Decision points

A wisely planned long journey is not designed like a snake.  It's a flowchart with decision points, at each of which there are alternative routes based on certain scenarios.

For example, I would like to visit Iraqi Kurdistan; but I recognise that it may turn dangerous or may overstretch my budget.  I have budgeted for it but I have also identified a decision point at Dogubayazit, where I can choose to go south to Iraq, or north to Erzurum.  The latter course cuts nine days and $500 from my budget.

Progress Report #1

Rainy Istanbul, April 2005

Activities (planning aside) to date ...

1. Booked my flight to Istanbul
2. Booked a room in Istanbul for the period before Anzac Day — not really necessary but I like to have my first night's stay arranged before I leave home, as hunting for accommodation while jet-lagged and out of practice with being "on the road" is no fun.  I have no other separate room bookings.
3. Booked an "Anzac Day" tour.  Again, not really necessary as I have done Anzac Day before and know the ropes now, but it saved a lot of hassle.  The tour includes a post-Anzac night in Kusadasi, after which I am on my own.
4. Bought some cheap travel insurance, simply because I needed it for the Anzac tour.  The cover only lasts the first couple of weeks but that's all I wanted it for.

Painting the world red

Finally, a place to put this:

Map of all the places I hope to have visited after this trip:

visited 46 states (20.4%)
Create your own visited map of The World

What to expect at the Dawn Service on Anzac Day at Gallipoli in 2010

Sometimes it feels like I'm sitting here in a little hole, shouting out of it to a huge auditorium – an auditorium that may be completely empty for all I can tell.

No matter, here I am and I'm going to have a shout.

Yes, I'm going to Gallipoli.  Being a methodical bloke, I have assembled a lump of information about what I might find there.  I thought some few of you might find it informative, or at least mildly entertaining.

Guesthouse in Orchha

Guesthouse in Orchha

Travelling on a tight Passport

My Passport is one of the modern chipped models, expires in late 2011, and is in immaculate condition.  Border stamps can be squeezed in almost anywhere and as I have a dozen used pages that have space for more stamps, that's not a problem.  However, it has only 19 blank pages remaining and I plan to visit 21 countries in 2010/11.

Problem: Most visas occupy a whole Passport page and can't be pasted in on top of stamps or other visas.  Some countries even like to have the facing page blank, too — I have seven such double-page spreads left.  But 21 into 19 doesn't go.  Getting a new Passport on the road would be a hassle I'm not keen to undertake.  Better to replace it before I leave — unless ...

The joys of software

I should have expected this.  Why did it surprise me?

After copying my downloaded Lonely Planet guidebooks to my PocketPC ("the iPaq") and constructing a little HTML menu for easy access, I tried to open them.  It should have worked — the device came with a built-in "ClearVue PDF" reader, after all, which has worked acceptably up till now, and the files are vanilla PDFs.  But no, ClearVue couldn't load them.  "ClearVue PDF encountered an internal error trying to load or display the requested file."

So here I sit, patiently downloading the Adobe Reader for PocketPC version 2.0.  I had version 1.0 on a previous device, and apart from a tendency to display greek when it ran short of fonts, that worked fine.  I'm hoping that it's just a version issue and that the OEM PDF reader will go where Microsoft's minion fears to read.

There'll be a hot time in the town tonight!

Just under forty-three degrees in Melbourne most of this afternoon, and they don't expect it to fall below thirty tonight; and yet I am unconcerned — I'm headed for a triple-length summer and I can write this off to "acclimatising" ...

Spent the last couple of days working on my PocketPC.  Have decided to leave the laptop at home again, which means I need to make sure everything I may need is loaded onto my mini-me.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

A hot, lazy Saturday afternoon in Melbourne.

My last big trip in 2007 was inadequately recorded by email, camera, diary and souvenirs.  When I came to put the pieces together a year later, it was a nightmare.  So this time I will try to do a blog.

As an aid to anyone thinking of doing a long trip, I thought it might be helpful to post my experiences.  After all, I've done this before — I must have learned something.  I'll try to place my topics under appropriate subheadings to make it easier to follow.