"N" got back to me. He's decided he has to reduce his mortgage before he can be free to travel, and proposed going this time next year. I do understand, and he hadn't misled me at all by giving any other indication before. Nevertheless, it's obviously a disappointment. I feel that (completely independent of N) I've put my life on hold pending travelling. The most concrete example of this is that I seem to get a phone call from different headhunters about every couple of weeks, and I've been turning them away for six months now because "I'm taking a year off to go round the world." I've failed to progress with my preparations over the last month or so and now the delay to my original plans is growing.
One of the reasons I haven't been putting the effort into planning is the clash between "romantic" ideas and practical realities. As I mentioned before, I thought the "Long Way Down" was such a waste, rushing through North Africa to follow a hard schedule (e.g. make a specific ferry sailing). I imagined that I could proceed at my own pace, staying somewhere for a week if I liked the place. The reality seems to be that visas must be obtained in advance for the coloured-in places on the map in my last post, which requires stating the date on which you'll enter every country. I'm not sure how much fun it would be to have to proceed at a pre-determined, regimented pace across half of Africa and almost all of Asia. The other alternative would seem to be getting visas hand-to-mouth in countries on route, which could amount to hanging around in cities for weeks waiting for slow embassy cogs to turn.
The other thing about visas is that you don't seem to be able to get them a long time in advance. As they seem to me to be the hardest part of the preparations, I feel that there's a lot of research and "getting ducks in a row" and then the month before leaving will be an orgy of "hurry up and wait" (borrowing the military term), to/from and waiting in various embassies.
I had lunch with good friend Ed (of Overlandy.com) who went down South America, spending 4 months travelling, but 6 months overall. We talked through his experiences and my plans. Tremendously valuable. Problem is that Ed believes it's "ambitious" to attempt my proposed route in a year, and I should budget between 18 months and 2 years. Right now, I've mentally allowed for the trip to spill beyond 1 year, but 2 years is longer than I want to leave UK life on hold.
Even though I could do my route either way round (Asia-first or Africa-first), there's still awkward seasonal constraints that really complicate planning and limit when I can leave the UK. In order, worst-first, the ones I know about include:
- Winter in the Andes (May-September)
- Winter in the Silk Road passes (December-March)
- Rainy season in Africa (December-March)
- Monsoon rains in India and Asia (June-September)
Puzzling over this, I think I can see an Africa-first route starting in April (with the car on a container ship in August and January), but there's bound to be experienced travellers out there who know much better.
Finally, normal house insurance conditions don't cover houses that are unoccupied for more than 60 days, as mine could potentially be. It turns out that they mainly want all the water systems in the house drained down. Could be worse - I just have to teach myself more plumbing. A couple of years ago my central heating pump broke and I just couldn't persuade any plumbers to come and fix it, so in the end I did it myself and it's been fine to the point of writing.
Ok, there have been one or two encouragements. I met an old acquaintance who travels to Laos regularly on business and told me that they definitely have a pay-on-entry visa system (he was actually flying there that night).
Also, I've been obsessing a bit about funding the Carnet. Then Ed told me that his bank provided a guarantee without him actually having the cash deposited. They charged him some interest on the amount guaranteed and would have chased him afterward if the money had actually been required. That was good news and at least one thing off my mind.
Finally, just for interest, here's a map (Wikipedia) showing which countries drive on the left (blue) and right (red) side of the road. I always wondered what happened at land borders between red and blue countries, so here's hoping I find out!
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