Dollars and (Common) Sense

Remember the movie Office Space and Michael Bolton's grand plan to steal the rounding error from every transaction the company made? For each transaction, the amount stolen was a fraction of a penny, but aggregated over thousands or millions of transactions, those fractions added up to a whole lot of dough. Then there's the decimal place debacle and the devious plan falls to pieces.

Dealing with exchange rates on multiple currencies on a round-the-world trip is a bit of the same mess as Michael, the diabolical but mathematically impaired software engineer. Every time you change currency, little bits of your carefully crafted budget are shaved off. Some of that goes directly to the bank or money changer doing the exchange. Some of it is legitimate rounding error, which goes right back to the bank on top of their service fee or commission. And some of it, like when the U.S. Dollar was tanking worldwide this time last year, is just bad luck.

In America it's easy to dismiss all of the Chicken Littles on Wall St, screaming that the Mighty Dollar is falling. But when you've based your whole trip budget on a fixed amount of cold, hard American cash, how the dollar is faring against the pound, yen, or baht becomes much more important. So I wanted to see just what the impact of last year's currency market crisis was on our trip.

When we were researching the trip, we used almost exclusively Lonely Planet guides. They're ubiquitous, everyone uses them, and, generally speaking, they're reliable. So even though we understood that the copyright date was only a couple of years old, we assumed that the exchange rate information was good. Not once did we think to double-check the exchange rate on a site like xe.com. So we planned our trip around a $50 USD per day budget.

What should have been common sense is that exchange rates fluctuate, particularly in developing nations like the ones we were going to be travelling in. While we were on the trip, I had the distinct feeling that our money wasn't going as far as I thought it should. It could be that I'm a bad haggler, and that after one bad experience in a shitty hostel, we were going for top-of-the-line budget accommodations, but look at the data. Our money wasn't going very far at all in most of Southeast Asia (where we were before Feb 2, 2008), especially Thailand. Then we went to Sri Lanka, where the LKR was running much stronger against the dollar than it had in years. Finally, in India, Nepal, and Hong Kong, we were right on budget.

So our money wasn't going that far, but just how far was it getting us. In Thailand, on average, we were short $2.76 from our daily budget (valued on Sep. 19, 2007), which equates to about one small meal for the two of us, not including alcohol. What's worse is if you look at our value of our Lonely Planet-based budget in Nepal, a difference of $7.48, or two midday meals at the Hut including beer.

According strictly to the data, the total loss due currency fluctuations was $100.33, or just under 2% of our total budget. However, consider that that's 2 whole days worth of food, lodging and activities lost due to "market forces".

So what's the bottom line? First, before setting your budget in stone, use some common sense and double-check the current exchange rates. Second, it might not be a bad idea to add a couple of days of cushion to your overall budget. In the end, exchange rates are annoying but a fact of life. As long as you use some common sense (ahead of time), you'll be able to ride out any nastiness the market can throw at you.

Sixty-Day Status Report

Written in Cochin, Posted from Kumily, Kerala, India

In case you're curious, and even if you're not, we wanted to let you know how we're doing now that we're over halfway into this journey. So we categorized some of the top-priority items and wrote up our thoughts on them. Basically, it's a list of all of the things we had concerns about, most of which we shared with you, and how we're dealing with them so far. Without further ado, our status report:

Accomodations: After our disgusting four-nights-stay at Big John's Backpacker Hostel in Bangkok, Thailand, our standards increased considerably. We decided that we don't need to be hardcore backpackers and that we outgrew dorm rooms sometime around the day we graduated from college (and actually before, but we were RAs, so we couldn't really knock them). Dorms are fine for single travelers, but hard for couples. When we can't sleep near each other, we're not as nice to each other the next day. And then there's the fact that in a dorm room, we're 10-12 years older than our bunkmates. We now pay an average of $18 a night for a room. Sometimes that gets us AC, sometimes it doesn't. We are loathe to pay more than $20 a night and when we do, we are splurging. That $25 per night room better have AC and sheets so clean we can sleep on them without wearing pajamas!

Water: Still not drinking it

Vegetables and Fruit: We TRIED not eating raw vegetables. We really did. But we can't. So we are. So far, we haven't eaten any that were grown in someone's poop. And in fact, the vegetables we've eaten are delicious -- they actually taste like actual homegrown vegetables. And fruit? Did you know that there are over 150 types of bananas? Neither did we. We've eaten about 8 different kinds and so far, they're all delicious.

Cravings for American Food: The cravings are high but not presently as high as they were in Southeast Asia. Which is in part due to the fact that we caved and ate McDonald's when we were in Bangkok that second time (a cheeseburger never tasted so good). Since we love Indian food and we've eaten it loads of times before now, it tastes a little bit more like home than Beef Noodle Soup with Fish Balls tasted. On the other hand, when we're watching an episode of Friends, we occasionally drool when we see what they're eating. Especially if it's pizza. Oh, pizza.

