On a Jet-Plane to London Tomorrow!

Hi loyal readers! (aka my friends under extreme duress)

I'm back after a travel hiatus of just under 30 days.

First of all, there's a glitch in my posterous account that's posting from my new concept facebads.posterous.com (the service is really awesome, a buddy of mine started it, and you should sign up at www.posterous.com) I will fix that shortly. I'm not converting this blog into a facebook ad critique circus... yet.

So I just checked in online at BA.com and got my travel companions back row seats in the premium economy section. Only 36 in our premium economy cabin versus 227 in the back two cabins of coach. Woo hoo! Apparently our back row seats will recline all the way... crossing my fingers. The gang and I scored RT tickets for around $500 which also includes a $50 one way upgrade to Premium Economy on my SFO to London leg. I went for it because of peer pressure, but secondarily because there's 2'' extra legroom 2-4-2 seat rows instead o 3-4-3 rows and electrical plugs in all the seats. I haven't flown BA since I was 10 years old and I don't have great memories (because Singapore Air just rocks the house) so I hope to make some good one's tomorrow!

Most of you know I'm headed to Europe for 2 months, but what you may not know is that I've only planned out 10 of those days, the other 50 are quite up in the air although plans are starting to coalesce around cities where I've got some college buddies and dare I say it, the middle east! More on that when things get finalized.

Our high school crew, which will be 6 people strong on Monday, will be in London for 4 days and then 5 of us will be moving on to Barcelona for another 4-5 days.

Please post any "must see" attractions in the comments section and a question I have for anyone reading this is: what's your take on the value of a EuroRail Pass? There are several types and I'm considering picking one up since I'll be in Europe for so long, but with 1 way flights relatively cheap (avg around $50) I'm wondering if it makes sense. Thanks for any input!

Pre Trip: The Context*** of it All

I'm leaving the country in 4 days. I hope to visit 5 countries over 48 days. The first 20 days will be devoted to South East Asia; my home base will be Singapore. The latter half of the trip will be 28 days in India. It's an ambitious trip for several reasons: (other than the obvious ones of duration and mileage**)

1) I'm rather oblivious. While I've been to India 9 or 10 times since I was a wee babe, I've usually always had everything taken care of in terms of itinerary, flights, etc. My mom and dad always planned our family trips and we never strayed to far away from Bangalore, save for a couple of visits to Bombay which I hardly remember. My most recent visit to India was in the summer of 2003, where I spent 3 months living in the Domlur neighborhood of Bangalore as a Stanford Asia Technology Initiative Fellow working for a biotech company in the area; AKA, we partied a lot, but I didn't leave my comfort zone in South India. I haven't quite spearheaded my own international trip until very recently when I attended my friends wedding in Peru. The other places I've visited are the Bahamas (cruise), Canada (for like 5 hours), and Tokyo, Japan (Lions Club Exchange Program).

2) I'm somewhat lazy. I quit my cushy advertising gig at Google a little over 6 months ago, and I've decided not to work again... for as long as possible. Good luck in this economy right? Actually, things weren't looking so bleak back in May, but I may be in dire straits upon my return to the states. We'll just have to see! So travelling during my self-imposed sabbatical seems to make the most sense. The catch is that I've procrastinated on almost every aspect organizing my Asia trip. I pretty much decided to make this trip a year ago, but only booked my ticket last month (October 1st to be exact). I used miles so maybe it wasn't such a huge deal, but if I had been bargain hunting, earlier ticket purchase would've been better! On a positive note, just yesterday I wired the deposit for the Goa beach hotel we're staying at for New Years. But folks, that's all I've contributed towards my 48 days: a 4 night stay in Goa. 1/12th of my trip planning complete, check! Only 11/12ths to go.

3a) I'm not a fan of flying. Nuff said.

3b) I always get sick in India. And let's just say it always involves copious water-loss. Double nuff said. Crossing my fingers. Trying to make a deal with the patron saint of Protozoa.

4) I've never really traveled alone (and I'm somewhat paralyzed with fear). And I'm not traveling alone for parts of this trip, but there will be times when I'll be totally on my own in a foreign land, perhaps with a tour group, but perhaps not! I anticipate solo travel in Thailand and Cambodia and certain legs of my India journey. Just missing out on that extra brain scares me a bit because you can never have too many extra brains to help you decipher maps, languages, customs, or expat style party stratagem. I know, I should have said "strategery", but it's been played out.

If you've gotten this far, thanks! I hope you enjoy my onslaught of posts. And I hope I can actually keep up with the foreign correspondence from internet cafes in Asia. This past August I learned first hand that Peru had funny Spanish keyboards that screwed me up while IMing. Japan's keyboards are a menace to society. India should have US friendly keyboards since everyone who can use a computer probably speaks a decent amount of English. SE Asia, I have no clue.

I said earlier that I'm not traveling alone for parts of my trip and I wanted to provide details. I'm flying out on the SFO-Changi, Singapore leg with my college buddy and bandmate, Ravi. On Nov 26th we'll separate while I stay in SE Asia and he continues to India. In mid December we'll be crashing a wedding in Pune, doing toursity stuff in Rajasthan, a rolling the dice for a wild card Indian destination (Darjeeling, Darjeeling, Darjeeling! please!) Oh and how can I forget, the impetus for this whole Asia tour: New Years in Goa. Let's just say that it started with a young man's dream and a summer of 2006, travel article in the San Jose Mercury. And by that I mean I read a cool article in the newspaper 2.5 years ago and have wanted to visit Goa ever since. That's with Ravi, for the rest of my trip I'll be meeting up with family in places like Singapore and Bangalore. There's also a chance I'll be catching up with old Stanford friends in SE Asia.

Phew, that was long! Cheers!

** notice "cost" is not included in this "obvious list" that's summarized by the wise words of Jermaine Dupree, "Money ain't a thang."
*** did I really provide enough context here? maybe I'll host a poll asking people if they had any understanding of my motivations for world-travel based on this first post...