Preparing for lift off – southeast asia 09

Friday I fly to Indonesia (Bali), to start my approximately six month trip to south east asia.

It is my most unplanned travel ever, and the first time I will be flying and traveling by myself (occasionally meeting friends on the way). I’m very excited! Probably will be more nervous closer to the time! Not about the flying though, I love flying!

A lot of it is unplanned on purpose. I don’t know much about the countries (so far I’ve only read the Indonesia section of my Southeast Asia Lonely Planet, and skipped Bali), so I have no idea how long I’ll want to/end up spending in each country. I will however be meeting my friend Rafeena in Thailand on 1 December and then we’ll be joining Emily in Laos from the 18th of December and touring around with her. Emily has been working in Laos since March, she’s an ‘Australian Youth Ambassador‘ working in environmental education in the east of Laos.

I’ve had a few tips from people about places to visit, but mostly I’ll just see how I go. I’ve only been to asia once before, 4 days in Bali with my parents as a stopover when I was 14, it doesn’t really count for me.

I plan to return to Perth in February, I have an appointment to get my wisdom teeth out late February and I figure it’ll be time for a break then. So countries I plan to visit before then are Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. If I seem to be travelling through them quickly (I really can’t see myself lying on beaches for days, but there are plenty of other things to do (like hiking up volcanoes and searching for orang utangs in Sumatra) and I will need to spend some time working on enjoyperth), I might also head to Nepal, via India I guess. Who knows.

So what have I done in preparation.

• Bought a good bag(I did a lot of research) from MEI and other things stuff from Kathmandu.
• Been vaccinated for everything recommended by the Travel Doctor in Freo(recommended by my own doctor) and have enough malaria tablets for some of the risky areas I’m visiting.
• Photocopies of my important documentation and so do my parents. They’re also signatories for my bank accounts. I have a visa debit card *and* a mastercard debit card. Extra passport photos for visas at borders.
• I have travel insurance (mainly for the laptop and medical!).

I have no visas, no other tickets except the one to Bali, and no accommodation booked. Apparently I’ll be fine. It helps I’m meeting with friends the first two days, and I’ll probably just sleep on the couch in their hotel room the first night :D

What I still need to do:

• Buy a small medical travel kit from the travel doctor
• Exchange some Aus dollars for US dollars for the visa on arrival in Indonesia and some rupees to get me through the first 24hours.
• Pack so all of my baggage combined is 1okg. I’m only taking handluggage. Not much clothes as I could always buy more, the heaviest things are my laptop/camera/accessories and my lonely planet and two reading books. I’ll wear my heaviest clothes and my good walking shoes. Only other footwear packed will be thongs.
• Unlock my mobile phone so I can put other sim cards in it, and have international roaming enabled so I can still sms family/friends(I’m guessing I go to a vodafone branch to do this?!)
• See if there’s any couchsurfers in Bali who I can stay with next week some time and message them
• Things around the house like pack up other random stuff so my parents can store it at their house along with the stuff already there, and finish cleaning the car which my brother has bought from me. Oh, and install the new aerial I bought as we broke the other one. Doesn’t look easy, but haven’t tried yet.
• A million other random things like ehhh, work on enjoyperth, send photos to Vanessa in Nullagine, post earrings to a friend in Mandurah, catch up with friends, claim some of cost of vaccinations with medibank, cancel car insurance, finish the bottle of port, get well (I seem to have something that involves occasional fever, lightheadedness and coughing, gah!).