Current Location:
Washington, DC
It's all happening....
It's hard to imagine that this trip has finally become a reality. For those of you who may not know, Ryan Cheney and I will be backpacking through SE Asia for a little over 5 weeks. We are meeting up with Sean Leow somewhere in Vietnam, who will then join us for the rest of the trip. Sean is currently on winter break from grad school in China. Lucky for us, he is fluent in Chinese, so Cheney and I will be be relying on him to translate and help us survive in China.
This website was set up at the last minute to document our trip and let our friends and family share in the adventure. I plan on updating the site from internet cafes on the road (hopefully at least once per week). I will be periodically writing updates, posting pictures, and reassuring my mom that I am still ok. So be sure to keep checking back to follow our journey.
The Plan...aka Itinerary
Here is the tenative itinerary. The flights are all scheduled, but everything else is still up in the air. We have left it pretty open to give us a lot of freedom to explore whatever it is we find on our journey.
- January 16 - Fly from Washington D.C. to San Francisco, CA.
Meet up with Cheney. - January 18 - Fly from San Fran to Bangkok, Thailand (through Tokyo, Japan)
- January 31 - Fly from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
- ~February 3-4 - Meet up with Leow.
- Travel by land to China (maybe stop in Laos, who knows?)
- February 24 - Fly from Shanghai, China to Washington D.C. (through San Fran)
A Note about the Tsunami
I know that several of you think that we are crazy for going to Thailand so soon after the disaster that has just occurred there. We obviously realize the massive destruction and devastation that the tsunami has caused in Thailand and SE Asia and are sure to feel the impact of it on our visit. We have followed the story on the news and internet to find out as much as possible (Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum is a great place for unbiased news from travellers around the world, including the affected areas). After doing some research, we still feel comfortable visiting Thailand at this time.
While the whole nation will be mourning, it appears that only a small portion of the country was actually directly affected. We plan on avoiding the impact zone by travelling north, away from the coast, to Chiang Mai. Any increased risk of disease that you may have read about should be centralized in the directly affected areas, particularly the southern coast. Chiang Mai is approximately 750 miles away from Phuket. So think about it - if there was an increased risk of disease in New York, would you be afraid to go to Chicago?
When we first heard about the tsunami, we looked into the possibility of volunteering our time in Thailand to help with the relief effort. However, each of the organizations that we found would not accept temporary volunteers. They usually required trained professionals with at least a one year commitment. It seems that we would have just been in the way more than we would have been able to help. The best thing that we could do was not cancel our trip to Thailand; much of Thailand's economy depends on tourism, which is sure to suffer from this disaster.
If you would like to help in the relief effort, the best thing to do is to give money.
Here are a few organizations that would love to accept your generous donations:
Unicef |
American Red Cross |
World Food Programme (UN)
For more information about the tsunami and the relief effort, check out these sites:
To Go or Not To Go |
Google - Tsunami Relief |
Tsunami Help Blog
Drop Us a Line
If you want to contact us while we are on the road, we'd love to hear from you. Just email tim@timstravelog.com