Gearing up for the off..

Well its 38 hours til take off and currently feeling a little tipsy and full of turkey on Christmas day, the huge pile of stuff which I intended to fit into the medium sized rucksack is sat there looking at me as if taunting me. Nonetheless it will all fit and tomorrow will travel over to Hither Green to meet up with 'the Big Dog', eat some more Christmas food, probably get drunk and then dash across to Gatwick airport for our flight on Friday lunchtime. The tripadvisor reviews of Vietnam Airlines ("come fly with the lotus" - whatever that means) providing some hilarious if slightly disconcerting reading with numerous tales of duct tape, superglue and polyfilla reinforced aeroplanes and interesting sounding in-flight entertainment! Couple that with another 'vicious low' weather system coming in at pretty much 12pm Friday as our plane is scheduled to take off....either way it will probably be a fittingly random start to the adventure.

The travel idea all started a few months ago on the side of a mountain somewhere where the seed of excitement was sown. Jaryn was adamant that he needed to get out of the big smog over the winter and with some gentle persuasion, I also thought what a grand idea it would be.  Then in the flurry of anticipation you buy the lonely planet guides; ask well-travelled friends for ideas; book the flights...and then nothing really happens for a while. Then suddenly the date starts to creep up on you and you realise you really need to think about purchasing all the things you need. Then some more time passes, life gets in the way, and you still have not sorted it all out, and then this little thing called Christmas arrives and all the shops close in the run up to the day you leave! So, you throw mercy to the wind and say "well hey its an adventure why do I need possessions anyway" and half the junk you were probably going to take could be picked up for about 30,000 Dong (about £1) anyway!

 

This will probably be an expression we will both be pulling during the coming weeks!

This blog will hopefully provide some amusement for anyone who is interested, and a bit of a memory for the both of us as well on our return...first stop Hither Green...!