Mosquito Bites: I have about 32 visible bites. Matt has about 10. But the ants love him and stay away from me. We use DEET to try to scare away the bugs, but really using it is more about the psychological factor of feeling like we're DOING something, since the bugs don't seem to care whether we're DEETed or not. Thank goodness for Malarone.

Tummies: For the most part, our tummies are fine. We both suffered a bit in Southeast Asia and for that period of time, neither one of us could handle the local cuisine. But we got through it and so far, India has been kinder than we expected. Though the mantra "if it's spicy on the way in, it will be spicy on the way out, too" still holds. And is repeated often. Except for Matt's current aversion to rice, we're loving the food. And when he's sick of rice, there are a host of breads to make up for it.

Crohn's: So far, so food. When my stomach was bothering me in Cambodia, I had that feeling of "here it is, this is it, my intestines hate me so much that we're going to have to go home so I can go back on steroids or something." But then I remembered the combined wisdom of Andy and my GI doctor: sometimes an upset stomach is an upset stomach. I concluded that mine was a classic case of "you've been in Southeast Asia for a month" and took it easy and listened to my body and made no rash decisions to change our itinerary. I ate a lot of sandwiches. By the time we got back to Bangkok, I was ready to eat street meat again.

Traveling as a Couple: Sometimes it's harder, but most of the time, it's easier. A lot easier. There are times when we bicker, but just like at home, 99.9% of the time, it's because we're tired or hungry. We've had an actual fight on two occasions, both while we were in Vietnam, and both within a day of each other. But both times we had the time to actually talk it out which is something that's actually easier here, given that we HAVE to spend 24/7 together. In fact, I think that's been the biggest gift of the whole trip -- the time we've had together. We realize that those opportunities will get harder to find as we get older. We're doing our best to savor it now. And I think that's makig it so that we're a little gentler with each other. For the first time in a long time, we have a chance to actually understand where the other is coming from.

That Thing you Don't Talk about with your Parents: Which is why I'm not going to talk about it here either, since our parents read this blog. Suffice it to say that when you have the time to actually understand where the other is coming from, when you know exactly what their day was like because it was your day too, and when at the end of that day you're still excited to hear their perspective on something you both experienced, well, then you have time to... you know.

Grooming and Beauty: We're generally dirtier here than we are at home. We shower every day (though much faster than we do at home, particularly when there's no hot water) but Matt shaves about once a week and even though I shopped diligently for the perfect all-in-one makeup pallette, I have yet to use it. When it's too hot to wear my hair down, it's too hot for mascara. Our hair! It's long, so very long! And my hair gel totally hates me -- it's the one thing that keeps exploding.

And if you're still reading, then you're probably the only person interested in our superlatives list, which is here:

Lowest Price for a Decent Room: $6, Julie Guesthouse in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Cheapest Big Meal: $3 for two, an all-veg place in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Tea: Toss-up between the black tea in Sri Lanka and the Chai in India
Best Night Train: Thailand (Bangkok to Chiang Mai)
Cheapest Laundry: 10,000 kip/kilogram in Laos
Cheapest Western Food: Two Cheeseburgers, Two fries, Two Cokes = $5 in Saigon, Vietnam
Best Coffee: Toss-up between Sri Lanka and Vietnam
Best Pool: The Angkor Palace Resort in Cambodia
Best Rickshaw Driver: Manish in Munnar, Kerala, India
Best Night Market, So Far: Luang Prabang, Laos

And if you've gotten this far, then WOW, do you love us. Is there anything else you're just burning to know? Anything you wish I would have written about but didn't? If there is, let us know in the comments section and we'll write it up specially for you with love.

Helpful Hints: Laos Edition

We're just over halfway through this marvelous adventure, and although we've posted some great stories (more to come, I promise), we haven't really contributed much in the way of lessons learned on the road. So here are a few helpful hints for traveling in and around Luang Prabang.

Forget the guidebook.
So you've decided to take the slow boat from Thailand, good for you. Unless you've made reservations ahead of time, you're going to be one of hundreds of people trying to find a room at the same time. While on the boat, you may have noticed everyone reading a copy of their (and your) favorite Laos guidebook. Unfortunately, they are planning the same thing you are: the backpacker shuffle from one guesthouse to the next. This is a time when a little bit of an adventurous spirit goes a long way. Skip the guesthouses in the Lonely Planet, because that's where everyone who got off the boat first is headed too. Keep your eyes open for guesthouse signs; they are on the main road that parallels the river. You may be surprised at what you'll find.

Timing is everything.
After returning from our trek in the hills around Luang Prabang, we needed a place to stay. It was early afternoon, a couple of hours before the slow boat was scheduled to arrive. We started the backpacker shuffle, dragging a poor tuk-tuk driver along with us, instead of schlepping our bags from place to place. Unfortunately, the guesthouses in the guidebook were booked or way too expensive (another example of what LP doesn't always tell you). After our third guesthouse and another shrug and serious eye-roll from our tuk-tuk driver, we welcomed the tout who roared up on his motorbike. He directed us to a guesthouse. After Lizzi conducted a quick white-glove inspection of the digs, we agreed on a price and settled in.

