Saturday 24 June 2006

Just 4 weeks to go. Really scary, but also very exciting. We have been planning this trip since August last year and spent many hours at the computer researching tours, travel connections and hotels. What started out as a relatively simple trip to stand on the Great Wall of China on my 60th birthday, has become the adventure of a lifetime for us. The main criteria was to travel by rail and road as much as possible – what do you see of a country if you fly?

We have to thank many people along the way who have helped us sort out our itinerary, including Margaret at Ffestiniog Travel for getting us to St Petersburg for the start our epic train journey, to Chris at Kumuka who sold us his Timeless Mysteries tour from Bangkok to Singapore – and only now I do I realise I have signed up for trekking! – anyone who knows me knows going uphill is not my favourite pastime – but hey – its in Thailand, in the jungle! - and Eileen at the Cruise Specialists for finding us a 6* cruise from Rio to Barcelona to ensure we return in style.

But most especially our thanks go to Alex at Trailfinders for her infinite patience and care helping us to get from Singapore to Rio, via Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific and South America over five months. Nothing was too much trouble as everyday I would come up with a new off-the-wall idea to extend our trip. I know she too had help from Roz and Sarah at Trailfinders and JLA. Eventually to try and escape my daily onslaught she relocated to Canary Wharf, but I soon tracked her down. But joking aside, we really do appreciate everything she has done to make this trip a reality.

Other people who’ve helped us enormously are are Juz and Dave for the gift of the “Thai Shite” (aka The Pill), which will allow us to keep in touch and for which we are extremely grateful, and Nick for all his “teccy” work, setting up and helping us to ‘understand’ how to use laptops and MP4 players and how to download books, music and piccys. I am sure we will be emailing him “Help!” messages once we are on our own.

We are now nearly ready to depart. Small things like Russian visas and many of the tickets still have to arrive, but most of our shopping is complete, just got to pack it all in our bags and keep the weight down to 20kgs! Not easy for 2 weeks, never mind 40!

We also have to say “au revoir” to all our family and friends. Not an easy task – lots of them still think we are crazy to be away for such a long time – and we will miss them all, particularly Sandy, Adam and Alex – how they will have grown by the time we return. But hopefully having this “pill” with us to keep in touch by blog, photos and emails will be a great comfort and keep us up to date with all the news.

Hopefully Nick will look after the house and garden, Juz and Nick our cars, and Andy, Juz and Nick will visit Mum and Dad to keep them up-to-date with our adventure. We look forward to seeing everyone when we return, but we may have got the wanderlust by then, so beware, we might be off again!