Two Year Report on the Road to 500

Two years after deciding to keep track of the World Heritage Sites, here I am trying to catch up… I should have done regular updates but never got to it. The previous blogpost has been at the top of this site, promising new posts but looking abandoned. How am I supposed to fix this? I should never let this happen again… How to summarize the extraordinary places we’ve seen or the things we learned? 

Stranded on Lord Howe Island, a remote and barely accessible world heritage site in May 2023

Osutoraria

I have no idea at what age normal people start dreaming about a trip to Australia. My daughter had an a emotional breakdown (Starting It All) at 12 when faced with the possibility of waiting until 15 to see Australia. For us, the parents, it was always somewhere in the back of our minds, someday we would come here. Twenty years ago, Ileana was studying Japanese, we thought it was hilarious how they say the names of different countries, and since then Osutoraria has been part of our family language.

Kakadu Wetlands

The Way Out

We’re looking for a place to spend the night. “If you want to sleep in town you have to go to a gated camping. The blackies drink too much and cause problems” says a well intended white. We press on a little further, at Three Ways, where one of the campers is not happy, we should have backed in our lot. It is something that we are going to see in all the camps, we’re supposed to follow the rules, but we’re not very good at it. Water here has a yellow tint, a metallic taste, but it is clear and safe to drink. It is brought with cisterns and kept in huge drums. It is free! Or you could buy a plastic bottle and have it on your conscience, because there is no recycling outside big cities. 

The straight road isn’t fun. We have 700 km to drive until we stop for the night. There is nothing that catches our eye: grass, shrubs, an occasional tree. But at the end of the day we realize we have some clouds, there are more trees (and they’re not eucalyptus), flocks of birds that fly in the sun, and many hawks eating roadkill. Driving after sunset is not recommended, not because there are no lights to see the road, but for the animals, who, after the heat of the day, become active and start foraging. You don’t want to have a collision with a euro (a big kangaroo), or to flatten a possum or a wallaby. And beside this, if you have an accident, there’s no one who can help you until morning.

As we’re driving, we pass through small communities, the petrol station (gas is for cooking), the grocery store, some disheveled looking houses. The few people sit where the action is—waiting on a bench, looking at you as you get down from the car, as you fuel, scrutinizing the way you walk, talk, your gestures, looking for something to remember, to have something to talk about long after you’re gone.

The Top End and The Land of Never Never

As we drive North from Alice Springs toward Darwin there is a sign, about 20 km into our trip. It is the Tropic of Capricorn. As important as that might be, the girls choose not to get out of the car. I learned in school a hundred years ago about the imaginary lines on the map, the Equator, the latitudes and longitudes. The tropics. Yeah.

The Tropic of Capricorn

A New Campervan

Near Darwin: We pick out a powered campsite, probably somewhere near Litchfield, and relax a bit before a dinner of pasta.

The mosquitos are lethal here. Ileana went out to wash the dishes and came back after only five minutes, looking desperately throughout the camper for the repellent. Her back was bright red. I've got more bites on my legs than I know what to do with. It's so hot that our clothes are sticking to us and I don't even mind the oppressive heat and humidity any more… I just try to avoid heat rash— the sweat heats up and then you get a burn in the worst of places— knees, thighs, armpits… mostly thighs, since we walk all the time. It's annoying. 

And it gets hot in the day. We are almost liquid if we ever don't have the AC on.

An Australian Mozzie's Guide to Gorging

AN AUSTRALIAN MOZZIE'S GUIDE TO GORGING

Section B, Camper Vans

Locate any and all entrances into vehicle. Check the edges of flyscreens, as these often come undone during the many bumps these crazy humans encounter along the road. Hide within the curtains which they draw at night for 'privacy' to escape their extraordinary hand-eye coordination.

When they are asleep (also known as temporary death— recognized by slowed breathing, absolute quiet, and odd mumbling sounds that sound like 'talking'), slip out of the curtains. Bite most fleshy parts— calves of legs, thighs (unfortunately often covered), underarms, neck, and cheeks. Hide in curtains again until day, when they open the Door. Slip out as unnoticed as possible. Make sure you are not discovered when they pull the curtains!

REMEMBER: All humans are highly territorial creatures. They WILL KILL if they discover a mozzie, often relentlessly. HUMANS DO NOT FORGET YOU ARE THERE!

