I’ve been rolling my eyes lately at a lot of travel blogs. There have been a few articles lately written by Americans lamenting the value and instability of their dollar. Travel has become too expensive they say. Being an Australian though although our own currency has strengthened in recent years we are still worth about 10% less than our American friends in the global market, yet we still travel and we do it with far less whining. The truth of the matter is be we from Australia the US or just about any other western country we aren’t exactly doing it tough, if you are complaining about the cost of travel chances are you are amongst the richest people in the world, sure Europe isn’t cheap, but it’s not cheap for anyone who doesn’t live there. As for complaining about Australia, well just put the shoe on the other foot for a minute.

Both Australia and the US have on our doorsteps some of the cheapest places to travel to in the word. Australia has Asia and the US Central and South America, relatively here if you are complaining about the cost of travelling to an in these areas your being a spoiled little brat. Of course I am speaking of budget travel though, without too much trouble you could spend as much on packages in the cheapest places in the world as you could in far more expensive countries. Consider the relative cost of things and what you get for your time and money, travel still seems like a good deal to me.

I think I’ll stick to complaining about costs in my own country where although imports have become significantly cheaper the benefits are not being passed onto consumers. Purchasing items online and shipping them here is sometimes much cheaper. I know with books at Amazon I have a much bigger selection to buy from and can have them sent to my door at 1/3rd of the price of finding them in stock at a local book store. Maybe I could get into the import\export business on my travels and make a killing.

I don’t know much about Kashmir other than it is stunningly beautiful and the object of a dispute between Pakistan and India since 1947. I hear it becoming safer and tourists are returning. Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh are two places I have been interested in travelling to but Arunachal requires a Restricted area permit and that you be travelling in a group of at least four people. So far I’ve found no such restrictions on travel in Kashmir.

After updating to the new Wordpress 2.5 I was inspired to make the theme changes I have been thinking about for so long. I wanted to make this a bit less blog like and more of a portal or normal web page. Basically I have gotten ahead of myself by changing the theme now as I hope it is fairly obvious it is actually unfinished. A pretty header is on the way to replace the text one, there will be colour changes and probably changes to the layout.

My main concern at the moment is that new posts aren’t all that obvious, they are on the right under the label “latest” in a list style. I may change this soon, although I like that it simplifies the layout it gives not even an excerpt of the post. The new theme does accommodate for this though so I will probably implement it soon.

Also new is movies. Hopefully I’ll get my hands on something to make my own with on my trip but now I’ll be posting some on places I’ll be going to and any other interesting travel vids. The first is China.

Keep an eye out for more changes and more posts I keep getting closer to departure.

In the words of BeijingBoy, China isn’t a country, it’s a different world.

Vaccinations - 2nd round complete, I finished the first 2 Hep A\B ones, I’ll be away when the 6 month one is due. Because I have no idea if I finished the childhood Measles, Mumps, Rubella vaccine, I started that. So I have one visit left where I think all I have to get is the second MMR.

Backpack - I bought a travel pack and maybe I am having regrets. It’s the same size as my hiking one, 75L. I was hoping to get something smaller but pretty much everything on offer was at least 70L. The other thing with it is that it zips from the bottom which might be annoying, I could get a second lock and zip it from the side, it might be an improvement. It does have all the other features I wanted though.

Bali Ticket - I Finally booked the flight, I just happened to check the Jetstar site and it had been dropped by almost $100, I figured that would be the best between now and departure so I booked it. Unless there is a sale I don’t think I could have gotten it any cheaper but it would have been risky hoping for a sale in the next few weeks. I checked the flight again after I booked it and it had gone up $10.

Ebay - I bought something else so I figured I had better sell of some stuff to make up for it. Thats it! No more Ebay purchases. I also put my bike up for give away on Freecycle.

I let my landlord know that I will be vacating and have sorted out when the last rent it due. Hopefully I can find someone to move in after me for them, we had a very good deal with them compared to what else is on offer around here. I’m hoping in the last fortnight I’ll save some extra money with hopefully no bills to pay, plus I’ll have an annual leave payout and eventually a tax return in July. My biggest concern now is my dog, I’ve been contacting a few people to sort him out. Last resort is that I have to fly him to a friend interstate. So that is the latest update anyway. Almost at the halfway point from the 99 Days to go post, it has been going by pretty fast, I’m sick of waiting, I wish I was leaving tomorrow.

Today the count is 75 days to go. I have changed my plans slightly. Instead of going from the Whitsundays to Cairns and flying onto Bali from there I will return to Sydney for a day and then fly on to Bali, this will shorten my Australian leg by a few days saving me some money plus the airfare cost will be over $100 cheaper. Most of Australia will be pre-booked and I’ve just emailed a sailing outfit in Airlie Beach to help me find which sailing charter will fit in best with my stay there. When I reach Bali though apart from having to organise an onward ticket I’ll leave things open from there. I haven’t actually booked any International flights yet, I guess I will do Bali this week and I will also have to start looking at Visas.

This weekend I will heading up to my parents for Easter, with Easter has come the Easter sales at the outdoor and travel stores. I’m trying to avoid them because I know I can get things much cheaper when I start my trip but one thing I think I will have to get is a new backpack, the one I currently have is a 70L hiking backpack, it is a bit bigger than I would like to take with me and not as practical as a travel backpack. Something that zips open, is lockable and has a daypack and possibly zip away shoulder straps would be good and now while they are up to 60% off is the best time to get one.