Ok, so what did we learn from this. First, we haggled on the price. We actually got a nightly rate that was $10 less than the published rate. We probably could have gotten more, but it was technically high season. Second, timing was everything. The slow boat hadn't arrived yet, so we were able to haggle. When we left our room to forage for food, the slow boaters arriving at the door were greeted with a firm price equal to the published nightly rate. These lessons go hand-in-hand. Good timing leads to a good price.



Early to rise, early to bed...
One of the interesting things about traveling to Luang Prabang is the government-mandated curfew. Technically speaking, the curfew is 11PM, but many guesthouses close their doors up to an hour before. Believe me, our host was not a happy camper when we came banging on the door at 11:15PM. He'd gone to bed an hour earlier.

The curfew means that most of the nightlife happens long before 11PM. Except one bar on the back side of Phu Si. Don't worry, all the tuk-tuk drivers know exactly where it is. But if your guesthouse won't open the door, imbibing until midnight may be a moot point.

Despite the curfew, you can still tie one on pretty easily. They have these things called "Happy Hours", and unlike the U.S., they actually want you to show up and drink freely. Beerlao is cheap and goes down easy. Beerlao is definitely one of the highlights of our trip thus far. I even bought the T-shirt!

Oh, The Drama

Written and posted from Kerala, India

By far the most stressful point in our travels occurs in the few minutes after we first arrive in a new city. We step out of the train station/bus station/airport, with our packs strapped to our backs and our assorted other bags over our shoulders or in our hands, and stand, bewildered and hot (Cochin) or cold (Vietnam), wondering what we do now that we're where we intend to be. We usually stand in that spot, turning ourselves first towards the exit, then towards each other, before one of us pipes up with A Plan. A Plan is always a good idea to have BEFORE you set out on a journey, we have noticed this, and yet, time and time again, city after city, we arrive without one. And until one of us happens upon the ever-elusive Plan, we are lost, strangers in a strange land. And as you might guess, when you are traveling as a duo and you arrive in a new place, hot (or cold), tired, hungry, and bewildered, you are inclined to like each other just a little less, to find the other's Plan just a little less brilliant than you were hoping for.

Which brings me to yesterday. We arrived in Cochin after a 14.5 hour night train from Goa. The train ride itself was unremarkable except for the fact that it was long and that after 14.5 hours anything with human beings in it eventually starts to smell more like human beings and less like something that is clean. We were especially dirty when we arrived because we spent the better part of the day on a bus "tour" of old Goa. That's "tour" and not simply tour because it was less of a tour and more of guided tutorial, in Hindi mind you, of all that Goa has to offer, should you have the time and inclination to look around. Which is what we thought we were doing, but whatever. The air conditioning on the bus was less air conditioning and more "this bus has no windows so when we drive there's a nice breeze." It wasn't a bad "tour" so much as it was a waste of time, but mainly it was annoying because the open-air bus ride made us seriously dirty, covered in a fine film of red dust. And if you've never spent 14.5 hours on a night train when you're dirty, then boy, you have no idea how dirty you'll feel 14.5 hours later. But bus "tours" aside, we arrived in Cochin 14.5 hours after we set out.

Cochin is a much bigger city than our last home in Colva Beach, Goa. For starters, it's a city as opposed to a beach town. We'd made a reservation at a guesthouse while we were still in Goa, but because Lonely Planet India leaves a lot to be desired in the way of little things like, oh, information, we had no idea how to get to said guesthouse. Taxi? Tuk-tuk? Ferry? See, our guesthouse is on the island of Fort Cochin and the map in the book conveniently fails to connect island to mainland. So we stood in the Cochin train station, packs strapped to our backs, hungry, hot, and bewildered. We decided to take a tuk-tuk and just deal with however much it cost us.

Of course, the other thing that accompanies than unique mood of hunger/heat/bewilderment is a classic case of mistrust. And here, too, I fault the Lonely Planet. At every turn, the book warns backpackers against people who are trying to hustle you. And of course, there are people at every turn who ARE trying to hustle you, so the warning isn't entirely unfounded. Except that if you're not an idiot, and you're not stoned, and you have a general sense of when things are shady, you can TELL when someone is trying to hustle you. The guy putting our bags on top of the tuk-tuk WE hired? Not trying to hustle us. But did that stop us from shouting "no, we're married!" at him when he took our bags off of his tuk-tuk and wanted to put them on another, different tuk-tuk? We thought he was trying to hustle us into taking two separate tuk-tuks. He thought we were total weirdos who, totally unprompted, wanted strangers to know that we are married. Instead, he just wanted us to ride in his brother's tuk-tuk rather than his. Ten minutes later, feeling like an idiot, we were speeding through the streets of Cochin, and our driver was pointing things out to us. Things like the river, and the current, and other islands surrounding the city. There were children waving at us from the backseats of their own tuk-tuks, there were beautiful women in sarees, and there were those ever-present fruit stands. Feeling once again like traveling is, in fact, a fun thing to do, I silently resolved that when we get to the next city, the next new place, we'll find A Plan before we go, knowing that despite my best intentions, we will not, and that in a few days time, we'll be staring at each other again, waiting for the other to come up with something brilliant. At least I can comfort myself that after 8 weeks of travel, I know that brilliance really is just around the next corner.

