It has to be said that, for me, 2015 has been a great year! I have, after all, been to 8 countries this year (including Germany last week to visit the Christmas Markets with my daughter and her partner). Since returning home in July I have worked as a house sitter, a part time teacher and a waitress (thought I needed some experience in hospitality in case I want to work abroad in the short term). In September I sold my previous home and so have taken up residence (in between house-sitting assignments) in my daughter's spare room: for this I will be forever grateful to her!
The Autumn term is drawing to a close now and Christmas is rapidly approaching - I feel it is time to start planning once more. I still have my health and so have challenged myself to live in a remote place for a while. This idea has been swishing around inside my head for many years and I had thought that the Pentrefoelas moors may provide a suitable location. However when the opportunity to volunteer in a small village in the Everest region of Nepal arose, I grabbed at it as I suspect that this will indeed prove to be pretty remote ... and it is only for 6 weeks so the end will always be in sight if I hate it! Such confidence!
So one piece of the jigsaw was in place. I have friends who relocated to northern Italy a few years ago and so a visit to them would enable me to renew our acquaintance and also explore a country I have never been to before. Another piece of the puzzle found.
The agency I joined as a house-sitter provided the stimulation for the third piece: a seven week post in Brunei looking after 3 young dogs whilst their owner visits the UK - I admit that I had to look on a map to find Bandar Seri Begawan despite having visited the region previously!
So Brunei it will be from the end of April until the early days of June!
As yet, the jigsaw is by no means complete, but I am currently trying to place a fourth piece: my childhood dream of travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway ... or in my case the Trans-Mongolian Railway! This I feel would be a fantastic way to travel back to Europe at the end of the adventure in June/July 2016. However it is also proving to be the most difficult part of the trip to arrange: visas for Russia can be granted a maximum of 6 months before arrival BUT must be obtained from their agencies in London or Edinburgh in person so that bio-metric data can be collected. A visa for China must be obtained in your home country (London, Manchester, Edinburgh) BUT can only be granted three months ahead of travel (I am leaving the UK 6 months before arriving in China if this plan works). I have however finally found a loophole which means by paying a bit more I can apply 6 months in advance for a dual entry visa even though I only need single entry! Lastly the Visa for Mongolia can only be issued 3 months before travelling there, BUT can be obtained in Singapore.(I will just pop in to Singapore whilst in the region!) So a rather complicated picture has emerged: it requires quite a bit of logistical planning and travelling to Manchester and Edinburgh in early January before I leave the UK .....and keeping everything tightly crossed that they all grant me the visas!
So the jigsaw pieces are all at least on the table and all I have to do now is arrange them into some sort of travel plan! Very exciting! So far I have booked my flights from Manchester to Milan, from Rome to Kathmandu and from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing ... no precise idea what happens in between these yet though. I have made sure that all my inoculations are up to date and bought my back-packers insurance ... I am also experimenting with wearing a variety of layers of clothing as the first 3 months of this adventure will be pretty cold I fear ...oh yes and doing all sorts of exercises (when I remember) so that heeding calls of nature whilst in Nepal will not result in severe back problems or worse .... so I am getting there I guess.
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