Camping in the Outback

From the sky, the land around Alice Springs is red. A bit rusty of a color. It melts into a purple for a few inches, and then turns into a hazy blue— the clouds. It looks beautiful from the sky.

As we approach the ground, you can start seeing the green. There seems to be more green than I'd been expecting from the air.

We land in Alice Springs and Dad heads off to rent the jeep that will serve as our transportation vehicle for the next six days. There's a tent in a duffel bag in the back that will serve as bedroom.

The Red Center

In Melbourne Airport, we are waiting to embark on our flight to Alice Springs. Christina Perri is also in Australia and performs live on the morning show the first song ever to be dedicated to an anatomopathologist "Jar of Hearts". We love the song - it's a good start on a Monday morning. We are excited, despite the early hour, we will soon be in the wild Australian outback.

A few hours later, as the plane starts descending into Alice we are passing through multiple layers of clouds. The land is green, some tracks are red, but there are plenty of puddles of water. Why is it all so green, what is it with all this vegetation? We were supposed to arrive in the desert! We will learn later that they have a wet year like this every 30 years. It is not unusual not to have rain for 3-5 years. Also the temperatures, up to 44 in the summer have dropped to 20-25 during the day and 6-9 degrees at night.

Middle of Australia, on the left

There is life after Uluru. It is called King’s Canyon, in Watarrka National Park and we walked around it. 

You walk on some ground and think: this is a beach, this is a hill, this is a mountain, taking your cues from around: sea and sand, grassy or wooded area gently curving upward, or rocks. Do you slow down enough to think what was before? In the King’s Canyon you can see that it use to be a sea, then a sandy dessert, then mountains that eroded slowly to the hills of today. Do you think I’m making it up? I have proof, it is written in stone! 

Uluru

Uluru? Where’s that? What would we do there? Why would we want to see a rock in the middle of the desert?

Sunrise at Uluru, with the Kata Tjuta in the left background

Aborigine is the name of one tribe of native Australians, the only one that stayed, though there are numerous tribes. The ones who live in this area call themselves Anangu and speak two languages. Their hair, black and curly at birth, becomes blond when they are 5 of 6 years old, and slowly turns black toward adulthood.

Uluru

Uluru is everything. It is a "big rock in the middle of nowhere" to most everybody that only heard about it. It is also the oldest cathedral ever built, the oldest still in service, the place of all past, present and future creation of the universe and any living being. It is a story book written in stone and every little indentation has an explanation, but only very few people know it. It is a maternity ward, a nursery and a school, a place for countless religious functions, a spa resort for families, the orchard of the desert, the refuge for trees and animals and the ultimate source of water in times of drought. It is everything.

Melbourne, in a bit less glory

Melbourne. It's a masculine apartment with one dark gray wall, dark gray carpeting… dark gray tile in the bathroom and open kitchen… there are black shades over the windows to stop too much sun from coming in. The granite countertops are black.

On the first day we actually took out our red Marmots and hung them up on a chair just to brighten up the space.

There are enough beds for six people, but Ioan elects to sleep on one of the couches instead of bringing out the folding single bed.

We watch TV. The person here has a collection of movies (almost none of which we find interesting-looking at all), which includes Ghost Town (Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni; a man going in for a routine operation dies for seven minutes while under general anaesthetic, and finds he can see ghosts)… and some Pierce Brosnan movie with the… Vietnam war? I didn't watch it, so I don't know. Rest assured though, I heard a great deal of gunshots, groaning, etc, and I read the back of the DVD cover, so I know enough to be able to say why I didn't want to watch it.

It's a pretty big city, this. We generally walk to the tram station,

Melbourne

I love the time spent in an airport! You have to be there waaaay ahead of your flight, so you have time to spare, to peruse the stores, see what’s new, to go through security and count how many times you can go through the scanner with your iPod nano clipped on, to find your gate and a block to park yourself and your whole family and luggage. If the airport has windows on that side, you can see the take-off or the landing of a different flight. It is the quiet time before a storm of new experiences ...

Looking at all the possibilities of transportation to our apartment, Mihai felt confident to take the train. After finding out where to buy tickets, and which tickets (for two hours of for the whole day) and where to change the trains, we boarded one. The children were out from schools and they were migrating in their groups, girls giggling and primped up, boys slurping from sodas and with clothes in a disarray. People talk loud, I can follow their conversation and their accent tickles me.

