A very frugal Christmas...

With every penny being counted these days (by me...not so much by JW)
I just felt it wouldnt be right to spend loads of money on Christmas like I normally do...

Sooo, this year I am making gifts!!!

Ok, I know, that screams cheapo right?
But wait! It's only for close family members who will find it endearing and not crappy (hopefully)
I dont normally do any friend gifts now we're grown ups,
and I will be buying JW a little something...

so im making posh biscuits for my Dad,
and ive got my needles out and knitted a cover/sock for my mum's new kindle.

and im currently trying to make mittens for my sister...
I say trying, because it is THE HARDEST THING IN THE WORLD
and im starting to slightly panic now that I wont get them done in time (I have 2 days...eek)

Anyway,
The snow is almost all gone in London :(

Snow

London is covered in snow at the moment,
and as much as I love snowfights and building snowmen
Im really craving warmer climates!


It feels colder than ever today, and Ive had a really horrible cold which lasted a week, and I'm still feeling crappy


Im really ready to go travelling and feel the heat...

1 year on...

Its been 1 year since I started this 'travel' blog.

A year ago today I had made the decision about something I had been daydreaming about for years- to give it all up and go travelling with JW for as long as I could.

Since that first post, we have moved in with my parents, started a savings account and have been researching routes like crazy,

And next week, JW will have his ceremony to become a British citizen!

We are scarily close to acheving our dream of travelling!!

Map of tourism...

I came across this map today...
It is of the most visited places in the world (the lightest areas being the most and dark areas the least)

It's really interesting,
Especially how Europe is almost completely yellow. and most of Africa is dark.

Of course with my thirst for far away undiscovered places (there is of course, no such thing)
it mades me want to go to all the dark areas!!!



This is a zoom in of Asia, excited to see lots of the places we are going are dark or at least purple!
Yay!

All I want for Christmas is...

My sister asked me what me and JW wanted for xmas yesterday,
I told her that I only want travel related things, which Im not sure went down all that well!

Anyway, Ive been kind of self gifting for the last few weeks getting some things for travel
so far Ive got...

Travel pillow
Its a blow up neck pillow for long bus/train journeys, the picture on ebay it looked like a fluffy soft thing, but when it turned up, it was actually a hard plasticy thing covered with a thin fleece cover.

Gifts for kids along the way
I bought a load of packs of little colouring pencils, looking forward to giving them out along the way, but my mum pointed out that it says age 3+ on the box, so have to be careful about that one!

Playing/picture cards
I found these randomly at a little stall while waiting for JW in the train station, they are normal playing cards, but have pictures that can be used to point at and communicate with people along the way.
No need for this anymore!

Travel washing line and universal sink plug
You never know if you might need these (although my Dad told me he always uses a sock to block the sink hole when travelling!)

Ballet pumps
I got these cos I thought that they would come in handy along the way, but when I got them home I realised they said 'made in china' on them, doh!

Jackets
I couldnt resist, I got this jacket in chocolate, and a grey men's one for JW.

Streetview Hong Kong

As Ive said a thousand times before, I love streetview,

And Ive been searching through Hong Kong streetview for some cool images and heres what I found...

brrrrrr update

Almost a year ago (how time flies)

I posted about Tibet and how its going to be really cold for part of our trip, well...

Im looking again at jackets at Uniqlo and this one... ...seems a lot more practical than the one I mentioned in that post,

It is made from special down material and stuff designed to keep you warm, and is also lightweight (250g apparently) and fits into a bag when not in use...

I likey!!!

Only £39.99 (eek!)

Panic (a little)

Things are really progressing here,
JW has booked his ceremony to swear his allegiance to the queen and country! (ugh)

And its looking like we might just go in Feb or Mar (oh.my.god that’s only 3 ish months away!!!)

It feels like there is so much to do and im starting to freak out just a little...

But Im also very excited of course!

A new map post

So, now that the ball is rolling (eek!)

I started making some serious decisions about routes and dates (double eek!)

I did a lot of research on adding Mongolia to our trip,
And also maybe venturing to Papa New Guinea.

Nothing's set in stone, and that the good thing about it.

I also thought about Air Asia, and it makes sense to use the cheap flights to cut time and expense when travelling through places,
so I decided that we should use KL as a jump off point for The Philippines and as a end point to fly back from (or to fly from to HK and fly back from there

A very rough and unfinished idea of dates and routes...

Feb/Mar- Arrive Hong Kong

Mar-Oct- China, Taiwan, China, S.Korea, China, Mongolia, China, Tibet, China

Oct- Vietnam

Nov- Cambodia

Dec- Laos

Jan- Thailand

Feb- Malaysia

Mar/Apr- Philippines

Apr/May- Malaysia

May/June- Indonesia

June- Malaysia/HK

June- leave to London

The ball is rolling...

There has been a whole load of drama over the last few weeks,
which I wont go into...
But lets just say that it meant that I couldn't think much about a letter JW got last week,

but it's all settled down a bit now, so I can really get excited because....

JW'S PAPERWORK CAME BACK!!!

So now there are a few more formalities to go through, and then we really are GO!

I'm so excited, but also pretty nervous, because of all the stuff we have to do before we go

The ball is rolling though!..................

Sayonara Japan?.

I did a lot of thinking this weekend...

About routes and money and dates- all those things Ive been stressing about for a while...

I did some working out, (I hate maths) and tried to think realistically about what we can do with the budget we have, that seems to be getting tighter every time I work it out.

So, basically to cut a long story short, I figured out that to stay and travel in Japan, we would have to more than double our daily budget that we were planning for places like China, Vietnam etc.

This would mean that our trip into Japan would have to be really short, and we'd have to cut out lots of stuff we wanted to see,
not only this, but we would be staying in dives the whole time and wouldn't be able to stop worrying about money.
And considering how much it would cost to get to and from Japan, and the cost of the rail pass to travel around when we are there (around £400 for 21 days EACH!) I realised that we wouldn't be able to afford to do it with the budget we have...

So I'm pretty sure.... that for this trip.... we will have to take Japan off our itinerary :(

I'm gutted, Japan is one of the places Ive always wanted to go, and I was really looking forward to places like Tokyo and Hiroshima...
But I'll keep the guidebook and information I collected, and hopefully we will do a proper trip there, when we can afford to do it properly.

So Sayonara Japan... For now.

I want these...

How cool are these?
They are like flash cards that you can use when travelling, you just point at the pictures!

I love it... really want to get them

I do still want to try languages though, I think its always worth the effort of trying to communicate with people, even if it is as difficult as Chinese.

Photos of Tibet

Came across some photos taken by British invader John Claude White in 1904
This one is of some Tibetan nuns...

Mid- Autumn Festival

I walk through China town everyday on my way to and from work...

This week, I noticed they have put up loads of lanterns that look amazing, and after a bit of googling I found out it is for the mid- autumn festival, which falls on the autumnal equinox- when the moon is at its fullest.

There is a weird story associated with the festival about Houyi and Chang'e...

it goes a little like this...

Once there were 5 suns in the form of 5 three legged birds (so far, so strange) they one day clubbed together and started to burn the earth,

A prince ( Houyi) was commissioned to shoot down the suns with a bow and arrow, and he shot 4 of them leaving only one (our sun)

As a reward the king gave him a pill of immortality, but warned him to break the pill up and only take a small piece at a time, he took it home and hid it in a box.

One day his wife (Chang'e) came across the box containing the pill and decided to take it to see what it was (never a good idea)

Because she took the whole pill, she overdosed and floated high in to the sky until she reached the moon, as the pills effects wore off, she was stuck there.

So, now she is still stuck, and there is this rabbit on the moon (duh?) who is trying and trying to make a new pill so she can get back.

(pic above-The princess with the rabbit on the moon!)

How random eh?

Anyway, so people put up lanterns and eat mooncakes...

prime bournemouth real estate

These beach huts are all along the Bournemouth coast, we saw an advert for one that was £44,000!!!
They are lovely though, on our sunny day, people were sat outside their own hut on deck chairs, and we got a good peek in to them, some had a full on gas cooker, teas area etc, really lovely- if we lived around there we would love to have one!

I was obsessed with these blue to purple ones, but the blend of colours continued up the beach, red, orange yellow green etc....

Sunny Bournemouth

Bournemouth was really lovely.

We arrived to rain clouds, but it soon cleared up and we got some sand in our shoes.
We also went out a lot and there are some lovely places to have a mojito on the beach!!!

On Sunday we had a really suuny and warm day (yay!)
and we walked from Boscombe to Poole with our feet in the waves :)

These pictures are of Saturday night, we walk down the beach towards the pier before going out

the sunset was amazingly beautiful, the sky was an incredible red, blue and purple and was reflected on the water,


That night we went for a meal on the beach side, and had sea food and lots of red wine.

