Westward To The South East!

We are off again! This time to experience some of the different tastes, sights and cultures found in SE Asia. A little more exotic adventure to start 2025.

We were last in this area in February, 2007 for an incredible month long travel through Vietnam during a time when it was beginning to reopen to the West. I find it difficult to believe that it was 18 years ago. Time sure does pass in a hurry when looking backwards!

We’ve often discussed returning to SE Asia, however, other places always seemed to be calling us, and of course in 2012 an overwhelming passion for distance walking emerged. That said, we haven’t completely missed this area having sideswiped it during a 2015 stop in Bali, Indonesia at the end of an extended travel. And in 2017 we enjoyed a very special trip to Japan primarily focussed on walking the uniquely spiritual 88 Temple route on the Island of Shikoku. While each distance walking experience has been special in its own way, the 88 remains my favourite. I hold hopes that I will be able to return there for one more wander before hanging up my boots! 🤞Perhaps in 2026? What do you think Annemarie?😂😂 I know I’m pressing my luck🤣

http://caminotime.blogspot.com/2017/03/stage-1-tokushima-to-temple-6-17-kms.html?m=0

Anyway, we’ve come full circle and a return to SE Asia is finally in the cards. During the next 5 weeks we plan to explore parts of Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia. We will start in Malaysia on January 24th which on this side of the International Date Line (IDL) is I think January 23rd, after departing home on January 21st (also from our side of the IDL). It can all be quite confusing!😵‍💫 Our many lovely friends in Australia have this time shift pretty much sorted out, but those of us not too used to crossing the IDL often stumble through the changes. Reminds me of a dialogue from an old episode of M*A*S*H where they were trying to figure out the time in the US while in Korea in order to place a phone call.

Hey, it’s yesterday there and it’s today here. It’s always today here. Yeah, what about tomorrow? Good point, I wasn’t born yesterday.

I don’t know why that exchange has stayed with me. My thanks to Google for helping me to keep the IDL sorted out!😬

I’ve put a copy of the above map in the blog section accessible through the top right corner tab (3 dots). On this map I’ve tried my best to identify our various stops (underlined in blue), including scratching in a few of our stops not otherwise identified. As we will be actively traveling, we decided to pre-book our flights and accommodations to simplify things and to help keep costs down (booking early is often cheaper). The rest we will fill in as we go. A note to my parents, don’t forget that you can expand the map on your tablet.

We are pretty excited to have the opportunity to travel this part of the world. We have survived various inoculations, gathered a bit of the local currencies and our small travel packs are almost ready.

I’m posting this now because our lovely granddaughters and their mom (Caitlin) are arriving here tonight for the weekend to help celebrate my Dad’s 97th birthday. Amazing!! I’m thinking that things at our house might otherwise be a bit too busy to post this before we leave Tuesday morning.

Five more sleeps before we are off on a new adventure!

Geoff🛫🛬🌴🌅