India Is Really Big

Posted from Negombo, Sri Lanka

Of our entire trip, we have done the least amount of planning for India. We know when we're going to be there, and we have a general outline of what we want to do (thank you Nitin, Uma, and Vishal). But we have no clue about what it takes to actually find accommodations or get from Point A to Point B. That bit of nail-biting started last night. We've emailed some guesthouses, and I'm certain that we will have to call them all to follow up later today. But the biggest question mark is how to get from one place to the next. Believe it or not, it's not as simple as I'd first hoped it to be. With that in mind, I've added a section to the sidebar called "India". Its purpose is to keep track of some helpful quick links or other bits of information. In particular, I've added the list of popular station codes for India's vast railway system. I couldn't believe how difficult this was to find. So here it is for your enjoyment and for our sanity.

India Railway: Popular Stations

Go Out for Adventure...

We've said our good-byes. The cats have been outsourced. Our worldly possessions, aside from those on our backs, are safely tucked away in a secret Midwestern location. This is how our journey begins.

We spent most of today packing our bags, finishing last minute errands to REI, and generally preparing ourselves for this adventure. Of course, because we are who we are, our well-made plans did not pan out as we expected. First, our clothes fit perfectly in our backpacks, but the mountain of sundry trip-related items quickly overwhelmed our meager budget of volume. Then, there was a minor major crisis when Lizzi couldn't find her vaccination record. And, we nearly locked ourselves out of my father-in-law's house. Finally, we met the rudest cabby in New York, who refused to take us to our hotel, and instead dropped us off at the airport, where we would have ended up had we continued on rail in the first place. Probably not the auspicious start we were looking for, but even Shackleton encountered a few bumps along his way on the Nimrod.

So here we are, sitting in a hotel near JFK, anxiously trying to sleep despite the excitement. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

Like, Um, What Are You Wearing?

So do you ever have the Forest Through the Trees problem? I do. And it happens to me most often when I’m in the middle of planning something huge. I tend to get fixated on the wrong thing, and then there I am, stuck and fixated on this wrong thing, and I can’t get unstuck or un-fixate until I’ve dealt with whatever I’m stuck on.

Some of you may remember that this happened when I was planning my wedding. There I was, twenty-four years old, just finished my first year of law school, about to make the biggest commitment of my life, and the only thing I could think about was the fact that the chairs at our reception venue were ugly. And to be fair, I’m not talking run-of-the-mill ugly. I’m talking straight-up, flat-out, UGLY, ugly. Fugly. And even though Julie assured me that no one was going to be looking at the chairs, and my dad assured me that there was no way in hell that he was paying for chair covers, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fugliness of those chairs. They haunted me, those chairs. Ultimately, I managed to pull my head out of my ass and realized that chairs were low on my list of priorities next to such important things like, oh, the fact that I was getting married. But there was a time there, a shameful, egocentric time, when chair covers mattered a lot more than the vows I was about to take.

The chair covers incident became a marker for me. Whenever I find myself getting fixated on the wrong thing, I tell Matt that I’m being all "chair covers" about it. But now that I’m the one making most of the decisions in my life, I have the luxury of being all "chair covers" about something without having to worry that I’m going to screw up my dad’s idea of the perfect wedding by demanding that chairs be covered at the expense of feeding his guests, or something.

Lizzi, get to the point! Okay. Here it is: I’m coming clean about my chair covers incidents for the trip. There were two. Yes, I know, TWO. But these two particular chair covers incidents were enormous to me. So huge, in fact, that I dreamed about them, night after night. And here, in a moment of cathartic revelation, I am going to share them with you.

Chair cover # 1: Wedding Bands
Yes, Matt and I are already married. And yes, we have perfectly acceptable wedding bands that we wear every day. Except when we go to bars and take them off. Just kidding! Ha! Fooled you. Anyway, wedding rings. I love my wedding ring. But somewhere many, many months ago I read some stupid thing on some stupid website about the fact that we shouldn’t wear our actual wedding rings on this trip. And I got it into my head that we needed NEW wedding rings and that they needed to be gold wedding rings and that they needed to match. As if we don’t look enough like Americans already, right? Right. So I spent weeks, WEEKS people, looking online for wedding rings. Um, I found them. Online. They’re fine. And ever since we got them in the mail, I’ve totally and completely forgotten about my incessant obsession with wedding rings. Oddly, the space leftover in my brain did not immediately make room for physics equations as you might think it should. It moved onto obsession number 2.

