Six-Week Countdown

Here we are at less than six weeks to go! This blog post was prompted by Aron who pointed out that I could follow up on my very first entry (the "Six-Month Countdown"). 

Status update on the planning:

We are down to only a few small things to purchase for our packs:  a mosquito net, a splicer & extra set of earbuds for the iPod, some items for our travel medical kit, watches for each of us & a flashlight for Aron.  Flashlights are to Aron what lasagna is to Garfield!  He will find any excuse to buy one... penlights, LEDs, large camping-style flashlights... we have them all, and yet he claims we need another one specific for travel.  Well, if that's the worst of his indulgences, what can I say? :)


The final item I want to buy:  a really good book.  I'm looking forward to having much more time for literary pursuits.  Since we have limited space in our packs, I'll be choosing carefully.  Then I'd like to trade with a fellow traveler.  It should be interesting to keep track of the various books that come into my life!  I'm still deciding what to bring, and am at the point where I could be persuaded.  One of my ideas is "The Beautiful & the Damned" or "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. 


This weekend we're going camping and we'll be taking our travel shoes on a test drive.  There is a beautiful 10 kilometer hike around Crimson Lake.  We'll have to remember to bring our camera... we always seem to run into some great shots on the days we *don't* have it!


Our research continues as far as places to stay, food to eat, things to do, yet we really want to keep our journey quite fluid.  As mentioned before, we have our plane tickets to Hong Kong.  Further to that we have a pretty firm plan of staying there for 5 days and then flying to the Philippines for about a month.  After that, we have some ideas (Indonesia or Malaysia), but nothing is set in stone. 


Many long-term travellers highly recommend open-endedness as a great way to save money & allow for more spontaneous experiences.  Yet  I have run into a few blogs where planning & scheduling are paramount.  For now, we think we like the idea of simply letting things unfold one step at a time.  We'll see how it goes!