We walk on the streets in the Prahran neighborhood, looking in the shop’s windows, at how people dress... We meet with the owner of our apartment and she explains everything that we need to know. It is a nice one bedroom apartment, furnished in a masculine style, with a large balcony. We like it so much that we don’t want to leave it. This is a problem that slowly grows on us: the moment we find a clean new house, we just want to stay there, away from the crowds, from the touristic objectives, from the options of restaurants and their choices of food, away from each other. Yes, we find a spot only for our own self and with a book or headphones, we are free to be in our own world. But it can’t last... Mihai wants to see!

Prahran market is THE market, a covered space with natural lighting in which there are different vending spaces, according to their ethnicities. Greek food with olives, tszaziki, hummus and bread; French pastries and cheeses; Italian ravioli and vegetarian lasagna mingled with stalls of vegetables and fruits, flowers, candles and soap, seeds, and wine and beer. The meat and fish were in a different part, enticing you to buy from their beds of crushed ice or their illuminated trays. This is the place to buy your vegetarian burgers, next to the real ones! In this market you can have a massage, or do your manicure, or take a picture with the owner of a shop and get a free cheese!

Old People Should Move Faster

"Old people should move faster because they have less time left!" Ileana, my daughter, tells me that every now and then and we both start laughing. And laughing. And laughing. The whole show was full of stupid jokes like that but three of us had a wonderful time, sitting for two hours on the pavement in the Federation Square. It was the International Comedy Festival in Melbourne. Maria and Ileana Ruxandra walked along the river banks or read on a park bench.

Titanic World

We saw "Titanic", the movie, in 3D. On an IMAX-3D screen, the third largest in the world, with the height of a seven stories building. The installation had 15000 watts, but I don't know if that is for the projector or the sound system, or both.

Sydney

G’day!

This is what is written above our heads as we get out of the airport’s no-man’s-land. We’re the only ones in line for a taxi, and, this being a civilized country, for the five of us it means a van. There are cameras on top of it and on the doors is written that we will be photographed. Hmm, curious...The driver is quiet, but from time to time he shows us the surveillance cameras installed in different corners of the intersections. He explains that they don’t necessarily improve the quality of the traffic, but certainly help with paying fines for breaking the rules. Later, I will find them on the street, the bus (at least three, one for each section), the subway...I really don’t like all that surveillance, it makes me think of one of the science fiction books...

Our apartment is in an old building with cockroaches and windy windows, but it’s quiet (if you ignore the heavy steps from the upstairs neighbor or the phone calls from the side one). We’re here because we’re five minutes away from the famous Bondi Beach. 

Sydney in all its Glory

I always liked the name Sydney. I don't know why. It strikes me as a wonderful sound.

We get to the airport, find a taxi, and head off to Bondi Beach (Bon-dye… I really don't understand why, though). The fare is abotu $100, which is standard. We've come from pretty cheap countries, though and the $100 is a bit grating. But it's a relief not to have to take a bus or anything. Our bags get heavier as we carry them longer.

The house we're going to live in houses at least four apartments. It's a light green, the only light green house on the entire street, but all five of us (and the taxi driver) are looking for the number. I think it was 126 or 128 or something of the sort. Possibly even 132. See, I wrote the address on the entrance cards, but I can't remember anything beyond North Bondi… something Parade. You'd think writing it down four times would count for something, but apparently it doesn't. When we locate it, we wave off the taxi driver (I think he was Indian… we liked him almost on the spot for some reason or another, and it was probably because he was Indian) with a smile.

Happy Easter

More often than not we are a few days off in celebrating Easter. It makes sense only to the Catholic and Orthodox churches, they commemorate the same event but cannot agree on a common day. This was one of the most important parts in the big picture of planning this whole trip. I had to find a way for us to be in a place with a Romanian Church. It's not just the Easter day, but the whole time leading up to it, the Palm Sunday, the Holy Week, the Black Friday. We decided on Sydney and it was a great choice! It was good to be welcomed with open arms by the St. Mary Romanian Orthodox Church and we met some great people. It was the first time this year that we heard somebody (other than us) speak Romanian, it was the first time in six months that we could get to a regular service, it was both a little weird and familiar in the same time. It was great, it couldn't have been better. Thank you!

We don't give shots to Jewish priests

We don't give shots to Jewish priests, but we do a lot of other things. We've done something significant for our trip almost every day in the last two months.