Chair cover # 2: Like, um, what are YOU wearing?
Clever readers will notice that this is the very same title of this post. Clever readers will realize that this was the crux of my issue for several months of planning this trip. And even cleverer readers will realize that it took me THIS long just to make the point I set out to make in the beginning here. I have GOT to get better at sticking to my point.

So here’s the thing: when you’re leaving on a trip like this, you can only take a backpack. One backpack. And as the name implies, you carry the backpack on your, uh, back. So it has to be as light as possible. When you factor in the fact that you have to carry a pharmacy with you for all of the just-in-case illnesses you might acquire, as well as seven different Lonely Planet guides, a computer and two cameras, you quickly realize that you cannot, under any circumstances, take too many clothes. And even more disastrous, you must limit your choice of shoes. If you are me, and you get stuck on stupid shit like what you’re supposed to wear to a temple in Thailand, this clothing issue becomes a catastrophe. And the catastrophe mounts into a full-on chair covers incident. And then you find yourself staying up late revising your “List of Things to Pack” and telling Matt that if you only take one pair of yoga pants instead of two, you can take two pairs of shorts, even though you really don’t like shorts all that much anyway.

And then, if you’re lucky, help finds you. And it finds you in the form of one lovely world-traveler named Holly. Holly can be found at www.nothingbutbonfires.com where she wittily writes about life and travel and love and The Bachelor. She’s a seriously gifted writer, and I don’t mind at all if you go over there and read her blog more than you read mine. I would if I was sitting on the other side of the computer.

So a little over a year ago, Holly and her partner went on a trip that was really similar to ours. You can read all about it in her archives, brilliantly titled “Travel—Or How I Lived on $10 A Day For Three Months.” I did. I read every single post she wrote about that trip. I read them so closely that I felt like I was EATING her posts. Because there she was, traveling about, enjoying it, and seemingly not at all worried about what she was wearing. And I knew right then and there that I HAD to email her. So I did. I emailed a perfect stranger and told her about my chair covers and asked her to please help me. Holly delivers, people. She delivers. She wrote me back within a few days and gave me a list of things I’d want to take with me, assured me that it was okay to take more than one pair of flip-flops, and generally just wrote my packing list for me.

These are my favorite excerpts from her email, which I printed out and ate, just in case that would help me:

Okay, as to what sort of clothes I brought with me, I'll tell you this: NOTHING WHITE. Seriously, you can't imagine it right now, but ANYTHING white that you bring will get dirty within three seconds of you putting it on.

You will bring WAY more than you need. You just will. And I would encourage you to really, really, really try not to -- you'll end up wearing the same things over and over and over again anyway, so you really don't need that much variety.

I also brought a pashmina, which I found invaluable, since it doubled as a wrap when it was cold, a cover-up in temples, and a blanket on buses. (So I guess it tripled. But whatever.)

I mean, she’s a genius, right? I have never met this woman, and she lives all the way across the country in sunny California. But I’m so not even kidding when I tell you that she’s partly responsible for my sanity right now. Because I’m glancing over at my pack, filled with all of the things that she told me to take, all of which worked beautifully on their test-trip to Africa, and I’m feeling calm, and as though all of my chairs are covered. Now it’s just a matter of donning those new wedding bands, putting all of those clothes on my back, and reminding myself that the point behind all of the madness is actually way more exciting than the madness.

FINALLY!

As I sit here typing this in our empty apartment, Matt is taking his very last final. In fact, he's taking the very last final, for the very last graduate school class, for the very end of BOTH of our graduate educations. How awesome is that? In just a few short months, we'll be able to FINALLY tally up the total amount of money we owe to Sallie Mae, who everyone knows is NOT getting a Christmas card this year.

Anyway. Matt's last final. Empty apartment. People, do you know what this means? It means that tomorrow, TOMORROW, we’re leaving Pittsburgh. We are LEAVING PITTSBURGH. This kind of news deserves all capital letters because that’s exactly how I feel about this fact.

Now Pittsburgh, don’t get your panties in a bunch. We still love that you put fries on everything, and we’re a fan of your football team and your bridges and rivers. We like that you can put on a show for winter, and that you have the best fireworks we’ve ever seen. But Pittsburgh, let’s be honest here: we are not friends. And tomorrow, we part ways amicably. You go your way, we go ours. And from the way I see it? Our way is SO much cooler.

Here’s how things have been since I got back from Africa: the weekend was surprisingly active, but we didn’t manage to get a whole lot done for the trip. Monday was spent avoiding the fact that we were supposed to be packing. Tuesday was spent actually packing. Wednesday we loaded up the UHaul, drove our stuff to Ohio, and unloaded the UHaul into a storage unit. Thursday we drove back to Pittsburgh from Ohio and Matt pretended to study for his final while I pretended to clean our empty apartment. And now it’s Friday. I’m really anxious for Matt to finish his final because then he can feel what I finally felt on Wednesday night after Matt and Tom squeezed the last item into the storage unit: excitement. I’m so not even kidding. After all of the worry and planning of the past few months, after feeling ambivalent about everyone and everything, after even wondering distractedly if we should even go on this trip, I found myself surprisingly excited on Wednesday night. I slept better on Wednesday than I have in weeks, and ever since Wednesday, I’ve been just itching for Matt to finish his final so that he can feel excited to. This is it! We’re SO doing this.