Also in the news has been the developments in Tibet, Dave has had to at least put off his plans to travel there and it has the potential to effect my plans too. Until someone has the balls to stand up to China I don’t think anything will change but if this continues it will definitely be a black cloud over the Beijing Olympics. Hopefully I’ll still be able to visit Tibet by the time I get there.

So I went in for my initial consulate today. Starts with the usual form filling, it’s fun to put in more counties than the form allows. I was expecting and hoping to actually start some of the ones that would require courses and maybe some that were single jabs too.

The doc had a quick look at my form making sure I was healthy enough and then started going through what I knew would be a pretty long list, and after all the scribble as we went though each one that might apply to me it looked like it would be easier to just rob a pharmacy.

There ended up being 6-7 I need to worry about. I had a Tetnus shot about 10 years ago so I am due again now. Hepatitis A and B are for sure. Typhoid will be on the list. Rabies and Japanese Encephalitis (JE) I have to consider and I also need to find out if I’m immunised for Measles, Mumps and Rubella(MMR), I have a feeling I may be missing the Measles part so that will more than likely be added.

So I did start them today. I had a Tetnus shot that also combined Diptheria and Polio. A combined Hep A & B and I have the Typhoid tablets to take over the next 7 days. That burned a bit of a hole in the pocket.

• Tetnus - $70
• Hep A & B - $65
• Typhoid - $50

• Consultation fee - $90
• Immunisation service fee - $10.85

So that all came to $285.85 Australian. They estimated I would get around $70 of that back through Medicare. and fortunately I won’t have to pay the Consultation fee again.

So that will be Tetnus and Typhoid crossed off anyway. The Hepatitis shot requires two more, one in one month and another in 6, which I won’t be around for. I can get that when I get back or even while I’m away if I’m inclined. I don’t feel that I will need JE. Rabies is worth considering but it is expensive and fairly unlikely that I would get it, but it will kill if not treated very quickly.

Of course the other thing we talked about was Malaria, other than Hep A and Travellers’ Diarrhoea it is the most likely thing to pick up. I was given pretty much three options, Doxycycline (Daily), Larium (Weekly) or fever medication (which amounts to nothing). I’m not sure how I would go taking a tablet daily, it wouldn’t faze me I’m just not sure if I would remember it, I struggle to remember to take my vitamins daily. Maybe I would be better knowing what it prevents though. I have heard about Larium and it’s side effects which it sort of scary but then all Malaria medications have side effects, the doctors exact words were “about 1 in 10 people have the bad side effects on Larium, it is a good medication you shouldn’t be scared of it”. It might be worth testing it but I’m not sure that I would be any better remembering a weekly tablet over a daily one. I’d probably be worse. Anyway they gave me a book that has lots of info on travel health I’ll have a good read through that and decide.

My first Couchsurfer Chin also arrived today so I’ll be showing him around over the long weekend.

Well it’s about time for an update. Hopefully by the title it’s obvious that I have taken the step of actually booking tickets and today marks 100 days until I leave. It should make for an interesting few days with the 29th being my birthday, the 30th my last day at work and the 31st the flight to Sydney to start the trip. I think only a week or two before is my cricket club trip to Melbourne where I’ll have to do my best not to spend too much money. I’m beginning to feel a bit worried about work when I get back so I am think I will reapply for my job when it comes up in a few weeks. I’m on a fixed term which ends on the 30th May and if I retain it I will be permanent which means I can take leave without pay and have a job to come back to when I get back. I was also going to sell my car but that would mean I’ll have to get a new one when I get back putting me a few thousand in debt again on the other hand I can keep it and I just have to allocate about $500 for registration, I’m not sure what I would do about insurance.

Rent has doubled now that I am minus one girlfriend, which makes money even tighter but I can still do it. Just need to curb my Ebay purcahses. In the next week or two I’ll have to got to the travel doctor to start vaccinations. I also have to organise accommodation, for Sydney, Gold Coast, Airlie Beach and Cairns, plus a few other things I’ll be doing along the way while still in Australia.

I have to say thanks to the subsrcribers here, it appears that although I haven’t posted in two months I somehow manged to keep numbers the same. Between here and Facebook I hope I can keep things a lot more up to date from now on.

I’ll try to finish off my post about the Overland Track as soon as I can and hopefully it will be the next post or close to you will see here.

Just a quick note to say Happy Holidays and remind you that I’m off on my hike tomorrow. I’ve added flickr notes to a pic of what I’m taking with me. There is some shared stuff in my GF’s pack that isn’t included but I might add hers later. Click on the photo to get the notes.

I’m looking forward to this, most of I’m looking forward to seeing a sky full of stars again. I think it’s been a long time since I last got to see the whole night sky. Anyway so we have an early start tomorrow, dropping the dog off at the kennel and then the drive and start of the car shuffle to get up to Cradle Mountain. We have a night there and then we start, 80km in 5-6 days. Hopefully it doesn’t kill me.

We’ll been gone for new years too so Happy New Years. Have a great time.

I installed the latest updates for Wordpress and Coppermine the other day. Unfortunately this time it hasn’t gone all smoothly. It appears my Feedburner feed is now broken and Coppermine isn’t able to access the SQL database anymore so none of the pics I’ve hosted are appearing. I am working on it, hopefully it will be sorted soon.

Oh great, as I type a new error appeared. Fun for me

Update: Feeds seem to be working again, I’ve updated the Feedpress plugin. I’ve disabled the Coppermine plugin for now so the Gallery is gone and the error at the top of the page. That should have things under control for now, let me know if you see anything wrong.