On the Verge

Not on the verge of a nervous breakdown, at least not yet.  On the verge of a great trip, I hope.  Six days before my trip, I'm sitting at my tiny desk, on a warm Colorado night, looking at the pile of books I have here:  India; Southeast Asia on a Shoestring; The Tibet Guide (and I'm not even going to Tibet!); Singapore; Hong Kong; South Pacific; First-Time Asia; How to Shit Around the World (I'm not making that up! An invaluable reference); Vagabonding; The World's Cheapest Destinations; First-Time Around the World (Rough Guides).

My bundle of airtreks tickets is spilled across the desk.  I have the idea of using the web to look up, and then write down, the phone number of each airline in the city in which I'll have to confirm a flight.  While I was in Hong Kong, hypothetically, I'd have the phone number of Vietnam Airlines already written down so I could call up and confirm my flight to Ho Chi Minh City 72 hours in advance.  But maybe that's a more ambitious plan than I have time for.  Anyway, the tickets are lying there in an artful spray, waiting for me to finish gloating and put them back in their little packet again.

I am going to try to fit absolutely everything I need into a small black backpack, and I've already started winnowing down what I'll bring.  I'm not going to go so far as some books recommend, where if you're going to be gone for months you should always bring duct tape and a sewing kit -- you can fix anything if you have those two things.  That part's okay, although it reinforces the idea that when you're out of this country you're in some kind of outback /boondocks where there aren't stores for basic sewing supplies.  Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I bet I could buy a needle and thread in Bangkok.  I'm also not going to go one step further and buy a candle, then wrap the duct tape around the candle.  The two birds with one stone theory:  the candle for light in the event of an electricity shortage, and the duct tape for mending that tent you're not going to bring anyway.

Well, my mind is spinning.  I'll be gone four and a half months, 135 days, which isn't that long until you start thinking about all you need to do.  Today I bought passport photos to bring with me for my visas (for India and Vietnam); I got my car re-registered and had an emissions test done; I went to the bank and the post office; I got traveller's checks at AAA; I went to my doctor and found out what shots (Hepatitis A and B; typhoid, all of which I had to get for my trip to Guatemala last summer anyway) to get and what pills to take with me (a precautionary prescription of Cipro and then some pills for altitude sickness, since I'll be up in the Himalaya, both in northern India and Kathmandu); and ran a million other small errands for my trip  which all told took five hours.

Preparing for a RTW trip ain't for sissies.

Okay, this will probably be my last entry until next Friday, when I'll be groggily finding my way to a Quaker Club I belong to in London, as well as the British Library, where all good books can be found.

Ever onward.