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Published: June 21st 2009
Hello all,
Just thought we'd bring you up to speed with where we are, what we've been doing in regards to travel and what things we are thinking about as we head ever closer to the inevitable date of departure. Also as you can imagine, we've been hammering our trip fund with the latest spending sprees at the camping shop just up the road.
Where do we start? Well, after the last and may I say "very exciting" entry about buying the tickets, we've now told work about our intentions. We've both applied for a career break. This gives us the opportunity to return back to our work when we arrive home unless we decide to stay with Ian Smith, one of Masai Mara Chiefs forever. When we come back to work it may not be the same role but it will be an equivalent position to the one we held before we left. We both work for KPMG and they see a career break as a massive positive for personal development. To be honest, it's come at a great time. Credit Crunch is creeping ever so closely, work is making cut-backs and for us to give them the
opportunity to save a few £££'s is probably quite welcome. We're just waiting for the thumbs up. It's also great to tell everyone about where we're going so while we're on Phi Phi Island or boating around Halong Bay, they'll still be working on that spreadsheet they need to finish... On reflection, it could be them sleeping on the most confortable bed in the whole world while we are trying to work out which hand to use to wipe our bottoms with on squatting toilets "he doesn't know how to use the three seashells". It's all about adventure, right?
As you can imagine our life is all about the travels. Everyone's sick of us banging on about our dream bloody trip around the sodding world. Oh well - tough, we won't stop all the Planning, thinking, plotting directions and ideas of things to see and do along the way. To aid us on our quest we need geographical knowledge of quite monstrous proportions. We have bought almost every book that is out there about preparation on Round the World Trips. Many books from Rough Guides on "First Time" around the various Continents to Healthy travel, Lonely Planet Guides and
More travel stuff
... and even more to come...enough maps to plot out a small country. Zuzana has read them all...!!! 4 TIMES!! ... which means that I've no need whatsoever to refer to them and start reading as she can already tell me what I need to know...This goes with my collection of Encyclopedias that I no longer need as Zuzana knows it all!! Of course these will be coming with us...all 20...only kidding.. it's 50. We advise any keen traveller to get hold of at least some guides if embarking on some sort of tour. Priceless snippets of advice. They are well written. Just be sure to get the most up to date release to where ever you're headed.
So we've got the guides to help us circumnavigate our wee planet. Now what else can we do to get prepared for that moment when we do step on that plane and fly to the other side of the world?
We've started to make a real dent in the equipment list and have tried not to purchase everything that has been suggested by all the books, by friends and all that we've read on the internet. You saw our last equipment update and here is
a brief description of our latest purchases and some funky pictures showing all our wares:
*Taken on the new camera of course! Canon SX200 IS - Zuzana's birthday present from me.
*There is my new Rucksack (Karrimor 65ltr - same as Zuzana's in previous entry)
*Sleeping bags (Snugpak with a black mosquito net you can zip up over your face)
*100% Cotton cocoons for when it's too warm and keeps those bugs away
*My day shoes (Teva Sandals)
*Day pack with water bottle (18L Berkhaus bag)
*Zuzana's trousers/shorts (Royal Robbins - quick dry, wrinkle resistant and UPF protection)
*Zuzana's travel hat (Tilley - blocks UVA/UVB, with SPF 50+ protection)
...£300 down the line, but there is still more to buy.
We have also bought a little 8.9" Acer Aspire One laptop. It weights only 1.2kg and we'll now be able to compose thses fantastic blogs whenever and wherever we want, rather than spend hours and hours in an internet cafe (oh yeah always thinking). Another reason to purchase this little machine was to transfer our funds securely between our accounts. In internet cafes there is a risk that computers could have something called "key logging" which will
keep all the passwords in the computer's hard drive and whoever will log in after you could get access to all our millions!!! And we definately don't want that!!!
I would also like to mention that Zuzana got some really wicked presents for her b'day in May. A Luger telescope, Eurohike Aqua 4 pack, travel size Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Creams and a rather overly posh toilet bag with mirror.... I am quite the jealous monkey!!!!
We managed to book ourselves onto a Red Cross First Aid course which we're really looking forward to. This is a 7hr course and it will cost £43.95. Fingers crossed we never have to use our new brain surgeon like skills. Apparently we will receive first aid kits but not with stethescope. We like freebies!!!! We will still have to get some more intricate bits like clean needles.. just in case. At the other end of the fun preparation....We've booked the date for our jabs on a Friday 17 July. We just hope not to spend the weekend in bed with the odd visit to the toilet... Nice! Info on cost and which vaccination we'll receive will be confirmed by the doctor on the day but so far when we looked on the t'internet we think we'll need these jabs - Diphtheria, Tetanus, Polio, Hepatitis A, Meningitis, Typhoid, Yellow Fever and Japanese B Encephalitis - the list is just endless and its definately going to hurt!!
We've also been busy composing letters that we think might be a good idea. A letter to Qantas/BA informing them of our dates of preferred travel so that we don't end up paying a charge for changing our flight dates. Annoyingly when we booked our flights we couldn't book more than 11 months in advance and therefore from 29 Jan we had to put only dummy dates into our itinerary. STA told us that we will not pay more than £35 but when I spoke to BA they said that we will have to pay £50pp for every change of our itinerary which is a bit of a bugger. Zuzana called BA and Qantas and Qantas said that when we re-book our flights and if there is still availability we will only pay a local charges which depends on what country we are calling from. And you can't change any dates before you set off. For example the charges could be £13pp from India, £13pp from Thailand and around £15-25pp from the UK. Let's hope that this will be the case :-)
Other letters we've writting were for the embassies. So far we have only sent the Kenyan letter. As we're not flying out fo Kenya and cannot show any proof of onward journey we thought we'd get some advice and let people know our intentions. We're still going to have to get our visas somehow, but they may get back to us with some advice. It certainly can only be a positive.
And last but not least - we have booked our first 3 nights in Nairobi. We thought it would be a great idea going somewhere a bit more civilized rather than jumping straight in the culture shock deep end. So we're staying in a
deluxe tent at a rather wonderful hostel called "Wildebeest Camp". It's got a lot of great reviews. After we booked it we added the owner Alan as a friend on skype he gave us a call. He seems really cool until we found out he was an Aussie hehehe!!! But he did say that he will help us with booking our safaris and also the gorillas. Isn't that cool?
So that's where we are now. Everything is coming together and all seems to be working according to the plan. One thing we would like to mention is that we will be having a farewell party on
5th September. We would like to use this opportunity to ask everyone to put this date in their diaries. We are not sure what we'll do exactly but it will be in Berko area.
We are looking forward to see you all before we leave which is less that 3mths away. Can you believe it???
All the best and keep reading!!
David & Zuzana
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Dawn Smallwood
non-member comment
Your trip
Good luck with your planning! Look forward to reading all about your travels! Dawn