Before the end of June, I called a travel medicine clinic in the area. I talked with a nice secretary who took all the information and needed a few minutes to find some slots on their schedule. When I called back a half an hour later she informed me that they decided to change the price from $50 per consultation to "$130 or $150 after July 1st and we don't have any opening until then anyway." Obviously (!), all of us had to have a consultation even if we go to the same places and we have no medical issues of any sort. I made one appointment only, thinking we could apply that information to all of us (we cancelled in the end). We couldn't cover everything there anyway "because Ioan is under 12 he needs to go to a pediatric clinic." The contacts I was given wouldn't see him because he was not their patient and they really didn't know much about travel shots.
We decided to take the matter in our hands. We learned, there are plenty of resources on the internet and we are both doctors. I liked the MDTravelHealth.com. I work in a public health clinic, they give immunizations to people and pets, they have some records of our immunizations. So can we get hep A? "No, because you have insurance you have to go to your primary doctor!" "my doctor doesn't do this", "I know, find another doctor" then "wait a minute, you're a doctor why don't you order the vaccines?" Without getting into too many details, psychiatrists don't usually do immunizations, but -  if I ever decide to start doing that -  I did set up everything, including Friday Fedex deliveries. But it wouldn't have been cost effective for us.
Thankfully one of the doctors at the Primary Care decided to help us and we got 10 shots, unequally distributed from the youngest to the oldest. We covered the hep A and meningococcal vaccine (kids only) and we will stop here. Ileana contacted travel clinics around the world inquiring about their services. At some point one of the girls heard her mispronouncing the word rabies as rabbis and starting picking on her "We don't give shots to Jewish priests!" We decided that we will get the rabies ($35), typhoid ($20) and the yellow fever ($40) in Kathmandu. The rabies are 3 injections and will end up costing $105 compared to $900 here. The yellow fever we don't need until Africa and it would have been $300 here. Per person. We might still get the typhoid here even though it's tough to beat their price. We will get the required booster for hep A at the right time, in Bangkok. A couple of weeks of hard work but we think we figured this out.

The Sony Alpha SLT55 in action

I would hate to be a security guy at Chase following my credit card charges. It seems that they stopped blocking the card for suspicious activity (thanks!). Maybe they improved their software to accept charges from Hawaii, New Zealand, Japan or New York in the same day. Anyhow my credit limit wasn't high enough for this past month so I payed them back several thousands every few days. Overall we spent $12000 since last post. We bought some real gems, the best camera, the newest MacAir, a nook. We sold our older camera, will sell the laptops that we have now and get pretty much even. Comparing my old MacBook Pro with the new Air, you'd never imagine how much 700 grams can weigh. Ileana and the kids got their sandals and some shoes. I got a couple of hard drives and I am trying to figure up my data backup plan. We got another three headlamps. We got trousers, a special trip to REI in New Jersey. We'll always be grateful to Kendra, she spent several hours looking for five pairs of pants and in the end was more excited than us that she found what we needed. She was enthusiastic about our travel plans. She heard about Rolf Potts and his travel around the world with no luggage. "Do you know the vest he had? We don't carry that, but it's pretty cool!" "We have five of them" said Ioan calmly.

We spent the last couple of years researching our luggage for this trip. We hardly bought any new clothes all this time, no electronics, no nothing, except for the trip. Now we have a long list on the white board and we cross items every day. Ileana finished her shopping at Icebreakers, she knew what else we needed. We followed them since last spring and got the items that we wanted during their biannual sales. With the last one, we got some gloves, hats and other pieces of clothing. I did the same thing with Scottevest earlier and got our vests with a 40% discount.

Moving on, we got the first travel insurance. It is perplexing to some of my patients and coworkers, how can you quit work, do you have enough money to pay health insurance? The answer is no, I wouldn't have money for health insurance in USA. It might cost $1200-$1500 per month for my family. It would probably carry several thousands in deductible. Going abroad, I bought the first five months of insurance, travel, health, etc. all for the nice sum of $510. I got it from Worldnomads, the most obvious choice. I was even able to get a coupon for 7% discount. "Sorry - because of federal regulations we are unable to honor that in USA." They offered to donate my $35 discount to one of their humanitarian projects, and now I am glad to support the Teacher Training Program, Solu Khumbu, Nepal. I am sure that the American Congress in its infinite wisdom has a very good reason for denying discounts for international travel insurance. Apparently there is a law in France that forbids stores from offering sales except for a couple of days per year. They all have the sales in the same time. Are the French politicians even smarter than the American ones?

