Hello one and all.

Thought i would start this before i go so people know where to look if they want to check i am still alive!!  Only three days now till i head out on my big adventure,  my packing is ...in the conceptual stages, my organisation is...as always pretty crap ...but hey i have three days ...plenty of time ...well except of course one day will be devoted to getting drunk and then getting over the hangover ...another to seeing family...  leaving me one day... oh well i always do my best work under pressure :S.

Thought i would take this opportunity to put down a kind of intinerary which (i hope) i will be sticking to.  So here goes:

First port of call is Kerala right at the southern tip of India.  Im flying into Thiruvananthapuram (a place i am still struggling to pronounce) and will hopefully be met by a person from my first project.  The project is actually based in Vellanad which is about 30kms out of the city.  The site is called Mithraniketan and focusses on holisic development looking at both academic and skills based learning.  I will be mainly teaching English and sports to the younger children.  To find out a little more about the place i am going you can visit the website at www.mitraniketan.org/  and there is also some more personable information from a blog site i found at http://luzader.blogspot.com/2006/10/mitraniketan-home-of-friends.html.  I have two months volunteering here before i set off on my first bout of travels.

In the city i cannot pronounce (TRV) I will be meeting up with Helen (from the Ashtead crowd) and Rory (from uni) apparantly in front of a temple which name is even longer and more complicated at 2pm on the 1st of March.  If this fails we will hopefully be staying in the same lodge and will meet there in the evening but it seemed much more romantic/ridiculous to try it this way first!  Once we have met up (one way or the other) the journey can begin.  As we are at the southern tip there is really only one way to go ...north!  So we are heading up the western coast taking in the famous backwaters, going to an elephant sanctuary, visiting the sandy beaches, getting aquainted with the rail system and i expect the toilet pretty well!!  Thank god for immodium!!! Working our way through goa and finally up to Mumbai our first big city!  After a couple of days in the Bollywood capital we fly to Delhi ...through an amazingly cheap flight carrier...lets just hope they skimped on the refreshments and not the engines!!  From here we set about the golden triangle, taking in the Taj Mahal, the markets of Jaipur and the bustling streets of Delhi.  Once back in Delhi and hopefully a Vietnamese visa up, we head south east towards Calcutta passing through Sarnath, Varanasi and Allahahbad.  Once we reach Calcutta we have a few days to look around before being picked up and whisked southwards to the Indian Sunderbans on a tiger safari.  We stay here in swiss tents for 3 nights before heading back to the city once more. 

Here is where the group spilts...after one month of fun and frolics we are loosing Rory back to the homeland and Helen and I turn our sights on the far east.  Flying from Calcutta to Hanoi we arrive in Vietnam just in time for their independance day.  We have about a week in and around Hanoi, going to Halong bay and hopefully taking in some of the mountainous regions of Sapa.  From Hanoi we catch a short flight into Luang Prabang (Laos) and work our way through some of the most spectacular scenery to Vietianne.  After about a week in Laos we head back to Vietnam and re-enter the country near Hue and Hoi An.  After a quick excursion to see the Viet Cong caves we will gradually make our way south to Saigon.  From here we split again ... Helen leaves for England and i will carry on into Cambodia.

Right well now the plans start getting a little sketchier... i am thinking of heading to one of the further out provinces such as Mondulkiri (Sen Monorom being the capital) to see some of the natural beauties the country has to offer.  Some amazing waterfalls are hidden in this far flung corner....the only slight snag is getting there.  I have heard many differing opinions on buses and trucks and all sorts that go there...but they all seem to agree on one thing ...it sure isnt easy.  But i am up for a challenge so reckon i will give it ago...well either that or spend a week getting pissed on Phom Penh :P.  Once i have seen something of the south of cambodia i will be heading to Siem Reap the site for my next volunteering placement.  Its not exactly set in stone what i will be doing when i get there, it could range from teaching, to orphanage work, to water filter construction.  So who knows ill tell you when i get there!  I am volunteering with a fairly small charity whose website is at www.globalteer.org.

Right well after another 2 month stint i am joined by my parents for a week in Cambodia followed by just over a week in Japan visiting my brother and seeing a few sights obviously!  Im sure by this point i will appreciate a little bit of luxury :D .  From Japan i fly direct to Ulan Bator (Mongolia) and straight into another volunteering project.  Here i will be working in an orphanage for one month and have opted for a nomad experience for the second.  This envolves a trade of basically, the nomads allow me to live with them and see how their life works in exchange for me teaching the children basic english.  In mongolia i am volunteering with my biggest company www.projects-abroad.net.  Once i have completed my two months i hop on the trans-mongolian railway and head into China.  Here the planning has really run out.  Basically i have 2 weeks in china to do with what i will before i fly back (appropriately by BA) to England and arrive home on the 22nd of September. 

And well thats the plan!!!  Sorry this was such a loooooooong post i promise the rest with be much shorter!!!

Hope you are all well, Happy New Year!!! xxx