Mission Control

Hello Sheri, Chris and the world!

Yeah, in some ways I feel like 'Mission Control' in Houston waiting for news of the travellers, except that I'm in Abu Dhabi and you're navigating your way through Indo China as we called it in my school days.

I have tried to download a map of the region to give an idea of where this overland trip will be heading. I hope it comes out - sorry the resolution is too small - maybe you can increase the zoooooom level...

That's all for now, I promised not to hijack Miss Beale's blog, so will gracefully bow out and stand by to hear, with bated breath, of Sheri's exploits.

Bye for now

Love

Dad

'Twas the night before...

...the Big Trip. "Are you excited?" A question that has been asked many times, more frequently as the days counted down. Am I excited? It's quite hard to say, a major part of me doesn't actually feel or believe that it is ACTUALLY going to happen. This trip has taken the best part of 2 years to save for; planning for it has meant endless hours staring at a computer going through the vast amounts of information available and to make all this a reality I had to enter the scary world of supply teaching (in actual fact I loved nearly every minute of it!) But to think that this is going to be kicking off in less than 24 hours doesn't feel real.
Maybe it is the fact that I've just spent the last 3 weeks in Abu Dhabi, with my parents and my big little sis, the city in which I grew up- it feels like a normal holiday (particularly as I usually come at Easter time, the weather is gorgeous) I feel like I've had a lovely rest after the spring term and now am ready to head back to the UK and begin the slog that is the summer term. Instead I'll be heading several more thousand miles eastwards and will be in Bangkok. Suddenly all these names that have been casually bandied about are going to be real- I know that we are hardly discovering new lands but still!
Of the 13 weeks or so that we have to explore Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam (I know, it is a pitiful amount of time to see so many incredible places) we have the first 3 days accommodation booked! Well, we want to allow ourselves maximum flexibility (although I am a little worried that we may spend a lot of time in internet cafes finding out stuff.) After the first few days in Bangkok, we plan to head down south to around Krabi for some climbing then over to the Gulf of Thailand to learn to dive (can't wait!) Other than that, who knows? And even this is all open to change...through all this I will endeavour to record what I can, mostly for my own sake so I will have a reminder of this (hopefully!) incredible time.

...oh, I've just realised, I am VERY excited!