Anticipation…

So this is it. After years of planning, scrimping-and-saving, the prostitution of our nice little flat, the abandonment of our jobs (well, one of our jobs at least) , profligate leaving celebrations and tying up of various loose ends; the time has finally come for us to embark on this 6-month expedition.

Our planned itinerary is as follows:

1) 4th Feb – Fly to Hong Kong

2) 8th Feb – Fly to Bangkok – From here we will make our way to Northern Thailand, then into Laos where we will work our way down to South Vietnam via Cambodia. Next we’ll head North, eventually to Hanoi, from where we’ll fly back to Bangkok. Then down to the Thai Islands before continuing South, through Malaysia, to Singapore.

3) 8th April – Fly from Singapore to Bali.

4) 15th April – Fly from Bali to Melbourne (Via Singapore).

5) 18th April- Get a train from Melbourne to Adelaide to see and stay with our ex-pat friends Phil & Jo.

6) 24th April – Fly from Adelaide to Cairnes (Via Brisbane)

7) We’ll then make our way down the East Coast of Australia, eventually to Sydney. Currently planning to do the bulk of this journey in a ‘Wicked Campervan’.

8) 27th May – Fly from Sydney to Santiago, Chile.

9) 3rd June – Fly from Santiago to Lima, Peru.

10) 24th June – Fly from Lima to LA, via Miami.

11) From LA we will find our way to The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Yosemite Park and San Francisco. We will then probably get on a train to New York, trying to fit Chicago and Niagara Falls in en route.

12) 22nd July – Fly home from JFK airport, New York. Arrive at Heathrow, London at 07.15 23rd July.

Of course, these plans could change apropos of financial straits, advice from fellow travellers, emotional attachments, or any other unforeseen circumstances.

Four Thousand Islands

Si Phan Don, or Four Thousand Islands, is an archipelago of about 2 dozen islands and islets in the far South of Laos, at a bulge in the Mekong river. There are three main inhabited islands and we stayed on one of these, Don Dhet, which is not even hooked up to the national grid and so only enjoys 4 hours of generator-driven electricity per day. How quaint, we thought…

It would be fair to say we were a little disappointed with Si Phan Don. Admittedly we were both suffering from ailments and afflictions (we’ll spare you the grisly details!), and that can taint your opinion of a place. But it was far from the unspoilt elysian setting, lit by rosy candelight, that we were expecting. Instead we found a swelteringly hot town of identikit bungalows and Western-themed restaurants staffed by unusually sullen locals; the amount of bugs and insects was just Biblical, and the novelty of no electricity wears off as soon as you need to go to the toilet in the middle of the night!

Amy was feeling particularly queasy on the first night, so we splashed out on a deluxe room; with glazed windows and a tiled floor, and an amazing sunset view. The next day we moved into a cheap bungalow which we had to share with a lizard and a cockroach.

That said, when we hired out bikes and explored further afield, the scenery was as beautiful as we’d hoped. We found a huge waterfall (you might think we’d be bored of waterfalls by now but not so, each one is unique and they’re not exactly abundant back home are they?) and a beach with blisteringly hot sand.

We now leave Laos and head to Cambodia. We’ve had a wonderful fortnight here though. There can’t be many countries left in the world – at least that are safe to visit – which have no motorways, no high-rise buildings, no out-of-town industrial areas, no McDonald’s! It will of course all change, in the inevitable course of ‘progress’, but we were just glad we had the chance to visit it as it is now.