These are the people without whom this week wouldn’t have been possible:
Tom and Amanda – my rockstar in-laws who have been an immeasurable help to us ever since we started planning this trip. We can’t even think of ways to adequately thank them, because it’s really hard to thank people for just being the wonderful people that they are.

Saul and Ciera – our friends in Pittsburgh who are letting us stay in their apartment while ours is empty, and who are taking care of Tinker while we’re away.

That guardrail in Augusta, Maine – thank you for not hurting Dan. A seriously hurt Dan would have made this week a lot harder. (It’s okay if you don’t understand this one, the person to whom it is directed will get it.)
Lee and Char – because they gave us Starbucks giftcards for Christmas and even when it seemed like we just couldn’t pack another box, the sheer force of caffeine was bound to get us through.

FedEx – thank you for sending our packets of information through the mail to all of the people who needed them. We feel great comfort knowing that the people who need to know exactly where we are in the world will know exactly where we are in the world, and will be able to help us out if we need help from halfway around the globe.

Zappos.com – thank you for having free shipping! I’m really psyched to try out my new flip-flops.

Those of you out there who read this blog – I can just tell, all the way in Pittsburgh, that you’re reading these posts and feeling excited for us. Some of you have emailed to tell us that you’re excited, others have called. But really, I can feel the power of the Internet working in our favor over here, and it’s really nice. Because just when it feels like I’m about to engage in the real-life equivalent of stepping off of a fast-moving train, you guys are there with mattresses and cushions all spread out on the ground, ready to cushion my fall. Thanks for that. It’s really cool.

In the next few days, I’m hoping to put up a few more blog posts. There are a few things we really want to write about before we leave, so we can address them again while we’re gone without giving you a long and unnecessary backstory. So look for such interesting topics as “holyshit we’re really doing this” and “traveling to far-flung lands with a chronic illness that hates your intestines” with a dose of “ohmygod we’re leaving tomorrow” and perhaps some “does Matt really think I’m only taking one pair of underwear with me?” thrown in for good measure. I know you’re excited. I sure am. And in exactly two hours and fifteen minutes, Matt is going to be right there with me!

Anywhere but Home for the Holidays

Less than 20 days till we leave for Thailand. I can't believe it's so close already. Luckily, everything is pretty much taken care of; everything except where we are going to be staying in Thailand. According to the guidebooks and the blogs, not knowing exactly where we're going to be staying is completely normal. However, what the guidebooks don't tell you is what to expect when you are traveling over the winter holidays: Christmas and New Year's. And that's precisely when we are going to be in Thailand. Specifically, we plan to be on Ko Phi-Phi for Christmas and Ko Samui for the New Year.

To make planning a little less stressful, we divided up the holiday stays: Lizzi planned Ko Samui, and I got the other one. Diligently, she booked our New Year's stay over a month ago. Thinking that seaside bungalows grow on trees in Thailand, I dragged my heels and just now started looking at where to stay. Surprise, surprise! Everything on Ko Phi-Phi is booked solid until after the first of the year. So Ko Phi Phi is a bust. Whoops. Never fear, I've got a back-up plan in mind, and I hope by the end of the week, we'll be all set for our Christmas stay in the islands.

The moral of the story is this: the holidays are a wonderful time to travel; you know this, and so does everybody else. Book your stay ahead of time.

As for our stay over Christmas, I'll keep you posted.

Our Route

After many months of debate and poring over guidebooks, blogs, and travel web sites, we finally have a route. Behold, the route in all its glory!


View Larger Map

One Down, One to Go

Just before leaving for New York this weekend, we found a note in our mailbox to pick up a package at the post office. The note lacked any sender information whatsoever. All it said was Express Mail, Large Envelope. What could it be? The camera that Andy got us? No. Our plane tickets? No, those came a few days ago. Worried, we called the post office to make sure they would hold it for us until we got back. The very patient woman I talked to assured me that the package would remain at the post office for 15 days before they send it back. Fears allayed, we drove to New York for Andy's marathon.

When we returned on Monday, we went straight to the post office, note in hand. As it turns out, the big Express Mail envelope held our passports, each with a freshly minted visa, allowing us entry to Vietnam. Not a camera, but definitely exciting in its own right. Somehow having the visas makes it that much more real that we are going on this trip. That IS actually going to happen.

In that vein, we sent our visa applications and passports to the India consular services organization yesterday. And today we each received an email, saying that the applications were received and will be processed in 5 business days. And then, all of the pre-trip bureaucratic work is done. Then, all we have to do is get on a plane. Easy.

Say Cheese!

