In just a few short hours, I’ll be whisked to Melbourne to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur, where I’ll spend a few hours before disappearing to Langkawi. Adelaide to Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi in under 24 hours. Not bad. That includes a six hour wait in Melbourne…
The plan is as follows:
- Malaysia
- Taiwan
- Taipei
- Taichung
- Tainan
- Kaohsiung
- Macau
- Hong Kong
All that over about 18 days. Short and sweet? I’m already thinking we’ll need more time in Hong Kong. I’m going with a friend from university and her friend, and we’re meeting up with friends in Kuala Lumpur, Macau, and Hong Kong. It’ll be epic. Stay tuned!
Oh, and the very nice university people have let me back in. I’ll be studying journalism/international studies, so hopefully I’ll learn how to make this blog interesting and meaningful and better. I start 3 days after I get home.
After nearly six months of plotting, the final details of the September trip have been sorted out. Our group of two has swollen to a group of eight at the largest, but only five for most of the journey. We leave Australia on September 15 and return around October 7.
We’re meeting in Bangkok, and on September 18 we travel by bus and boat to Koh Tao, where I’ll once again join Big Blue for a week and a bit of underwater (and above water) fun.
Following Koh Tao, we hopefully (I say hopefully because the ticketing process is a little convoluted) fly from Koh Samui to Kuala Lumpur, where we stay for four days and five nights. After Kuala Lumpur, we’re got another four days and five nights in Singapore before heading home.
I’m not sure how the five-to-eight person adventure will work, but I’m hoping it will be OK.
I think I have swine flu. If not swine flu, some other miserable kind of flu. I feel terrible. I slept most of the day yesterday, and of course couldn’t sleep last night. At 3am, or thereabouts, I happened to visit the Air Asia website and found an incredible sale fare:
Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur return, free plus taxes and charges. The base price of the return fare was $120, but with extras such as checked in bags, food, choosing my own seat (none of those stinky middle seats for me, please), a bus to and from the low cost terminal at Kuala Lumpur, the total price worked out to be $208.54. Return. Insane.
I’m going with a friend from university. She has family in KL, and we’re going to visit a friend of ours in Macau. We leave on February 14 2010 and return on March 4. I’m thinking a few days in Kuala Lumpur, then Melaka to Penang to Macau to Taipei to Kuala Lumpur to home!
Today, courtesy of a giant Jetstar sale, I booked a flight from Melbourne to Bangkok on September 15 for $verycheap. A friend and I are going diving on Koh Tao for nine days, then flying to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Singapore. Total adventure time: 23 days.
Can’t wait!
After a relatively painless process to leave Australia (total waiting time… 30 seconds), I now have the pleasure of waiting around for my plane to leave in two hours time. Thankfully Internode have thoughtfully provided wireless to their customers (and even non customers, too) so I have something to do whilst watching aircraft arrive and depart.
Here’s my ride.
It’s shiny. I just wanted to test how easy the whole photograph to gallery thing is. It’s not so bad, although I will hunt down an XD card to USB adaptor for maximum ease of use – no cables.
Next stop: Singapore!
I’ve finished packing. Check it out:
I’m not taking the Vegemite (I hate the stuff) but it’s there for scale. Total weight for about four months is 13.5kg, inclusive of clothes, cables, laptop, book, and everything else. The small bag looks big at the moment because it’s got a Polarfleece inside, but as soon as that goes in the big bag in one of those vacuum bag things the small bag will really be a small bag. The two bags zip together with a bit of rearranging, too.
Thanks to the power of the Internet and some good work by Singapore Airlines, I’ve checked in for my flight to Singapore 43 hours before I board the plane.
Some old fashioned technology is also helping: plastic bags. Not the supermarket variety, but the type with a valve at one end and a sealable opening at the other that can be used to expel air from clothing, to result in a brick of clothes that takes up far less space than the uncompressed clothes would.
Technology is awesome.
I leave in five days. As usual, I’m leaving a lot of stuff to the last minute – random bits of clothing, changes of bookings, packing… but it’s all good.
With regards to some bits and pieces I’ve already purchased, I’m not particularly happy with the image quality of the Olympus 1030SW camera I have, but I guess I can live with image quality being sacrificed for durability and ruggedness. The EEE subnotebook I have works well (although it can be a bit slow!) and should prove valuable for both work and fun whilst adventuring.
I still have a bit of stuff to do in the office before I leave, but that’s mostly under control – same goes for house work and other assorted preparations.
This time next month (as in the first Sunday of October) I’ll be midway between Adelaide and Singapore.
I’m glad I have a month to wait, because I still have plenty to purchase, arrange, and do for both the adventure and for work. My new camera arrived this week, as did some decent canalphones for my iPod… it turns out I’m severely lacking in the clothing department, so I need to buy some shorts and pants suitable for travel… and some new socks.
Everything is falling in to place, though. A friend will be in Singapore for almost the exact dates I’ll be there, I’ve arranged to meet a friend in Kuala Lumpur when I’m there the first time, and after Thailand another friend will be in Kuala Lumpur so we’re all going to try to meet up for a few days.
This should be awesome.
Well, today I booked a return Adelaide to Singapore flight with Singapore Airlines – departing Adelaide on October 5 and returning from Singapore on January 23. I guess it’s really going to happen now…
The original plan of the adventure was to head from Adelaide to Tokyo overland, but that would have taken a lot more time than I can afford… so an abbreviated adventure was formulated. I’ll now visit Singapore, Malaysia (both Peninsular and Borneo), Laos, and Thailand.
I leave in 46 days. I have a lot to do before then…
