New Year, New Plans...

Happy New Year!

Its 2011, and the year that we really get our asses in gear and go travelling!

There have been some early hiccups though,

After a bit of research, it became clear that the China visas are going to be a little harder that we orginally thought.

We were hoping for a 6 month multiple according to advice, the most we are going to get is a double entry visa valid for 60 days at a time.

Giving us only 4 months in China.

Even this visa might not be doable, because apparently China are constantly changing their visa rules...we might only be able to get a double entry 30 days at a time, giving us only 2 months!

So, this is going to make a big difference to our trip...

If we can only get a double entry, it will mean that we will have to do Taiwan first before we enter China, and leave out South Korea, so our 1 exit can be to Mongolia.

Really stressed about it when I found out, because I'd been looking at our planned China trip in minute detail and this might mean cutting out the majority of places we planned to go to.

BUT, the truth is we always said we would be flexible about our route and stuff, so we will have to adapt.

If we cant get the Visa we want, we’ll just have to agree to come back another day and do the bits we missed out on!!

AND, it frees up some money to spend more time elsewhere- like the Philippines or Indonesia! OH YEAH!

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!