Visas! Another one. I am sure that there is a good reason for those as well. On my reading list, "The Travels of Marco Polo." I am curious how much he had to pay for his China visa. The Chinese pay back to the Americans, adjusting the cost according to the Department of State fees. When they raise it, the Chinese raise back, but it should be noted that they are nice. The Americans take the money first and they keep the money even if they don't give the visa. The Chinese would charge at the end, before they hand you the passport. It costs $140. The rest of the world pays $45. The burmese, vietnamese and north-koreans get it free. There is only one exception: Romanians pay $70 for one entry, $100 for double entry. Not the main reason, but it feels good to be Romanian, second in the world after USA! For those who don't know, a visa is a nice colored printed stamp that gets affixed in the passport. It makes you feel special, a better person altogether. I remember getting the first visa for America 15 years ago. After standing in line for many hours in a freezing winter weather, I got to the interview, passed it and got my passport. My frozen, wet feet didn't hurt anymore. That stamp made me feel above most other people in the room... Back then I believed that! Sadly, I don't feel like that anymore. I had to pay $540 for the privilege of being allowed to spend my money and my time visiting a corner of my planet with my family.

Happy Birthday! See you in Penang.

There are agencies that would charge $50 per person to take the passports to the Consulate. We skipped on that, choosing to make it a 30-hour trip to New York City for my 44th birthday. We visited the Metropolitan and had lunch in the park before going to REI in New Jersey. In the end Kendra told us that we have to go to Penang, Malaysian restaurant, around the corner. We had Penang Satay, Vegetable Dumplings, Pad Thai, Beef Chow Fun, Chicken fried rice, Pulut Hitam. There was a time in the past when I wouldn't have tried anything exotic like that. That time is gone too. I asked the waiter for whatever is their specialty and enjoyed it without any hesitation. We will be in the real Penang in February and we'll compare.

We booked and payed accommodations in the most expensive cities that we'll visit. A nice apartment by the beach in Sydney and a 2 story house in Central Tokyo.  The apartments that I got in Sydney and Hawaii are cheaper than one room in the hotel in my village. The house in Tokyo costs less than the cheapest hostel there. Then I also bought the tickets for the bus from Kyoto to Tokyo. Buying now I could get seats on the standard bus, it will be a tough night but the price for 5 of us is less than 1 ticket on the Shinkansen. They even had reduced prices (by 2.5%= $1.3) for students,  and by 5% ($2.5) for my son as a child under 12.

I decided to end my little romance with an obscure chinese low budget airline. They wouldn't release their schedule for October, even lead me to believe they'll stop flying the Ibaraki-Shanghai route. There is a straight 4 hour flight from Tokyo to Beijing. The direct flight is between $800 and $2400 for an economy seat. We took the $2400 seat paying in British Airline miles plus $80. I only got 4 tickets so far, I need more miles and I'll get those in a few days as reward for all my other expenses. We took the chance that we might be separated with this, but I am sure it will work out fine. We chose to do the right simple thing despite the aberration of China Japan air connection. Of course I also bought some regular plane tickets, a couple flights in Hawaii in March and a flight from Guilin to Guangzhou in January. We are going to Canton! Unbelievable!

I got a $50,000 loan from my retirement account and some new credit cards with 0% interest, one of them for 21 months. Getting the money for the trip is pretty much done. My bank, "the world local bank" decided to sell all its business in upstate New York. The sale would be final when we'll be away and I don't know how I'll be able to work with the new bank. They would have been useless anyhow, they charge 3% for any foreign transactions. I found one bank that doesn't do that but I had to travel 100 miles to show them my green card. They wouldn't allow opening the account online because I am not an American citizen. So I did it. There was a time when the bureaucracy and idiocy of all these things would have affected me. Not any more. I don't know why, but it feels good. I don't care. It's not worth my nerves. I am going on with my plans because I am doing what I have to do. Nothing can stay in our way, we are doing the right thing. The kids are laughing, joking, they are happy, they are excited. Maria is the first one in the morning to get to the board and change the number of days left. Ioan said "I cannot wait to go around the world." Ileana and the kids will return today from the church summer camp and we will get on the last straight line, 50 more days, nothing else until we leave. That's it.

In an unrelated matter, Steve Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO. The Thomas Edison of our generation. People talk about his genius and his achievements. From little that we know about him I think the most impressive lesson is how he chose to live his life and the man he has become. Going again over his 2005 commencement address at Stanford, he uses the world love 10 times and death 6 times. Do what you love. "Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." He ended quoting Stewart Brand: "Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

We'll do.

