Asia Trip: Visas and more

For those of you who are the least bit interested in the progress of my epic Asian adventure planned for the end of the year, a quick update. I'm at what is known as the Boring Bureaucracy Stage of planning. Have a pile of Visa applications to sort through for six of the nine countries I'll be visiting, each of them with their own quirks and bizarre formatting.

I'm also starting to realise the enormity of the land travel I am planning in the early part of the trip. Based on Bangkok, I hope to visit Rangoon, Phnom Penh, Vientienne and Hanoi all within 5 weeks. Already I've found out that Rangoon cannot be accessed via land (whatever happened to that Thai-Burma railway that was built?!!) and the others are going to be rather torurous. True, that is part of the fun of travelling, but it looks like it will be crammed with cattle - possibly literally - on a truck, a bus or a train. No sarcasm intended, I can't wait.

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