Afterwards they have a bar that you can sit outside and watch the waves,

It was pretty cold, so we were supprised when we saw a topless girl running toward the sea, and a fellow skinny dipping man followed a few minutes later,

We watched, totally cracking up as this (clearly wasted) chick fell over EVERY TIME a wave came in! The guy gave up picking her up every time, and wandered off back onto the beach- The girl managed to crawl out eventually and stumbled down the beach, I bet it seemed a good idea at the time eh?!


So, they say red sky at night, shepherds delight... well the next day we woke up to beautiful sunshine...

This was the day we did a really long walk on the beach, and by the afternoon the beach was full of people enjoying the last bit of summer,

We really enjoyed Bournemouth, and I finally proved that Britain has lovely beaches! (duh we are an island)

Hong Kong I want you...

Oh, Im so ready to leave now!

Me and JW are both back to work after Bournemouth (I'll do a post with pics later)

and being back and work is HARD!!!!

We had such a lovely time away... and getting up for work the next morning was painful....

and when I got to my desk....I realised with horror...I had that day booked off!!!

With all the fucking around with the dates, I had forgotten that I had (wisely) taken the day off, But had (unwisely) completely forgotten!

I took a half day (obv!) but it wasnt the same...

Anyway, now Im back properly and back to the limbo that is waiting for travelling.

I cant even bring myself to type about money (we spend a looooooooooot of it in Bournemouth) or Jason's forms (still in the bedside draw)

ugghhhhh

I cant wait toi be wondering around the streets of Hong Kong....

The right headspace...

You remember my friend who I was irrationally jealous of, for going travelling before me?

Well, the other day she called me and told me she's no longer going.
ok, so now I feel REALLY guily for being envious.

She told me that basically she didnt want to go because she is depressed and wasnt in the right 'headspace'.
She had apprently gone on holiday to Ibiza with her friend that she was meant to be going travelling with, and watched her and her friends (all with boyfriends) let sleazy and old italian men take body shots off them, She said she just felt like ‘this isn’t me’.

I really understand what she means, firstly, as I’ve said before the ‘get fucked up and hang around with English people all day’ thing is NOT my thing, and secondly I know the feeling of needing to be in the right ‘headspace’

I worry sometimes that I’m heaping way too much on to travelling to make me happy, when for a lot of the time I might be unhappy, stressed or bored...And the dreaded... homesick


Ive always told myself that im a traveller and I can handle being away from home (party cos Ive always felt that Ive never really had one place I consider my home town) but the truth is, Ill miss London and my parents and my friends,
and having my own space (although moving in with the rents has been good practice for this one) and Ill miss English food, and language and not worrying about money and visas and where im going to sleep next…

Im sure the good will outweigh the bad, but its something to think about…

Anyway, for my friend I think it’s the best decision for her, and ive told her to come and meet me when we are out there for a few weeks and all shots will stay firmly in the glass- until we drink them of course!

tubes, rain and monday...

I havent posted for a while,
things have been a bit weird lately.

My sister finally went back to Sheffield this weekend, which at least freed up a little of the tension in the house.
And, it was JWs birthday- as we had to move our trip to Bournemouth to next weekend because of JWs mean, mean work- we didnt do that much,
We did however have a lovely (but overpriced) dinner and cocktail session at the OXO tower.
The views were a slight anti- climax, but still pretty impressive at night and re-ignited my love of the southbank.
It reminded me of being a kid, and going up there with my friend GV smoking hash and trying to skateboard (we were both useless), and of being a student and walking up to Tate modern to sit and sketch, and being a grown up walking hand in hand to the BFI.

I do love London...sometimes...
speaking of not lloving London- the tube is striking and Im going to be taking the scenic route (a half an hour walk) to Waterloo for the next few says... ugh

Anyway, I bought JW a psp (secondhand) for his birthday, so that he could take it travelling to play on long bus/ train journeys... however the battery seems pretty shit and Ive spend more time on it (playing sega classics) than he has!
Im looking forward to Bournemouth next weekend (Third Friday off in a row- whoo!) but it will probably rain..

Today is a grumpy day...

Mongolia, and some other random stuff...

I'm stupidly excited about Mongolia now,
I think we can probably only venture into Ulaan Batar and surrounding national parks and 'steppes' because otherwise I think we might be taking on way too much but it should be very cool, and I'm dreaming of yurts (or ger as they call them) and horse rides through amazing scenery.

