The PlanYes, I am on the move again. Like my other stories, this one is likely to go unfinished, but in the hope of recording at least a few of the memories, I am opening a new section here. As you can guess from the title, this trip is still in the planning stages. However, it is fairly likely that I will spend most of the month of March traveling to various places in southeast asia.ItineraryI have nearly six weeks of vacation for spring break, so I plan to start off with a little travel in Japan. If I head south I might find somewhere warm although most places will be pretty cool in March. From somewhere down there one can catch a boat to Pusan, Korea. I have a couple friends in Korea that I would like to see. I just want to get an idea of the country as far as how developed it is and what sort of lifestyle people lead. That is a pretty big goal for one week or so, but anyway, I will cover my intentions later. From Korea, I plan to fly to Bangkok. Spend about two weeks traveling by train through Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Then on to Nepal. Nepal is a pretty wacky place to choose, but I guess I am just attracted by its high mountains and Buddhist history. Then I have to be back for classes on April 1.My Traveling CompanionI have done a lot of traveling alone, but I found a good traveling companion, named Brica Ulicni. We traveled together for about a week in August and seemed to get along pretty good. Anyway, if we can work out our current plans without killing each other, we should be together for March.Why Go?I am always asking myself this sort of question. Obviously this costs some money, so I need to have a good excuse to go right? I don:t speak any of the languages of the above countries. I don't really have any desire to live in any of those places either. I guess I am just curious about how other people live. It is pretty hard to get an idea about people's lives by spending a few days in their town, but...How to go...Honestly, the biggest problem is getting there. One great thing about these countries (at least in the foreign tourists' eyes) is that everything is relatively cheap. If you can get to Thailand, you can live on about US$10 per day, sometimes less. I plan to take the usual travel books and stay in hostels. We don't really need to see all of the tourist spots. We just want to see the landscape and attempt to speak to some people. The only problem is the airlines. Every time I try to buy a ticket, I get more and more frustrated by the ticketing system.20Jan97I finally bought my plane tickets. Actually, I have no tickets in possession, but I have decided on the plans. I ended up going with a discount travel agent called STA (Student Travel Agent?). I guess they have offices all over. I bought my ticket from Tokyo to Seoul to Bangkok and back again on Korean Air. Seoul is a pain because they don't seem to let many airlines in there. For instance, I wanted to fly Thai Airlines all the way, but they don't go through Seoul at all. In order to buy a round-trip ticket from Bangkok to Kathmandu, Nepal I had to call Bangkok. For those of you who know the airline runaround, it cost a fortune to buy a ticket that starts from another country. I found it rather convenient to fax STA in Bangkok (in English) and I will pay for my ticket by credit card when I get there. Honestly, there ought to be a home page somewhere about how to buy a cheap plane ticket. Anyway, maybe this little info will help someone.AnticipationMore than the travel itself, I am looking forward to seeing my friend, Brica. I have only a few weeks of school left and then we will be off. I am a little worried about forgetting my Japanese after a long time away from Japan, but otherwise I am really looking forward to the adventure. It shouldn't be too long now... |