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Published: February 9th 2009
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here we go
Here we go "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
Mary Oliver
At last the first blog! We are hoping that this blog will help our family and friends keep up to date with our adventures and to give other people who may be considering a similar trip some ideas and inspiration on ‘what to do’ (and if it all goes a bit pear shaped ‘what not to do!‘)
For those who don‘t know us, the “Six about to Go Mad in Asia” are Mitchy (veeery close to forty), Deb (not quite as close to forty), Grace (9), Olivia (7, nearly 8) Finn (5 nearly 6) and Mac (3 1/2) who are aiming to spend up to six months traveling in Asia.
Like many people we have been tempted for several years to ‘pack it all in’ run away and travel the world. A scenario which looks inviting until the rose coloured glasses come off or the domestic whirl sets in. But, after two short holidays to Vietnam in the last eighteen months here we are in Melbourne one day away from flying out to Cambodia with no return airfare.
We have a great life in Tasmania, four kind, smart, and beautiful kids, a fantastic, supportive family
man in rubber
Love a man in rubber.... gloves - permethrin soaking the clothes in Australia and New Zealand, and great friends who we never seem to see enough of. So why are we leaving all of this behind? I guess we have realised that time marches quickly and we don’t want to be looking back in ten years time, nearing fifty and wondering where the time went? We want to spend some real uninterrupted time with the children and experience together what the world has to offer.
We have talked about making “a trip” for years but the decision was really made in a heartbeat. We had spent hours talking about the right time to do a trip like this, what to do about our jobs, how would the kids cope etc but then realised that there would never be a ‘right’ time’.
While there is a chance that we might regret this whole adventure, we know with certainty that if we don’t we will forever regret it.
That’s not to say we won’t miss home and everyone there, we already do! We have had a great few weeks of socializing to say goodbye, and send a big thank you to all of our family and friends who have offered kind
words, encouragement and the odd tear in sending us off…thank you!!!
But for now its more from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, or as Mac says Ping Pong Penh, Candybodia!
Love us XXXXXX
FAQ’s How long are you going for? In short; until the money runs out or the Mitchell family love-in gets too much!
We have set aside six months and hope that our budget will last the distance (we will be happy to share this info as we go along) and that as a family it remains a rewarding adventure rather than some form of international torture.
Where are you going? We are flying to Phnom Penh and plan to be at Siem Reap at the Angkor Wat temples for the impending 40th birthday. From there we plan to travel through Thailand to Laos, into China maybe into Japan and then to Vietnam. We have no fixed itinerary but will build this around a hope to take in the sights and activities that appeal to us all, the tigers in Thailand, tubing down the Nam Song river (then eating pancakes, apparently a must do) in Laos; Pandas, the terracotta Warriors and the Great Wall
bags
yes it all fits in China, sushi in Japan and anything else that our budget, time and energy allows. We have been told that a visit to family in New Zealand is a must on the way home to Tassie too!
What about the kids schooling? Nearly everyone we talk to says that the trip will be a huge education in itself and certainly we believe this is the case after the trips to Vietnam, but we also want the kids to have some sense of responsibility and to see the trip as an adventure but not a full time ‘holiday’.
Up until two weeks ago we had thought that we would be doing school (prep, grade two and grade four) through a distance education program via Hobart however in the last two weeks our local school has offered to support the childrens education on our trip. The children will now remain a part of their allocated class and the school they have all attended since kindergarten. This will be a work in progress but we feel very lucky and thankful that this is an option for us. We will have a focus on reading (especially for Finn who is just learning), writing and maths. I have bought a maths book for each of the three older children to use as a guide, a creative writing book for parents, a “quiz matron’ and books (second hand on eBay) and a plain exercise each for the kids to use as a writers notebook that we will use in conjunction with emails/letters back to school.
The most difficult thing in this regard is the difficulty in taking books or accessing them while we are away. We are hoping that we can have second hand books that we have collected posted to us but are not sure if this is a viable option, any advice would be great!
What about staying healthy? Obviously this is a huge consideration and Mitchy was a brownie once (well a participating son of a brown owl) so its ‘be prepared’! On our last trips we have all been really healthy, probably better than at home, no bugs at all (although we did have two visits to hospitals/clinics, one with a kidney stone and the second with a muffler burn to Olivia’s leg). We have acquired a huge array of medications/first aid supplies in our medical kit as despite many meds including antibiotics being available there over the counter there is also apparently a large amount of counterfeit medications.
We will also be taking vitamins and probiotics and aiming to eat and sleep well. I imagine that we will also be getting quite a bit of exercise!
After much deliberation (and nights of me dreaming about being attacked by flying, rabid dogs with mosquito wings) we opted not to have the immunizations for Japanese encephalitis and Rabies. For me this has been the hardest part of the trip planning but in the end we believe that the risks can be minimized and we have ensured that we are well prepared to prevent/avoid both of these nasties. It was a huge decision but our travel doctor helped us make this when I dragged Mitchy to the second consultation and she realized (in her own words) “that he wasn’t the long haired hippy that she had expected” and thought that after talking to us that we had considered all options as well as first aid (in the case of potential rabies bite).
We have bought malaria prevention medication for five weeks and also have every mosquito bite prevention known to man.
We are more than happy to hear from anyone with information or questions regarding the trip…
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turbo chook
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turbo chooks
is it true youv'e packed a water hen