JWs reaction to Mongolia was ''But it's so remote''
Yeah! thats the point!
Poor JW, I'm pushing his boundaries big time!

Anyway, we are having a hard time this week,
seems to be a load of stress and stuff building up...

Here are the top 3...

1. Trying to send off JWs citizenship, getting the info together (like who knows precise dates of every holiday they've had in the last 5 years?!) and having enough money to pay for it.

2. Working when we both hate our jobs, and are soooo ready to leave right now, but having to wait until we have enough money.

3. My sister staying in London, making my parents home full to the brim, and really hard to get any privacy AT ALL!

already some added extras...

After proudly posting my 'finished' route through china, it was only inevitable that I would make changes right?

After doing a bit of research, I have decided that it might be worth doing more of the North West, on the Silk Road route.

So, we will be visiting the one province I hadnt included in our plans, Xinjiang.

There is a 20 hour sleeper train that goes from Lanzhou to Urumqi (fact: the furthest city from the ocean in the world) which also stops in Turpan.

And after adding Xinjiang,

I thought, seeing as we are passing so close by, why not venture into Mongola?

So with that I decided to add a whole new country to our trip!!!

These two detours should only add a few weeks to our trip.

And it may mean that we dont bother travelling up to Har'bin, which I was uming and ahhing about anyway.

But we'll see!

China route map

Ive finally completed the rough guide to our route through China,

Starting in Hong Kong,

and leaving China to visit Taiwan, Japan and South Korea and then finally leaving China for the last time into Vietnam at the friendship Pass...

This picture isnt that clear, but you can see the general route,

Also, this isnt set in stone, it will change and evolve as we travel...

It exciting!

Everything I want to see...

Y'know, I think Im just a really restless person.

I never feel comfortable staying in one place for too long,

and when I start thinking about all the places in the world I want to see, I go crazy thinking about everywhere I wanna go, and hope I can cram into my life.

I want to see everything! And NOW!!!

Me and JW had a chat about it this morning (never a good time to discuss anything)

and he said he was worried that when I come back, Im not gonna be happy...

Well, to tell you the truth Ive worried about this too.

I kinda see travelling as my escape that will make me feel happy, excited and fulfilled...

But what happens when you get back???

JW has promised that he too wants to try living abroad when we come back (lets face it he doesnt have that many ties left in London)

But will this be enough to keep me happy???

Anyway, with this in mind, I drew up this map,

The Red is places Ive already been

The Green is places Im going on my Asia trip

And the Yellow is places Id like to go (Im sure I could add to this but I had to stop myself!)

Train times...

Just found this guide to train times,
Its by Thomas Cook, and updated every 2 months...

Apparently it covers Asia (along with a lot of other areas like Africa) which is pretty amazing!

Ill have to get one before we go (I hope its not too heavy!)

Matsu Island

Ive been getting quite deep into routes this week.

Ive had a re think about the China route,


Firstly because Ive figured out that its probably a lot cheaper and easier to fly in to Hong Kong,
And secondly, with the news about the floods in Southern China at the moment, it would be very unwise to be in southern china next summer (rainy season)


So, Ive decided to start in Hong Kong, and do some of the south, before heading to the northern provences for the summer months.
(Ill put a map up on here when I get round to doing one)


Also, been looking at getting to Taiwan...
and (kinda excitedly) discovered (thanks to that reliable man in seat61) that the best way to get there from china is to get a ferry from Fuzhou to Matsu (a tiny island off the coast of china) then to Taiwan.
It looks very cool!!!
see....

Matsu Island...

It doesnt look like there is much there, and even googling doesnt bring up much...

(these pics are from google maps)
But I just like the idea of going somewhere totally out of the way and where not many people go!

Woburn

Woburn was lovely,
very chilled weekend in a lovely hotel.

Where we were staying felt really in the middle of the country side, surrounded by fields,
and the little village was in wasnt much more than a post office and a pub (We suspected that they deliberately keep it that way for tourists)

Woburn safari park was a lot of fun, we were all like kids spotting the animals, and it really was pretty good and really massive
Mum got freaked out a bit by the lions (they started kinda fighting when we were stopped nearby, and they came really close to the car)
She told us the story (again) about the time when she went to Longleat and a lion jumped up and put her paws on her car window (which sounds v cool actually)

Anyway, the walk around thing afterwards was very kiddy and not that interesting but there were some cool parrots that flew around in a demo, and some very cute red river hogs (I want one!)

