultant' provokes no comment, or enlightenment)
'Well it is at their discretion whether they give three or six months'
'But I clearly asked for six months so it covered our planned dates in India, I gave the dates on the form'
'Oh they never look at the dates of travel..'

And so on to the supervisor.
'What is your occupation' (again that does not provide a reason for our plight)
'Well we can appeal to the High Commission but I warn you now we won't get an answer before you go'

So nothing for it but to start again, more form filling, trips to the visa office and another £80!

But this time it worked, we have the visas and they are for the right period! And they are multiple entry, in fact we can spend the next six months going into and out of India.

Which at the moment, with the dreadful events in Mumbai does not seem such a good idea. Added to the present occupation of Bangkok airport and things along our planned route seem a trifle troubled. I can see we will be visiting the Foreign and Commonwealth Office web site with its advice for travelers quite a lot during our trip.

Only two more visas to get. Jordan because we fly in but have no flight out (we expect to leave by boat for Egypt) and Egypt because we need a full visa to travel around the whole country and searching for that in the port of Aquaba might be a nuisance.

For other places we either don't need visas or our supply of dollars and passport photos will get us by at various airports and border crossings - as long as they don't want to know our occupations!

We have our tickets!

On this wet August day (the English summer!) we made a trip down to Trailfinders and have come away with our itinerary finalised and our Round the World tickets purchased. And apart from the still rising fuel surcharges (which encouraged us to buy the tickets now rather than later) the ticket cost was as estimated.

Flying with the Star Alliance group of airlines has meant our preferred route was feasible with direct flights in all cases - with the exception of an additional stop in Dubai which will give us an opportunity to meet the family of our current house guest Ahmed - so an additional pleasure to look forward to.

So our itinerary is:

• We leave the UK on Tuesday 6th January and fly to Amman in Jordan (Petra and Wadi Rum among other places) then overland and ferry through Jordan to Eqypt (Sinai, Luxor, Cairo, Alexandria)
• We fly from Cairo to Dubai on Thursday 29th January
• Then Dubai to Delhi on Sunday 1st February for a six week tour of India mostly by train
• We finally leave India (Kolkata) on Friday 13th March for Singapore where we hope to meet our new blogging friend Chun See and for Brian to revist old haunts from his teenage years
• After a week or so in Singapore we travel to Sarawak, back to Peninsula Malaya, train up to Thailand and Cambodia and finally leave South East Asia by a flight from Bangkok to Tokyo on Tuesday 21st April
• We will travel in Japan until Saturday 2nd May when we fly to Vancouver and visit neice and nephew and their families in British Columbia.
• We then travel overland to the Rockies, take an internal flight to Montreal and visit Tess' sister Sue and husband Paul until our departure for London on Sunday May 31st

Something to look forward to! We now have plenty of time to arrange to meet friends, get visas organised, check our innoculations and also get the house let (and a thousand other things to do).

Getting Started

Tess and Brian will be leaving for their round the world trip early in January 2009 and expect to be away until June. Its a sort of gap year for oldies (we are both now in our 60s) and we intend to leave carrying no more than a hand-luggage sized backpack each

We hope to visit Jordan, Egypt, India, Singapore, Malaysia (Borneo and Peninsula), Thailand, Cambodia, Japan and Canada. In some of these places we hope to meet old friends and we will be visiting family in both Vancouver and Montreal in Canada. Brian will be returning to Singapore for the first time in 46 years having left as a teenager in 1962.