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Wednesday 28 March 2012

Four ways to fight mosquitos


77 B.C.E.

This evening I took the famous test “Which anti-malarial are you?”

We’re talking malarone or doxycycline or lariam or chloroquine. We’re popping pills before we arrive (1 day – 3 weeks depending), we’re popping them while we’re there (once a day or once a week) and we’re still taking them once we’ve left (7 – 28 days depending). Of course, we’re only talking Asia for all this malarkey.

The problem is that we’ll be in Asia for a total of 87 days, plus the lead-in and lead-out periods, so the range of pills is from 18 chloroquine tablets all the way up to 117 doxycyline capsules.

But which to choose? Which to choose???

I have tentatively based my decision on price versus potential side effects versus frequency of having to neck them, but mostly price (you know me so well, budget traveller that I am!) Malarone has by far the least potential side effects, but at £2+ for a pill then we’re looking at over £200, plus the £5 NHS prescription. Nyeargh.

Lariam can cause sleep disorders, and if there’s one thing I don’t want when I’m stuck in a smelly old hostel it’s to wake up in the night screaming and being unable to get back to snoozey-snoozey-dream-land!

Tim took chloroquine when he went to India and he’s now scared stiff of the stuff. It’s giving me the jitters as well.

So doxcycline it is! (Mainly because I’ve seen it quoted for 19 pence a tablet. Can you put a price on not catching malaria? Yes!) The only bugbear is that I should take it after a meal and then stay upright for at least a half an hour…but I so love my post-dinner naps when I get to go to snoozey-snoozey-dream-land!

So after breakfast it is. Must be careful not crouch after taking it though…which could prove difficult with your typical Asian toilet…


Monday 26 March 2012

Potential hostel hassles - part 1


79 B.C.E.

Today I was talking to a girl who did the backpacking thing a few years ago in Australia and New Zealand. She asked if I was getting nervous yet and I confessed that the main thing that’s ever made me think twice about the whole trip (besides the open-wallet surgery) is the thought of sharing hostels with….people. Having lived on my own for the past ten years, the thought of sharing any accommodation induces many negative emotions, especially each morning when I wake up in the comfort of my little Birkdale palace and wonder how I’m going to cope with the sight of four strange smelly bods (plus bro) first thing in the morning…even worse is how are they going to cope with me?!! And that’s just if we’re in a six person dorm – what if they do `em larger??? I may have shared a building with 69 other people in university halls, but at least we had our own rooms!

I was told to be wary of the Irish, because all they ever do is drink. Really? I love a drink, but I also need to take a couple of days off here and there, even when I’m partying hard (which is getting rarer and rarer). I love the Irish people – I’m missing the annual pilgrimage to Limerick my friends are currently on, which I backed out of to prevent more – yawn! – open-wallet surgery. Really wish I was there though, enjoying the craic with, errr, plenty of drinks. Still, I don’t think it’s the fact the Irish drink that’s the problem, it’s just that they (allegedly) never leave the hostel while they’re doing the drinking. All that culture and they choose to stay in a semi-lit TV room watching sports all day and night? That’s not good.  Still, this is from the man who plans to following the European Football Championships religiously while he’s bombing across the USA.

They call it “soccer” over there, Jimbo.

And they think it’s crap. 

Sunday 25 March 2012

Changing stuff

80 B.C.E. (Before Commencing Expedition)... [80 days BEFORE travelling around the world!]

From the back of The Motorcycle Diaries:

“Let the world change you…and you can change the world.”

Love it!

Not sure how much I believe it though.

Would be nice to try and do it on The Trip, somehow…

Technically I changed a tiny part of the world when I set my tent up on some very old sheep droppings earlier in the week. Prior to me arriving they were perfectly spherical little bits of dry dung, and I crushed `em flat. They are changed forever.  Not the best example, I know, but it’s Sunday night and I’m RAMbling. (Geddit???) 

Saturday 24 March 2012

Testing the pictorial function


Tim and James on previous tours, respectively the Canary Islands and...errr...Southport beach.

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Forgotten film


Just remembered I left The Morotcycle Diaries at mum and dad’s house on Sunday – after all that fuss about bringing it back!

Monday, 19th March (Archive)


Went for my appointment at Curzon Road Medical Practice to discuss becoming a human pin cushion in the near future. The nurse was great, but made things sounds a little scarier than I’ve been used to when I told her we didn’t know where exactly we were going in Asia (or when) – don’t you just work on the basis that India is the worst place in the world for diseases and if you’re covered for the sub-continent you’re covered for anywhere??? Apparently not.

Hepatitis A? Check. Hepatitis B? Check. It costs money to get them separately, but if you do them combined on the NHS they’re free – how peculiar is that? But I ain’t complaining! Diptheria-Polia-Tetanus? Check. That’s free as well, and I believe my last booster was when I was about three or four years old. Kind of overdue, I guess! Glad I haven’t been bitten by any crazy farm dogs. And speaking of dog bites, you can’t get a rabies jab done on the NHS and the nurse quoted me £158 from a private clinic!!! Do they use diamond-encrusted syringes or something?!! But it’s not compulsory to be jabbed for rabies, though it is “advisable”…ooooh, what a decision! I checked my Boots price list when I got home and saw rabies offered for just under £50 - I jumped for joy…`til I realised that was the price per injection, and you probably need about three. I’ll have to think on this one.

I’ve always got to think on malaria, which I admit I have underestimated. The nurse has given me plenty of source material and she wants me to read up on this wonderful tropical disease and assess my options regarding what to take. I just love homework at the best of times, let alone when I’m studying possible ways to die at the hands (or teeth) of buzzing blood-sucking parasites! There are several tablets I can take, but as expected the ones with least side effects that need to be taken less often naturally cost more. Why can’t everything be available for free on the NHS???