No trip around the world would be complete without a ton of pictures of me with a temple, or Lizzi standing next to a temple, or us standing next to a temple, ad infinitum. Of course, our biggest concern is not that we will bore you to tears with one vacation picture after another. No, our biggest concern is what camera to take.

Of course, we already have a wonderful Nikon D70s digital SLR that I love almost as much as Lizzi. It takes beautiful shots, but once you add in the telephoto lens, the whole package starts getting heavy. And I always end up grumbling when I want to run out the door and find myself lugging 8 lbs of camera gear. We're trying to minimize weight, so a simple digital point and shoot camera seems to be the way to go. But at the same time, we're trying to minimize expenses.

So here are a couple of options that we are looking at in the point and shoot category. First, the Canon SD850. Personally, I love Canon's tiny digital cameras. They give great results without much fuss. For me, the big pros for this camera are the 4x optical zoom, face detection, and optical image stabilization. A quick test drive in Best Buy tonight proved that face detection is well worth the money.

Second, the Olympus Stylus 790. It's shock-proof, water-proof, and freeze-proof (ok, not really a major concern, but pretty cool). It's got face detection and 3x optical zoom. Oh, and it comes in orange. We check it out at Best Buy as well, and we're pretty satisfied with how it handles.

The question on the table is twofold. First, should we even invest in a new camera? If so, which one do you like better, the Canon or the Olympus? Please, dear Internet, your thoughts...

Good News, Bad News

Lizzi talked to Daniel at AirTreks today. Daniel is our travel consultant, the guy who's helping us get from one place to the next. Unfortunately, he had some bad news. Flying from Nepal to Europe at the end of March is just unforgivably expensive, so sorry, Portugal, but you're off the list. Instead, and this is the good news, we may be adding a few days in Hong Kong or maybe just a stop-over in Hong Kong before we fly somewhere in the South Pacific for a bit of relaxation on the way home.

This Won't Hurt A Bit

Except that getting six vaccines DOES hurt. Quite a bit, in fact. Let me re-phrase: it hurt me and not Matt, a fact of which I think he'll keep making me aware for the next 6 or 7 months. (Let's be honest, though. Of COURSE it hurt him, too. He just doesn't want to admit it because he wants to be able to make fun of me.)

Doctors, friends of doctors, and general worriers, Matt and I are now inoculated against the following illnesses: Hepatitis A; Hepatitis B; Typhoid; Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis; Polio; and the Flu. We might add Meningitis to the list, and if I need to, I'll be getting a Yellow Fever vaccine. The kind people at the Allegheny County Health Department shot us both for a mere $400! When you think about it, this is a lot less expensive than say, treating Typhoid. But it still seems like a lot of money for some needles full of dead virus.

And of course, this is not the end of our trip-med stuff. Oh no! We've got a list about a mile long of prescriptions (to ward off Malaria, among other unwanted illnesses), over-the-counter meds,
topical creams, and general first-aid gear to take with us. We intend to stay as healthy as we possibly can, even if it means stopping just short of licking a stranger's hands. I mean, sigh, we were really hoping to do that while we were traveling, but at the advice of our physicians, we'll refrain.

The one upside to getting the vaccines today is that I felt that it entitled us both to a treat. Which turned out to be a banana fruit freeze for me, and a coconut fruit freeze for Matt. Mmm...frozen fruit with tapioca pearls. Maybe my arms will hurt enough that I'll need another one tomorrow!

Things to Think About

There was a fabulous post today over at lost girls world, all about budgeting for a trip like this. Their $17K+ price-tag seems steep on the one hand, but totally reasonable on the other. When you think about the fact that Matt and I pay WAY more than that in rent each year, it feels a little bit better. And my god, they stayed in Peru for $8/night! Plus, their trip was for an entire year, rather than four months, and they travelled to many more places than Matt and I intend to.

Their post gave me some really good ideas and things to think about. In no particular order:

Plane Tickets: The lost girls did end up getting a RTW ticket, but in their post they said that tacking South America onto a RTW ticket can really drive up the cost. So maybe Matt and I should consider coming home after the wedding in Argentina, and flying to Thailand from there? Or maybe we should head home and then go for our brief stint in Europe, finishing the trip with Thailand instead of nearly starting with it? Of course, I will be checking the ever-helpful airtreks to see what I can come up with over there.

Vaccines: When I was talking to my trekker-sister-in-law this past weekend, she suggested that I check out the CDCs website for a list of vaccines we'd need for the countries we'll be visiting. She then suggested that I go to the County or to a Clinic to get the vaccines for WAY cheaper than they'd be if I just called my doctor. Great idea! And the LGs seem to agree. They also suggested that we check our insurance policy to see what the plan might actually cover. Since we're currently getting our insurance through Matt's school, then there's a chance that some of those vaccines might be cheaper for us.

Visas: Right, visas. Totally forgot about those. It looks like Matt and I will need visas for India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. But I bet we'll need one for Sri Lanka, too. The LGs suggest getting the visas while we're on the road. I wonder, though, if we have a general sense of when we're going to be somewhere, if we should try to get them ahead of time?

