Where are we at? No 2.

Day - 24

Only 24 days to go?????

What I am scared the most is 'TIME'. I simply cannot believe that only less than a month left to our life wanted long break from work. Whenever I realise that time goes so fast, I feel very nervous and also extremely excited by the unpredictable events which will fill up our days and months in the new places. Being away from  home for that long period has never happened to me so there are many challenges for me (as a spoiled woman) to overcome such as living on only 20kg of backpack for 5 and half months, constant packing and unpacking, sleeping at a new place every 3 to 4 days and far more. I thought I was very brave and open to any changes but I have to confess that I am quite stressed about the journey and how I would cope with all the changes and differences as the day comes closer. Please don't get me wrong that I am regretting our decision or want to back out from the plan. No ways... As much as I am nervous, I am excited and looking forward commencing the Journey. My husband and I have been talking a lot about our trips in India as India was the most challenging country (out of the 14 countries where we will go) for us  to organise places to visit and book hotels. I have always wanted to go there but when I actually can go, I was totally confused. I didn’t know where to start because the country is too big  and too many things to see within our limited time of 3 weeks. Anyway, we are in the last month to prepare things for the journey and I think it is the time to share with you how much progress we have made so far.

1.    Flights: We have booked most of flights except potential flights in Czech and Korea. We still don’t know exactly what we are going to do  and where to visit in our motherlands as the schedule will be changeable according to our family, relatives and friends’ plan.  Also we want to use this time to relax. I know this sounds funny that we will need a relaxing time while we are on leave but if you see how many places we wish to visit, you will understand why we will need some time to relax.

Total 18 flight : Sydney to Bali – Bali to Ho Chi Minh – Bangkok to Moscow – Moscow to Prague – Prague to Venice – Pisa to Marrakesh – Agdir to  Amsterdam – Eindhoven to Brno – Prague to Zurich – Zurich to Seoul – Seoul to Shanghai – Shanghai to Delhi – Delhi to Dharamsala – Amritsar to Varanasi – Varanasi to Goa – Goa to Jaipur – Delhi to Seoul – Seoul to Sydney.

2.    Accommodations: We have booked 27 hotels in 24 different places. Average number of days in staying at one place will be 3 to 4 nights so we will be constantly on ‘moving mode’. Booking hotels was not a easy task to manage as we had to put many things into account such as price, location, reviews and the facilities we prefer to use. We needed to adjust our priorities for each place. For example, Venice and Amsterdam we had to compromise our choice on the quality or reviews of the hotels in order to get cheaper hotels as they were ridiculously expensive. ‘$150 per night for shared bathroom’ couldn’t be acceptable to me so I chose a hotel bit further from the city but it has own bathroom. In India, we could get unbelievably cheap accommodations but we chose reasonable priced hotels to avoid any uncomfortable situations. All most every night, my husband and I sat next to each other with two laptops opened and searched hundreds of hotels, and chose one hotel for one place. Our choices will be evaluated only by our live experience in each place we go but I have to give a big clap for our efforts. It was a hard work but it was also a good fun to search and discuss with my husband instead of staring news or watching TV in the evening. Do things for yourself always brings abundant of joy. We will still need to book 3 to 4 more accommodations in Czech and Korea for short trips but it will be easier as we know the places. I feel released that most of hotel booking have been done but funny enough I am missing the time of booking which made me fairly busy and stressed. I presume moderate busyness and stress/pressure motivated myself.