On the way back we stopped at a village (cant remember the name-doh!) that had a beautiful old town, with seriously old buildings (like 1600's)

Im glad JW got to see some really rural England.

Happy Friday

Its payday Friday!

Is there any better day on the month??
(well, maybe payday Saturday)

I went to Itchy feet today, which is their official last day of being open.
It was a little disappointing, because the stuff wasn't as 'bargain-bin' as id hoped.
and i didnt see any of the stuff I was spying on their website

There was lots of jackets and backpacks on sale, but for only around 10% off and Ive not really decided what I need yet anyway.
I ended up only buying map of Indonesia that was 25% off.
It looked a little like this...




It got me a excited about travelling,
and excited about buying all those bits, like walking boots and stuff :)

Anyway,
I'm so glad it's the weekend, we are going to Woburn (!) so although its not as exotic as the places I normally chat about on here, Ill write how it was when i get back...
We come back Monday, so I have the day off...yay!

Itchy feet

Just walked past Itchy Feet in Wardour St, and its covered in closing down sale signs...

Im really sad it's going, because it's cool to have a travel shop so close...

But also pretty excited about dipping in there and rumaging for some bargins

The last day is Friday the 31st...Payday!

So I'll just sneak a look in when I get paid before it closes...

Here are a few items I've got my eye on...

streetview continued...

ok, this is getting addictive...

hong kong streetview

As ive mentioned before I totally heart streetview,

Check out what I just stumbled across...

where to begin?

So,

time for a bit of positivity!!!

Looking at flights made me feel a bit better (even if they are SUPER more expensive that I originally thought)

I've discovered that actually Chengdu is pretty expensive to fly into (doh)

so I think it might be better/easier/cheaper to fly in to HONG KONG!

The route Ive looked at will probably still work but just in a slightly different order.

and since we might be going in March now (ugh) it might work out well that we avoid the coldest bits at the coldest time.

Live in the now

Y'know, I really struggle with time.

Like, im late everywhere, and I cant judge how long things will take and at work I always wait till the last second of the deadline to do anything.
I think that maybe I just live in the now. This second, now.

I find it hard to look in to the future, and really see it as something real that is actually gonna happen, I think it means that im not great about thinking about the consequences of stuff I do.
I often say 'oh, Ill do it tomorrow' but I dont ever see tomorrow as something thats gonna ever come...

Me and JW talked about dates and stuff the other night...
and we started thinking that maybe we should leave more like March than December.
I was thinking, well whats 3 more months? Will it really be that hard?

To be honest I sometimes feel like I cant imagine it ever happening, that Ill just spend the next few years talking about it and pushing the dates back forever.

more stuff

Its been another hard old week.

With my sister coming back, it really dredged up all that desire to go travelling,
hearing her and her boyfriend talk about the amazing places, people and things they have seen made me go green with envy (not a good colour on me as Ive said before)

Me and JW had a number of big arguments after,
mainly about the frustration of being in my parents house, without our own space and privacy and hating work and want to just leave and go travelling

Its so difficult... because we made the decision to go to my parents so that we could even begin to think about having enough money travelling,
But it feels like we've been here forever,

And as cool as my parents are, JW still feels he cant completely relax (which I understand, but sometimes it frustrates and upsets me that he doesn't feel comfortable around my family)

Anyway we made up :)
And we agreed that we have to stick it out, and we had another good chat about the future.

stuff...

Im really struggling this week,
Work is shitty, and I really just want to leave now.
It's so hard waiting, I wish we could have JWs passport already, and enough money.

My sister comes back from travelling in South America next weekend,
so it got me thinking, what happens when you come back?
I think I'm kind of hoping that travelling will improve myu life, and make me happier- because I'm not happy in my situation now.

JW and I talked a lot last night about the future, and what we are doing after travelling,
we both agreed we wanted to spend some time in Cape Town, a few months or so,
and we both said that we dont want to come back and live in the UK- and we might try living somewhere in Europe, like Italy?

To be honest, I would be happy to keep travelling forever,
To just come home, save up some money and go again,

Travel interview with....ME!

Last three places visited
Cape Town
Budapest
Portugal
(and in the UK, bath and longleat!)