Right now, the biggest trip-related thing on our minds has to do with future employment. Matt is currently in the process of interviewing for jobs next year. I'm convinced he's going to get an offer somewhere, sometime soon. And he's kind of worried that once he gets said offer and comes back to them with, "awesome, I'd love to work here, can I start in May?" the offer is going to magically disappear. I'm not so sure. I think that any employer that Matt would want to work for is going to really dig the fact that we're planning to take this trip. I think that if we/he can manage to present it in such a way that we're talking about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (which it is) as well as a chance to see parts of the world that most people don't even think about visiting (also true), employers could see it as a positive thing.

This is one of those times when I wish that this blog was public already, so that I could get your feedback on this. How DO you convince a future employer that your "vacation" is more "experience" than vacation? How do you tell your boss-to-be that you're committed to your job, but that you need to stop the train and get off for a little bit? Should we be willing to limit our trip, based on a job?

Like I said, things to think about.

The Dream Trip

So it's time to tell the world where in the world we'd love to go. This list is the dream list, so don't be making fun of us for over-extending ourselves, or for being ridiculous to think that we could hit up all of these places without going insane. We ARE going insane, that's why we're doing this! Well, that and we want to see certain parts of the world before we have babies. We're trying to pack in as much as we can without feeling like we need a vacation from our vacation. And even then, we'll probably need to take a vacation from our vacation, as traveling is extremely stressful, and traveling in hard-to-get-to-places is even more stressful. So consider this the dream, rather than the plan:

December 22-29: Family Trip in warm location TBA
December 29: Fly to Buenos Aires
January 3/4: travel to Mendoza
January 5-6: celebrate with Roni and Cindy and their families!
January 7: Fly to Chile?
January 12: Fly to Thailand
January 13-Feb 1: Travel through Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos
February 2: Fly to Sri Lanka to see Upeka!
February 7: Fly to Southern India
February 8-March 14: Travel through India
March 15: Fly to Israel?
March 16-25: Travel through Israel?
March 26: Boat to Greece
March 27-April 24: travel through Europe
April 25: Home!!! (wherever that is!)

So...whattdya think? Is this ridiculous? Okay, maybe a little. The places with question marks represent those place that we might not get to, in the spirit of spending more time in other places, or in the spirit of getting home earlier to find/start gainful employment. Ah, gainful employment.

There are other places that we'd tossed around, and some of them might make it back onto the list in the spirit of adventure. They are:

1. Machu Picchu in Peru -- one of Andy's favorite places, and thus, one of the places Lizzi must see
2. Easter Island -- cool, very cool, an Andy suggestion
3. All of Australia -- a place Matt desperately wants to visit. I think that we can visit there with kids, which is the reason that it's not on the list this time around. Plus, there's some talk of a certain brother and sister-in-law maybe living there for a bit at some point and doing some amazing doctoring thing.
4. All of New Zealand -- a place that Matt desperately wants to visit. Again, I think we can visit there with kids, when we go to visit the brother and sister-in-law. We'll make it to Oz!
5. Antarctica -- this is NOT Lizzi's idea. She will go along with it AT SOME POINT.
6. All of Africa, particularly Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, South Africa, and Madagascar -- there's just SO much to see in Africa, that we figure that it will warrant a separate trip. It's a place we plan to visit later in our lives.

So that's the dream in a nutshell. Here's hoping we can make it happen!

Gear and Stuff to Do

For the past couple of weeks, I've been carrying around a list of the things that I think we need to either buy for our trip, or just not forget to bring with us. I realized this morning that I could just post it (the novelty!) so that it would be around on ye olde Internet for when I need it next. Brilliant!

What we need to buy/bring:
Backpacking Packs -- that's as opposed to hiking packs
Shoes -- super sturdy day hiking shoes + sandals
Quick-dry towels

Lightweight Jackets -- that will also keep us warm when we hit winter

Ponchos

Eating Utensils + Bowls

Digital Waterproof Watches

Sleep sacks

TSA approved locks

Emergency First Aid Kit

Bug Repellent

Pens and Paper -- to give out to people who don't usually have pens and paper

Motion bands for motion sickness

Toilet Paper

Wet Wipes

Hand Sanitizer

Prescriptions

Melatonin to help with sleep adjustment

Benadryl to help with sleep adjustment

Camera -- Matt's in charge of buying a new camera that's actually small. He's psyched.

Laptop/Pocket PC?

Cell Phone?

Stuff to Skype with?

Plug Adapters

Extra Passport Pics for both

Some Clothes -- longer skirts/dressyish pants for Lizzi, zip-off pants for both of us, bathing suits

Nonoffensive tshirts that we're cool with throwing away when we get back

Things we need to do:
Finalize our will
Square away our Life Insurance -- make sure we've named appropriate beneficiaries
Deal with our cats
Put our crap in storage
Deal with our bills
Pay our taxes
Get Vaccines -- ouch!
Get a New Passport for Lizzi
Get Travel Insurance