Bali for 21 nights @ 4 hotels - Ho Chi Minh for 4 nights -  Vung Tau for 3 nights - Phonom Penh for 3 nights - Siem Rep for 4 nights - Bangkok for 3 nights - Moscow for 5 nights - Prague for 2 weeks - Venice for 3 nights - Florence for 4 nights - Amsterdam for 3 nights - Marrakesh for 4 nights - Taghazout for 3 nights - Zurich for 4 nights - Seoul for 2 weeks - Shanghai for 4 nights - Beijing for 6 nights - Delhi for 3 nights - Dharamsala for 4 nights - Amrtsar for 3 nights - Varanasi for 4 nights - Goa for 3 nights -  Jaipur for 2 nights - Agra for 2 nights

3.    Visa: Getting visas was also one of the challenges we have to get over. My very innocent (stupid?) and unknowledgeable questions will be “Why do they have to require visa to someone who really wants to see their countries and spend money?” but very often this fair (to me) argument can lead us nowhere. I needed to have ‘just do it!” or ‘no pain no gain’ attitude. As I mentioned earlier in my post, Russian visa was a hard one. We have just got Chinese visa (fairly easy) so the last one we need to get before we leave is Indian visa, another difficult one. I didn’t expect getting visas would be this complicated and expensive. If we knew, our itinerary would be bit different from the current one. Let’s stop complaining! Positive points from getting visas will be learning being patient and organising skills. It requires a lot of paperwork (33 pages of paperwork for Indian visa) so I had to push myself to be well-organised before going to the embassy or visa centres to avoid wasting time and energy. Each visa requires different information and paperwork so better read the information re visa requirements properly before you start.

Indonesian visa, Vietnam visa & Cambodian visa can be acquired at the airport or the border – Russian visa – Chinese visa – Indian visa  

 

4.    Travel insurance: This should be on the ‘must do’ list. I hope no bad things will happen to us while we travel but no one can be sure about the future so travel insurance is a top priority on our ‘To-do’ list. Also, I have learned that many countries, especially visa required countries necessitate us to have travel insurance before applying for their visa. I have heard many cases about who put themselves into a very bad situation, especially financial difficulties because of they didn’t have travel insurance at the time unfortunate incidents happened while they were travelling. So we shouldn’t dismiss the importance of the travel insurance. Allow yourself have enough time and energy to search and compare to find a good insurance which offers reasonable covers and price. We have got ‘Southern Cross Travel Insurance (http://www.scti.com.au/)’ with very reasonable price and covers (with good customer reviews) so feel free to check it if you need one.

5.    Exchange currencies: We haven’t started exchanging AUD with local currencies yet because we still have time and want to observe Australian Dollar’s movement little longer. Main currencies we need to have will be USD and Euro. Most of countries will take USD so we need to get some before we leave. Unfortunately AUD has dropped quite a lot recently so we are hoping that it will be back up at least little bit when we buy them. We can’t carry too much cash with us so I organised a credit card only for this travel. I do not have any credit card and I didn’t want to have any as I refuse to spend money which is not mine. However, carrying too much cash wouldn’t be a good idea and using our debit card will cost us a lot with overseas transaction fees, currency conversion fees, etc so I decided to get this card, ’28 Degrees Master Card’. This card offers no annual fee, no currency conversion fees and no international transaction fees so it will be perfect for us who travel many countries for a long period BUT we will need to be careful not to miss paying them within 55 days otherwise ’20.99%’ will be charged for any purchase and cash withdrawal. To tell you the truth, I was very surprised how easy to get a credit card. I do not support anyone to get a credit card because it can be very sweet at the beginning but if you don’t control properly it will be very bitter and painful. I promise that I will destroy/cancel it as soon as I return.

6.    Packing: Not yet. I do need some time to think and organise for this. I will need clothes for four seasons and three types of shoes (especially my running shoes are very important.) with extras so certainly it will not be easy to pack. Nowadays all the airlines are very tight on weighs of baggage so I need to make sure to keep under the limit.

What do you think? We are quite ready for the journey, aren’t we? I know that something will come up at the last minutes but as long as I prepare now, less things will bother me later. Most of my colleagues already know my departure and ask many questions enviously. They also organised a lunch together before I leave (Thanks). I am glad that we have decided to make this dreamed trip come true and now I can share the dream with friends and colleagues who also want to do in future. I feel already overwhelmed by priceless excitement while I am writing about the trip.