Itinerant Itineraries
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My itinerary seems to be out cavorting on a journey of its own, independent of what I’ve authorized it to be doing. No wonder it’s a task I’ve been dreading doing, to sit down and try to grab it by the horns again, sit it down and give it a good speaking to. I mean, I knew when I “planned” the route for this journey that it would see some alterations. But REALLY?!
Nonetheless, even if it doesn’t, hasn’t, and won’t go quite as I plan even now, it sure is an amazing journey! And even for the sheer overwhelmingness of months and days and countries that I’m trying to wrangle into these 941 cells (I’m using Excel for my calendaring)…I have to say, I sure am happy to be overwhelmed by something so incredibly awesome. The only reason it feels overwhelming is because the mass amounts of potential and promise and adventure and intrigue is bursting out of the seams! And now nearly 8 months into this, I don’t just have to whimsically imagine what wonder it might hold in those days, months, years, countries…I KNOW!!!
And still yet Mongolia! Japan! China! Indonesia! The Philippines! And that’s just a fraction of it all.
Anyway, we’re taking one last chill day here in Chiang Mai tomorrow before gearing up to be somewhat physically productive again, and I hope to start filling in some of the gaps as to where we’ve been since we effectively left off with our story-telling back in November. And not just for you, but for me and us as well. Ever since the fmy401k days (RIP…for now), one of the best and most important things to us about this great ride has been our desire and ability to share it with others, especially those we had to leave behind in order to take it.
So even if all I’ve really got time or coherence to muster for you at this 5:07am hour is the fruits of my itinerary-planning labor, I wanted to pop in and share it, in light of my newly-made dedication to updating more often, if more randomly. Much of the itinerary, though it’s now all laid out as a general plan (3 of them, actually), is still so open to probably inevitable and unavoidable change, I’ll leave it out for now unless any die-hard fans really want to know how one maps out 3 years of one’s life in an Excel sheet.
But this part looks pretty solid and reliably in place. We just have to book our tickets tomorrow to and from the Philippines and we’ll be set. We are having some technical difficulties on deciding which way to do it though, so if anyone can shed some light for us, it’d be much appreciated. I’ll explain at the end of this post so you don’t forget. I know you have short attention spans. ;]
Mar
21 Thailand
22 Thailand
23 Thailand
24 Thailand
25 Thailand
26 Thailand
27 Thailand
28 Thailand
29 Bangkok <—— meeting up with Kevin! (cool story!!)
30 Bangkok <—— or maybe today meeting up with Kevin! Wish he’d write me back!
31 BKK, Thailand-Philippines
Apr
1 Manila-San Fernando
2 San Fernando <—— to witness the unbelievable Good Friday live crucifixions
3 San Fernando-Donsol
4 Donsol <—— for swimming with WHALE SHARKS!!! (life dream!)
5 Donsol <—— just in case they didn’t show up!
6 Donsol <—— after this I’m giving up!
7 Philippines
8 Philippines
9 Philippines
10 Philippines
11 Philippines
12 Philippines
13 Philippines
14 Philippines
15 Philippines
16 Philippines
17 Philippines
18 Philippines
19 Philippines
20 Phil-BKK
Nice, that’s about a month then! So that’s all I can say with relative certainty for now. Next it will just come down to (input welcome!) whether we decide to go to Mongolia in June-July to see the summer and the huge Naadam festival, or in September to keep all of SE and Indo-Asia together (Mongolia would then precede the China-ish region instead of being smack in between SE Asia and Indo-Asia…kinda awkward). So yes that’s how it works with a trip of this magnitude…what happens in as much as 4 or 6 months in the future can dictate what happens in all the time before that. That’s why it takes some planning. A lot of planning.
Then, when all that excellent planning completely falls apart…re-planning. :]
Last thing, with regards to our flight booking…does anyone know – if our visas are up on March 31 but the flight departs 40 min later, at 12:40a on April 1, as long as we’ve cleared passport control hours earlier, which we would have, are we good? Or should we pay $70 (!!! That’s a lot of tiger petting, is the thing!! :[ ) more per person and get a flight that gets us out and in at normal times on the 31st. (Also a plus for the comfort factor, but $70 bucks each is a lot of dough…)
Thoughts? Experiences?
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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Hey!
Oh my, you’re really learning to cope with rampant iteneraries… Well done! (Damnit, I can’t even write that without feeling like a teacher…) Anyway,it sounds awesome! But I would NOT take ANY chances with VISAs, for no amount of money. You do not want to be overly vulnerable to the whims of customs people in a very foreign country!
Good look with your cells!
Hey Soj! It seems Thailand is much different than Western countries (and for SURE the U.S.) with regards to visa stuff…here you can still avoid most problems with a little wink wink nudge and a $20 bill, whereas that would just compound them back home. Still, I’m with you and would just assume NOT take any chances on getting blacklisted from a country, especially one I’d like to come back to.
But it turns out we found out we need a round-trip ticket for the Philippines anyway for their immigration requirements, and for TWO plane tickets at much more reasonable hours AND on the day we needed, not 40 min after, it wasn’t much more than we were already figuring, so we jumped on it. I knew immediately it was the right decision, because I was super excited to be going to see the Philippines instead of being anxious and dreading it and the journey to get there. Maybe we really are getting “old”, or maybe it’s just because it’s such a long trip, or maybe India just did us in, but I’m finding paying more for a little more comfort is a lot more worthwhile to me than even just a few years ago.
And thanks for the good look wishes. ;)
I’m too immature to travel to asia. I’d be laughing at everyone.
Phuket? No, just Bangkok
:-p
James, don’t forget the beautiful “Phi Phi island”. Which is pronounced “Pee pee” island. And you’d think pronouncing Phuket correctly (my mother corrected me – laughing – when I called it “Phuck it” ;)) would make it easier to be mature about. But no. Then it becomes “Poo” ket.
So no worries. I’m not nearly mature enough for this either, lol.
jeeez, if they want it called Pooket, they would translate it Pooket! I have no care for people who translated into our alphabet with no consideration for how we use it. Like in Mortal Kombat, the guys name is Tsang Tsung…nope, it’s SHang Sung, what’s the T for!? Don’t get me started on hawaiian with their crazy-go-nuts attitude on apostrophes.
It’s not just asians either, i don’t care how greeks say it, it’s a Jyro! not yeero, or hero. We don’t use yeeroscopes, we use GYROscopes! :-p
ah, phuket!