Nursey was up for jabbing me with the free shots there and then, but I wussed out, preferring to have some build-up time in which to psyche myself up. Plus I was starving and didn’t fancy keeling over on the surgery floor, given how I always feel feint after having a blood test. I’ll see her again in two weeks time when she’ll let me know if I need extra goodies taking care of, such as yellow fever and cholera.

I tell you, talking vaccinations doesn’t half put me off my food! For all of fifteen seconds. 

Sunday, 18th March (Archive)


Tim came over for the Mother’s Day family gathering and he brought back The Motorcycle Diaries, which he watched, and didn’t think to be that good. I guess if the two of us were about to go across South America on a 1940s motorcycle then it would have made more of an impression. We’ll do that some time…maybe in our 40s.

Still have not financially re-adjusted since Tuesday. 

Tuesday, 13th March (Archive)


Spent the last two evenings taking deadly dull footage of me walking round the flat on a borrowed high definition video camera. The deal is that Tim and I will pool resources to get ourselves a joint weapon for capturing the action – refurbished though – no point shelling out for a brand new thief magnet! This two day shoot was the benchmark with which to compare all potential purchases. The footage looked great on the actual camera, but pretty naff when I tried to convert it to a format we could view on our computers. Guess that’s what you get for downloading cheap `n` cheerful video conversion programs that probably contain more viruses than Smedley Hydro in December!

In other news, the bill for the car came to £506, including VAT and tears. Stupid bloody broken brake caliper. Hope the other three don’t go between now and when I get my pension. I may have to financially re-adjust – just as painful as it sounds. 

Sunday, 11th March (Archive)


Was thinking early in the afternoon how several Sundays ago Tim and I were always on the phone discussing flight plans, then a bit before 5 he telephoned out of the blue. Nice, relaxed chat – was wary at first, but enjoyed it when I realised there was nothing negative going down, such as cancelled flights that would need rearranging.

Tim has plotted a line of best fit from east to west coast USA, taking in all the must-see’s and adding plenty of might-see’s. I’d worked out similar routes myself in the past couple of months, but have to admit he’d packed plenty of top towns into his google-maps-project and if we hit them all I’ll be well-chuffed. Only concern is there may be too many, and we might not be able to take anything in for always being on the move. But at least it’s something to print out, put on my wall, and stare admiringly at for the next few months. I’m pleased to say that for everything else we discussed, Tim and I were thinking along the same lines. This is good. Really good.

Unfortunately my car started making abominable gurgling sounds when I applied the brakes. Either the pads have worn out or there’s some kind of fluid blockage – probably from all those damn pine needles that fall from the tree in the front garden. It means I bring my MOT and service forward a week, but it may also mean a bigger bill. I don’t want to be counting every single penny over the next few months, but it’s hard to stop thinking that the X number of pounds I’ll be putting in the mechanic’s pockets could have got me X number of gold ingots in India. Or maybe just a few more nights in a two star hotel, but either way it’s open-wallet surgery. 

Saturday, 10th March (Archive)


Had my first proper dream about travelling last night. I won’t go into details – can’t remember that much anyway – but it felt good. Really good.

Thursday, 8th March (Archive)


Tim agreed to bring The Motorcycle Diaries with him on Mothers’ Day.

Wednesday, 7th March (Archive)


Many moons ago when Tim and I first held vague talks about wanting to travel the world, we both lent each other a film that we felt would inspire the other to want to travel even more. Tim gave me The Beach, which I watched within a week of our trade-off. It wasn’t bad, though it didn’t make me want to visit Thailand any more (why IS Thailand such a choice destination for everyone in the UK??? I guess I’ll find out come October!)

I gave Tim The Motorcycle Diaries. I can’t remember exactly when the trade off took place, but it was when I lived in Aughton Road, so it’s at least a year and a half ago. He still hasn’t watched it.

Now I want to watch it again, so I’ve asked him to bring it over with him in ten days time. Will he think it’s some kind of reverse psychological trick to get him to finally keep his part of the bargain and stick it on the screen? I guess I’ll find out come Mother’s Day!

It is a great film though. 

Tuesday, 6th March (Archive)


Was told by a nice lady at work not to bring a Thai bride back from my travels. 

Monday, 5th March (Archive)


After some prompting, Tim sent through the final version of our travel itinery from STA, which is essentially our tickets in electronic format. It all looks fine and just as agreed, yet I can’t help thinking something serious has not been taken into account. Planning logistical nightmares like this can make the best of us paranoid! And there was I thinking my worrying days were over…

***

 Just went to polish my boots for work and realised I was a little low. Thought to myself as I made a note on the shopping list, “That’s the last bottle of show polish I’ll buy before The Trip.” How many times will I think along those lines in the next few months? I am dreading the last packet of crisps that I’ll buy…

Sunday, 4th March (Archive)


This evening I catalogued all of my worldly possessions – any excuse to stay up drinking! The inventory wasn’t as large as I thought it would be, though I only bothered with the big stuff – the things I either cram into the loft or balance precariously against the wall of my bedroom at Hatfield Road. Not as much is earmarked for the tip as I imagined - I must still be a hoarder at heart. 

Saturday, 3rd March (Archive)


This is the first entry in my travel log in a year in which I am going to circumnavigate the globe.

Tonight I am staying over at my parents’ house while they are away on a Caribbean cruise. I need to remember how to get used to staying here, especially as come early June, I won’t be alone.

I am hungover from last night. I had the day off and apparently my plans to travel the world went public at work. I forget what I heard in a drunken stupour, but I gather all was revealed in the management meeting. Kinda glad I wasn’t there.

I await the public reaction.

Night-night.