It’s been almost a month since I last posted and the trip is about a month away so figured I’d check in and update things. Since the last post, I’ve taken care of most of the “annoying” stuff. I’ve booked round trip flights using miles to Tokyo, Beijing/Hong Kong and Seoul. Although I’m trying to leave things as open as possible, I had to book these flights early to take advantage of the air miles. I also decided to get visas to China and Viet Nam before I leave rather than run around trying to get that done in a foreign country... So the itinerary as of now looks something like this:
Boston – Tokyo – Osaka – Kyoto – Beijing – Taiyuan – Xi’an – Chengdu – Kunming – Hanoi – Saigon – Penang – Kuala Lampur – Kinabalu – Hong Kong – Seoul – Boston
The trip starts with ten days in Japan with Steve, who seems to be rather giddy about everything Japan. I’m especially excited about Osaka and the food there. Everything between Beijing and Hong Kong is pretty open, but I think the plan is to travel from Beijing to Hanoi via train over the course of three weeks or so stopping along the way to eat and drink. After that, I’ll be traveling through Viet Nam for a couple weeks – hopefully with Haskell before heading over to Malaysia. I’ve been told that my coworker’s family should be able to take care of me there. The idea behind the side trip to Kinabalu (on the eastern part of Malaysia) is to do a 14,000 ft hike. Not sure if that’s definitely going to happen or not, but it’s certainly an attractive option if I can get over there. On my way home I’ll spend a few days in Hong Kong with Dipti - my old roommate from Oakland - before visiting Seoul for two days and finally returning to Boston just in time to move to Chicago. So, yeah… it sounds pretty well planned out, but I think there’s plenty of room in there for me to change things on the fly.
Other notes: I got the good news today that I really don’t need any shots for my trip. Not that I mind vaccines, but if I can avoid them, all the better. Most of my vaccinations from my last trip are still up to date. However, I will need malaria pills and have once again opted for doxycycline which is the “cheap” malarial pill that I took last time I went to Asia. It doesn’t give you crazy dreams like Larium and it's much cheaper than Malarone – plus it seemed to work fine last time…I also picked up some cipro which will be needed in case of serious stomach issues. I'll pick up some Immodium and Pepto for good measure :)
I’ve also decided that I’m going to look into couch surfing. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept (I was too ‘til Brian introduced me to it), it’s essentially like facebook for travelers. You find people that are registered in the places you are traveling to and ask to sleep on their couch for a couple nights. The main benefits are that it's totally free and that you might get some good info from from someone that speaks English (according to their profiles) on what to do, eat and drink in an otherwise very foreign city. We’ll see how it goes, but seems like an interesting concept in theory.
Finally I’d like to note how much information there is about planning a trip like this on the internet. I realize everyone probably already knows about this so called "internet", but it’s really amazing how much you can find about places that are 10,000 miles away right from your computer. Wikitravel for starters is a great little tool and Seat61 is a great website for train travel throughout the world. Fantastic.
Things left to do before I leave... health insurance for the summer, travel insurance, learn mandarin...
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