Not long to go…..

Christmas Eve, and only just over a week before we head off. Nope, we haven’t even gone yet but I bet everyone is wondering how the planning is going. Aren’t you?

Work is now over for me, at least for a while (fantastic send off. Dave Hargreaves trying to order a non-existent pint of pigeon will stay in my memory for a while!). We haven’t planned our route any more than we had before, deliberately. We have discovered that southern Thailand is currently a ‘bad’ place, according to the fco guidelines. This could be difficult, as it isn’t going to be easy travelling overland from Malaysia to Thailand without going through southern Thailand. Ah well, all part of the fun.

We now seem to have acquired 10 guidebooks. All very useful, but I’ll need a few more trips to the gym if we are going to carry them all around with us! So we are (or rather, Emma is) reading through them and trying to make notes before we go, so we don’t need to carry them all. I reckon the notes she is taking will weigh as much as the books themselves by the time she’s finished, but maybe we can make some money publishing our own guidebook before we’ve even left England! I know the picture is really dull, but I wanted to try out how pictures look on this blog!

I’ve bought some inflatable globes, courtesy of a part of the leaving gift vouchers I received from work. We have found in the past that these make excellent gifts for kids we may meet on our travels (went down well in Peru and Panama anyway!) – light and small to pack, fun to play with and we can point out where we come from and where their country is if we ever manage to get into a ‘conversation’ with them. and far more interesting than pens, which are useful, but not so much fun to play with on a beach.

Emma has just suggested that non-geeks / mobile phone fans skip this dull paragraph. In fact, if you think the earlier part of this post is dull, this next bit wont change your mind. You would think that mobile companies would want to keep their customers, given the intense competition in this field. Vodafone, however, don’t seem to be that bothered! After spending hours on the phone to them over the past few weeks trying to transfer my number from one Vodafone contract to another, I’ve given up. A 50p ASDA mobile sim has much cheaper calls and they arranged for the number transfer on one 10 minute call. Bye bye Vodafone (I’m sure they will continue to make some money, as ASDA use the Vodafone network, but it will be far less than if I’d stayed with them. Their loss!). I will however be using a global sim card while away, with a different number, so don’t expect an answer from me if you call / txt my old number while we are away. How can one company charge £1.70 per minute to talk, and another charge 32p? Comparing mobile phone roaming rates is about as interesting as an X-Factor episode, even it does mean I can produce a nice spreadsheet!

I promise not to post again until we have started our travelling. Unless something really interesting happens relating to our travels before then. Have a great Christmas everyone!