Fifty Tickets In 24 Hours

Three months after deciding the departure day. Less then five months until we leave we find ourselves closer and closer, sometimes too close. We bought the first tickets for an amazing price, breaking our trip in two, Asia until February 29, then New Zealand and the rest. In March I bought the first leg of our trip. Another great deal, taking us from New York to Osaka. In April I bought another three tickets, from Kochi, in the South tip of India, to Kuala Lumpur, then to Guilin, Hong Kong, Macau and back to Kuala Lumpur on January 27. It was a quick and impulsive decision, but we wanted more time in China, we wanted Hong Kong, we initially wanted to avoid the Chinese New Year. Then we realized that we actually want it in the craziest, busiest, most crowded place we could imagine, so we will be there for it. That wasn't anymore a time to look for cheap tickets, I think I justly assumed that the closer it gets the higher the price so we got the tickets and even reserved 2 rooms in Hong Kong for 3 nights and payed for 2 nights in Macau! Then we took a long break. We bought more things for the road, we bought some books, we read some more and went on with our life. We kept talking about it. We answered some questions, took some decisions, postponed some others. We are stuck (for now) trying to decide how to get from Tokyo to Beijing. Considering that the cheapest one-way direct ticket is more than $2000 (even more for return ticket), I have to come up with an alternative.

People ask me if I am excited. Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I explain that "travel is the saddest pleasure", at least planning for it. This is a quote from Paul Theroux, I will read something by him at some point. It makes sense. With the whole world and "all the time" to see it, we find ourselves constantly making sacrifices, eliminating things, giving up on some dreams. Every yes for a destination involves a no for several others. Deciding to go to China a second time means no Laos, Burma, or Northern Thailand. No Vietnam. Going to Xining means no Chengdu and so on. More days in Tokyo means no to Hiroshima and South Korea. So I explain it sometimes, but I'm not sure if I get my point across and I wouldn't blame them, nice problem to complain about. We set some dates to break our trip in different stages. Then we break it further apart, leaving room for decisions on the road. Anything could change at some point and we just need to know our options. How can we tell if we'll survive India? How long should we stay there? We all are very excited, very eager to discover it and a bit scared. How long should we stay in Nepal? Every extra day there would take a day away from India. So we decided not to decide anything. We'll cross Himalaya on December 3rd and then six weeks later we'll have to catch a flight 2200 km away. That's 1340 miles by air, but it will be much more and much slower by land. We are all confident that we will make it somehow.

Last week I started to hear rumors that AirAsia is having the yearly sale. Tons of tickets for 10 cents for travel from February 6 to June 20, 2012. We had to decide quick on a day to leave Australia, that being one of the most expensive tickets. We did that and starting Monday night I bought 50 tickets in 24 hours. I also worked for 12 of those hours, slept for 4 and else. After getting the Darwin to Bali ticket on May 8, I decided to buy a ticket from Penang to Kuala Lumpur on February 29. Then I had the "great" idea to try to fly from Bali to Yogyakarta, no direct connection, but who cares. I bought tickets from Bali to Jakarta, then return Jakarta - Yogyakarta. After another hour or so, I decided that we really don't want to spend any time in Jakarta so I got tickets to Singapore, one year from today. Initially they were $2.42, but until I made my mind they were gone. Finally I found 4 tickets for that price, and got another one for $25. It was enough for the evening, it was after 2 am. I went to bed still trying to solve some puzzles. Next morning at 7, I bought tickets for Thailand, leave Bangkok to go to Krabi (February 8), return on February 22 to fly to Penang. I went to work and when I got home I bought the tickets from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Funny, the tickets were listed as 7-8 cents, but the final cost with all the taxes and convenience fees was $215. Still a good price for 5 tickets. At this point Ileana said STOP! I was done anyhow! I got 50 plane tickets for a little over $1500. Average of $30 per flight, that's a decent price especially considering that most of it is in fees. $200 of that is just the luggage cost, for just 2 bags.

Overall an amazing thing, we now have 15 flights bought and still plenty of open dates in our calendar to make our plans as we please. There are some missing links, three more mandatory flights, two optional ones and we are set with the air transport until June 1st. The first 230 days of travel. After we are done in that half of the world, assuming that we want to go on, we will most likely move to Africa. I'll write more before that...