Underway

Leave approved - yes! Flights booked - yes! Money saved - mostly yes!


Since finding an excuse a couple of years ago (it wasn't hard), we've been aiming to take ourselves and our now two year old on a long holiday, seeing some as yet undiscovered places and returning to some old favourites.  We pondered the where, when and how of this intended adventure from time to time.  Organising got serious a few months ago.  We are both just about to become eligible for long service leave, have done some fairly serious saving and last week got approval to take our proposed four months off during the second half of 2017.

I am hoping this will continue the process of instilling in our son a real love of travel, a curiosity about people, places, cultures and history, that he can embed as a lifelong passion or pursue as an occasional escapade.  Before he came along, and since he was just a few weeks old, we have indulged our enjoyment of food, drink, exploration and relaxation, regularly locally but as often as possible by departing for foreign shores.  In his first few years, we have begun to carve out our 'holidaying as a family' pattern - Bali once a year, local beach destinations twice or so annually and other short sojourns, often interstate, when the opportunity arises.  

I'm excited we are now on the verge of substantially extending this familiar routine!

All going well, we will be setting off in very late August for our round-the-world adventure - first to Thailand, then Europe, the US, a taste of Taiwan and a return to some less-travelled Balinese idylls before returning home just before Christmas.  I am certain we will, by then, be exhausted, craving a bland, nutritious, home-cooked meal, aching for a familiar mattress and probably wanting not to see each other for a solid week!  In the interim, though, I am hopeful we will find and enjoy a superb array of sights, sounds, tastes and encounters that we will be able to look back on with satisfaction and happiness for years to come.

This blog will share some of our discoveries and experiences and will help me deal with my undiagnosed (but I just know it's true!) early onset Alzheimer's disease, which means I can't remember what I had for breakfast today.  Feel free to read along.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

En route!

Image
Since my post earlier this year, our plans have come together nicely. It has taken innumerable phone calls to Qantas and Singapore Airlines, the patience of a saint, learning new languages (have you ever tried to understand airline and airport taxes?!) and a fair amount of flexibility.  We had been planning one really long trip through Europe, the Caribbean, the US and a little bit of Asia, taking four months and including a few days in Bali at the end to recuperate before winding up back in Brisbane a few days before Christmas 2017. When we reflected on our previous longest trip (about nine weeks – and without a three year old!), it dawned on us that 15 or so weeks away from home, eating lots of great (but inevitably carb-, fat- or sugar-laden meals), with not too many stops longer than three nights, would probably stretch our travel affinity a tad too much. So we reconfigured a bit, taking into account that our frequent flyer redemption tickets placed a few constraints ...
Read more

Thailand to Tyrol

Image
Checked out on Tuesday for our long day of travel – final destination Vienna.  Our hotel-supplied car to the airport was great; X babbled the whole way with a classic line, indicting Linton: “I don’t ever stop talking, do I? You told me that, didn’t you, Dad”!!  Certainly, Linton was right but it was funny to hear him understand and verbalise it!  Enjoyed the indoor-outdoor terminal feel at the airport before boarding via the quaint little bus-train thing they have going on and taking off on-time at midday. Koh Samui airport Smooth flight, again with brilliant meal service for the short trip, and landed after a very long descent at Bangkok, where X proceeded to have the biggest meltdown ever, about not being able to have his teddy to suck on while we traversed the airport in the transfer bus to the terminal.  After everyone on the bus thinking he was a spoiled brat, we finally got to disembark, collect our bags, find a taxi and head off for the cheap hotel we...
Read more

Bangkok

Image
After arriving in Bangkok, X in particular was very happy to see L and gave him a big hug.  X and L reacquainted themselves over a swim while I relaxed by the pool.  Then we went for a wander around the neighbourhood.  We were staying at the Somerset Park Suanplu, the very same place we started out staying when X was born in 2014.  The surrounding area did not seem to have changed very much and the extensive renovations that Somerset Park had undergone were reasonable but a bit underwhelming.  Nonetheless, it was nice to reminisce about the things and places that brought back memories while walking down the street, including the mundanities such as the laundry place we frequented, the café we visited regularly and the street vendors and massage parlours (foot massages, people, foot massages!) we became fond of during those five weeks in August three years ago. Pool fun We had a quiet afternoon followed by dinner at Naga, the place we most often ate ...
Read more