Next three places to visit
Woburn abbey (safari park!)
China /South Korea/ Japan
South East Asia

Favourite 5 places
1. Ipoh
2. Rome
3. Lisbon
4. Cape town
5. London

5 essential travel items
1. Swiss army knife
2. vaselene
3. pencil/ pen
4. sarong/ spring scarf
5. JW (!)

Favourite type of holiday
Lots of culture, nature and warm weather! With as little fellow tourists as possible.

5 places I'd like to visit in the next 5 years
1. USA
2. South America
3. India
4. Eygpt and Jordan
5. New Zealand

Where I wouldnt like to visit
Im not that bothered about Dubai (I have been stuck in the airport for 7 hours so maybe that counts already) The idea of loads of rich people in the middle of a brand spanking new city in the middle of the desert does not excite me.

Coldest place
Budapest was pretty damn cold, Ive never felt such icy wind- although luckily we had a lovely warm spa baths in our hotel to retreat to.

Hottest place
It's gotta be Sudan. My dad was living a cabin literally in the middle of the desert, and I remember one day the generator broke down, so the air con (An essential in the desert) turned off- Ive never been so hot in my life!

Best wildlife seen
South Africa was pretty amazing- Whales, baboons etc. But Sudan was pretty good, we saw a massive moniter lizard, lots of desert gerbals, many scarily massive insects and of course Camels!

Best food
Very hard one, but probably Morrocco.

Time for another map...

For no other reason than to make me feel better

Putting me on a downer

The other night I want out for a leaving do at work, and got chatting to this guy who has just started working there.
The conversation got onto how I'm going travelling, and his eyes lit up
he started ranting about how he is the 'expert' on travelling and he has been to every country in the world and how I can ask him for advice because he is the expert.
He asked me where I was going, and before I could get past china, he started ranting intensely

HIM: 'Oh, don't go to china, you'll hate it and you'll get bored. Do you know they don't speak English? if you dont speak the language you'll be fucked. Don't go there you wont be able to cope'
ME: 'Well, I'm planning on learning some of the basics, I think Ill cope!'
HIM: 'oh no, you don't understand they don't have clubs and bars you know'
ME: (laughing at this now) 'I'm not really going for that reason, I'm not going to get pissed every night!'

He continued on like this ranting for ages,
saying that 'hes just concerned that no one has told me the bad part, how i don't know how it will feel to be the only white person.
I explained (getting a bit annoyed by this point) that I had travelled and I'm not ignorant.
And he shot back 'where have you been travelling'
so I explained about my childhood, and how yes I had experienced culture shock, and how in Sudan in particular I knew how it felt to be the only white person in the room.
He shot back again 'no, no its not like Sudan, its fucked up you don't understand'

At this point I was just sick of his ranting so i said that he was so negative and he was putting me on a downer, and went to buy a drink.

The whole thing just really pissed me off.
And actually it didn't put me off travelling or going to china,

It actually made me worried about meeting people like him when we are travelling!

The kind of person who travels to get pissed in every country and spends all his time with fellow English people drinking lager and shagging the local whores.
The kind that when you meet in a hostel asks 'have you 'done' south America yet?' and tells anecdotes about how he was 'fucked up' and punched a tuk tuk driver in Vietnam.

Its the side of travelling that fills me with dread.
Ignorant English speakers drinking their way around the world, not giving two shits about the countries they are trampling through.

So close and yet so far...

Sometimes I feel so far away from travelling.

I wonder sometimes when things are going shit, if it will happen at all.
Work is so shit at the moment, people are going like rats leaving a sinking ship, my boss made a snide comment when I had a day off that I'm probably looking for a new job too (how funny! Little does she know!)
There is no point in finding a new job for only a few months, but sometimes I wonder if I can hold out in this job....

I was speaking to someone yesterday who told me to just go for it, book the tickets and set yourself a deadline, fuck it if you havent saved our target amount.
otherwise we'll just pushing it further back, and back and back.
He's right of course, because what we first talked about doing in September/October is turning into more like December/ January.

I think I might just take his advice and buy the plane tickets! eek.

Air Asia Routes

Looking at possible flights to travel between countries,
Air Asia always gets loads of backpackers recommending it for cheap flights.
But actually I was frustrated that they didn't have what I need and have pretty limited flight routes, everything goes through KL and Bangkok

I was looking for a Japan (possibly Kansai airport) to Shanghai, China flight as a possible way to cut down transit cost (the boat is about £200)
And a Vientiane, Laos to Bangkok flight to get around the visa issues of coming into Thailand overland.