Preparations

Ok, I think it's fair to say that there may be some little gaps between posts on this blog, say on average one month. But It quality not quantity, right? In which case... :-/

Anyway, having now managed to secure finances for my trip, all I have to decide is actually where to go. This is proving a little more difficult than anticipated, as it turns out that the world is much bigger than one might expect, and there is actually an almost limitless number of different places to go. Therefore I am planning my trip by process of elimination. I have so far successfully identified two whole continents that I almost certainly don't want to visit on this particular trip (apologies to residents of the Americas and Australia, it's nothing personal, it just that you know, you can't go everywhere, and erm, my Spanish isn't very good, and look, it really is about me not you, please don't...), which already cuts down on the decisions hugely, and leaves only a few continents left.

For the majority of my journey, I plan to travel overland, and wherever possible, by train. As I want to spend as much time as possible in Southeast Asia, the first part of my trip will be through Europe (via Bulgaria; more on that later), to Moscow, and there to join the trans-Siberian express. This will take me across Russia and Mongolia into China, from where I can journey onward into Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia. However, it turns out that the trans-Siberian Express doesn't actually exist, and is actually a catch-all term for a multitude of different long-distance and local services, any combination of which can be used to complete the journey. Although it is possible to take one direct train from Moscow through to Beijing, it seems a pity to cross such a huge distance without stopping along the way, not to mention the discomfort of such a long (7 days) uninterrupted train journey. So I have to choose from about a thousand potential stopping off points, each one no doubt with their own merits and insights. I am tempted just to ask my friendly Russian travel agent to recommend their top 3, but that seems a bit of a cop out.

My intention is to book my tickets next week (this week??!!), and begin the long, and certainly unnecessarily complex visa application procedure, but already the the trip seems tantalisingly close (despite not having actually set a departure date) and frighteningly real. My daydreams are filled with the rumble ancient rail carriages and imagined exotic vistas from the windows of my compartment.