30 October 2008

Flat Packing & Mazda Thrashing

Well it's been a hell of a time the last couple of weeks. We have spent most of the last two or three weeks emptying all of our things out of the flat in preparation for our tenant moving in. We've been up past midnight most evenings packing and cleaning, which is quite tiring when you've been getting up at a quarter past six in the morning for work. We've also sold Liz's beloved MX-5. We're really going to miss it! It's been such a fun car . . . and it's got really nice spangly wheels!



What with the whole credit crunch thing selling it has been a bit of a nightmare, people just can't get or aren't willing to spend money at the moment. Plus selling a cabriolet at the end of two of the worst British summers is always going to be a bit more challenging. We tried Auto Trader and couple of garages without much luck. The whole Auto Trader experience has tested our patience to the limits. Never in my life have we had to deal with so many scammers, con artists, spoof emails, time wasters and general toss-pots! In the end we put it on eBay and auctioned it off. We hope the new owner gets as much fun out of the little fella as we have. He certainly looked like he was enjoying it as he drove . . . or should I say wheel spun off with the rev counter on the red line.

Since finishing work on Friday we have spent a lovely few days in Torquay with Liz's family. We're now back at my Mom & Dad's just having a few days relaxing and doing the final packing before we depart on Sunday for Hong Kong.

29 October 2008

Government Statistic

I am now an official government statistic . . . I am now unemployed!

15 October 2008

Taking a little Jauntlet

A few weeks ago my Mom had asked if I could do a map for her showing where we where going and when. In this digital age that we are all living in I thought that there must be a better solution than manually drawing the route out on a map with a pen (an analogue map?). After various searches on Google I couldn’t work out how to do this without being some sort of software programming guru.

However; yesterday I accidentally stumbled across a blog called Full Hook Ups that is written by a couple called Bethany & Bill. They are travelling across the USA with their cute dog Billy in an Airstream Trailer (one of those big classic shiny beasts).

Here’s a picture of their fantastic Airstream . . .

Their Blog features a little interactive tool called Jauntlet which has been the answer to my mapping prayers. I’ve added a Jauntlet map for our trip on the left hand side of the Blog. It’s down there just below the Itinerary . . . go on take a look.

It works just like Google Maps - there are a few buttons on there that allow you to pan around, zoom in and out and to move forwards and backwards across our route. We’ll endeavour to keep it up to date with our itinerary so that you can see exactly where in the World we are.

I found Bethany and Bills Blog via the Delightful Blogs web site. It’s a nice place to find some of the better Blogs that are lurking out there in the internet web pipe.

10 October 2008

Green Dates and Packing

If you take a sneaky peak at the itinerary on the left hand side of the Blog you will see that more of the dates have gone green. We spent last night booking flights for the first few legs of our trip (we can thoroughly recommend Air Asia). It’s all now confirmed up to the 11th February 2009! We’re just waiting to hear from our friend Anne to see if she has confirmed her flights for coming out to see us in Thailand in February 09. Once that’s sorted we can then get the timing through to Singapore finalised.

We’ve had to plan the first part of the journey in quite a lot of detail . . . mainly because we are using Bangkok as a hub. This causes problems as you can’t legally enter Thailand unless you have booked a flight out. This combined with the Thai visa requirements (30 days max stay per entry with a maximum of 3 entries per 12 month period) means that the start of the trip can’t be too flexible.

We’ve also had a trial run at packing this week. It’s quite challenging trying to get all the things you think you may need for 15 months of your life into a 65 litre rucksack! Just how many pairs of underpants does a man need? Answers on a post card . . .