Take two wayward architects, add a dash of mid-life, mid-career (after 2 years on the job) crises, a hell of a lot of saving, a notion to leave it all behind, and a load of tickets, visas and jabs, mix thoroughly for a few months and you end up with a pair of stressed, unemployed, homeless, excited travellers heading east, onward and upward and all the rest.
We decided to head off at the end of Summer 2007. We got the bug in Summer 2004 when we did a 4 month trip of the US, Fiji, NZ, Australia and a lot of SouthEast Asia. This time we decided to go the other direction, with a vague plan to make the journey to Australia without resorting to planes. It's important to us to see the world go by as we travel, to get a real sense of the places and people we meet, to see the difference in every thousand miles travelled, the landscape, the environment. No London-Bangkok flights for us, oh no.
The plan evolved with the notion of getting a ferry to France, picking up a car then heading east across Europe. The car will be dropped in Paris where we'll jump on a train to Cologne, and then another train that will take us through Germany, Poland, Belarus and on to Moscow where we will hopefully meet Donagh and possibly kip on his couch. After a few days in Moscow we'll be getting on a sleeper train to begin the Trans-Siberian route to Mongolia, stopping off at Irkutsk on Lake Baikal on the way. After treks, tours and vodka in some remote village, we'll head on to Ulan Batar, capital of Mongolia, for some more frozen fun (-18degrees!). The last leg will take us past the Great Wall and into Beijing. From here we'll be grabbing an overnight train to Xi'an to meet up with Rong and the family and then we are off to Shanghai and down the coast to Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The last bit we have planned properly is the train to Hanoi, into Vietnam where we plan to spend a lot of time touring, relaxing, swimming and lazing around sipping the local nectar.
After Vietnam it's on to Cambodia, back to Siem Reap and the stunning ruins of Angkor Wat, then on to Laos, Thailand (Pattaya where we will meet up with uncle Cathal, Bangkok and ChiangMai), Malaysia, Singapore, ferry to Indonesia, somehow get to Bali then on to Darwin on a ferry.
From Darwin we'll be training to Alice Springs then on to see Uluru (Ayers Rock), then on again to Adelaide, picking up a CamperVan then on to Melbourne and Sydney. All going well, after 15,100 miles, we'll be sipping beer with our mates in Melbourne by the end of the (Irish) summer.
We decided to head off at the end of Summer 2007. We got the bug in Summer 2004 when we did a 4 month trip of the US, Fiji, NZ, Australia and a lot of SouthEast Asia. This time we decided to go the other direction, with a vague plan to make the journey to Australia without resorting to planes. It's important to us to see the world go by as we travel, to get a real sense of the places and people we meet, to see the difference in every thousand miles travelled, the landscape, the environment. No London-Bangkok flights for us, oh no.
The plan evolved with the notion of getting a ferry to France, picking up a car then heading east across Europe. The car will be dropped in Paris where we'll jump on a train to Cologne, and then another train that will take us through Germany, Poland, Belarus and on to Moscow where we will hopefully meet Donagh and possibly kip on his couch. After a few days in Moscow we'll be getting on a sleeper train to begin the Trans-Siberian route to Mongolia, stopping off at Irkutsk on Lake Baikal on the way. After treks, tours and vodka in some remote village, we'll head on to Ulan Batar, capital of Mongolia, for some more frozen fun (-18degrees!). The last leg will take us past the Great Wall and into Beijing. From here we'll be grabbing an overnight train to Xi'an to meet up with Rong and the family and then we are off to Shanghai and down the coast to Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The last bit we have planned properly is the train to Hanoi, into Vietnam where we plan to spend a lot of time touring, relaxing, swimming and lazing around sipping the local nectar.
After Vietnam it's on to Cambodia, back to Siem Reap and the stunning ruins of Angkor Wat, then on to Laos, Thailand (Pattaya where we will meet up with uncle Cathal, Bangkok and ChiangMai), Malaysia, Singapore, ferry to Indonesia, somehow get to Bali then on to Darwin on a ferry.
From Darwin we'll be training to Alice Springs then on to see Uluru (Ayers Rock), then on again to Adelaide, picking up a CamperVan then on to Melbourne and Sydney. All going well, after 15,100 miles, we'll be sipping beer with our mates in Melbourne by the end of the (Irish) summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment