Pre-departure Checks ... and nerves ...

Excitement.  Anxiety.  Two sides of the same holiday coin.  Why would anyone feel anxious about seven weeks away from work?  About spending four of those seven weeks making a round trip through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia? Then ending it all with a week of chillaxing on Thailand’s southern sandy beaches?  Well, there are many reasons – all of them pretty trivial.  Have I packed enough knickers/shampoo/Imodium?  Will my pedicure last all five weeks?  Does my bum look big in cargo pants? Will five weeks sharing a hotel room with a good friend after too many years living alone cause a friendship implosion of devastating scale?  There’s also the huge dollop of angst about skipping off overseas when a loved one isn’t all that well.  Feeling guilty? Moi? I reckon I’d make a great Catholic. 

                  

But this is supposed to be a cheery, intelligent blog, full of witty travellers’ tales and smart, incisive insights into the socio-political and cultural differences discovered.  Although I suspect that it will, almost certainly, and to the unbounded delight of my travelling companion, the Ginger Broad, end up talking about poo.  Cf. earlier anxiety about sufficient quantities of Imodium. 

As I’m still on home turf there are not, as yet, any Mr Bean-esque misadventures to recount so I'll stick to the facts.  This overseas adventure is mainly thanks to the Ginger Broad's need to escape this country's grey winter weather and get some hardcore Vitamin D.  Last year she was off to India (her exploits there are documented in her own blog http://gingerros.blogspot.co.uk/ which will no doubt expand to cover Indochine travels soon).  And for 2013 she set her sights on Vietnam.  Long high on my list of 'to do' places I couldn't resist offering to carry her suitcases and soon found that we'd booked ourselves a four week travelling marathon - four countries,  at least 12 cities and quite a lot of numb bum bus rides in between.

First a few days in Bangkok to acclimatise to the 35 degree heat (now did I pack enough deodorant?) then we join an Intrepid tour taking us up through Northern Thailand, along the Mekong river into Laos, across to Vietnam, down the Vietnamese coast, across country into Cambodia, back to Bangkok before we head somewhere south for a week of sun, sea, sand and .... errr, seafood. 

So if you fancy coming along for a vicarious ride then pop back here every now and again and there might just be some exciting tales of derring-do.  Or there might be stories about poo.  Who knows?

For now, there's an exciting picture of my attempt at organised, capsule packing.  Don't say I don't treat you.