Gang aft agley

Okay, so the real reason for starting this blog was to have someplace to post journal entries from the road. See, my wife and I were planning a long trip later on this year. We've travelled quite a bit before and have been totally truant when it comes to keeping a journal. This is fine when you're young: everything is so damned profound (how could I ever forget the name of that bloke I roomed with in Brighton for 2 days who taught me what a bottle toke was?). I was young, and my memory was indomitable. Journals were inadequate; I was too busy taking it all in and, anyways, I was lazy.

Well, now, with these once-profundities slipping out of my slowly aging brain and into the ether, I realise how vital it is to make at least some notes. 50 years from now, sitting somewhere in a cottage and finally getting down to writing my memoirs, I'd better have something to look back at, cuz by then I won't remember a bloody thing.

Anyways, the trip. Vancouver to Hong Kong. Then, 3 months in SE Asia, hitting everything save Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei, then from Bangkok or KL to Kampala, Uganda. This would be the pitstop for this leg of the race. 6 weeks there to rest up with family (with excursions to Tanzania), then off to Tashkent. 3 months split between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, the Punjab in India, and northern Pakistan, before bussing the Karakorum into western China. Then back through China slowly till we hit Hong Kong again. Laden with cheap electronic goods and all the road dirt and grime of Asia, we return home.

We've both been in the workforce for a couple years now, and before we get too crusty and cynical (working in an office can do that to you), or too bogged down with mortgages and babies, we thought we'd quit our jobs and hit the road. Anyways, that was the plan.

Where's this all going? For reasons profound and unforeseeable (but which, thankfully, don't include babies), our plans are now on the brink of total cancellation. This was to be the Great Escape... the one last exert of Adventure! before we settled into Suburban Mundanity. But now we're stuck in Vancouver for the next few years.

So that's what life has turned into -- for now. I'll write more about the planned trip -- post some pretty ideas about adventures that were to come. Who knows, maybe -- just maybe -- things will work out and we'll be posting pics from Samarkand after all. You never know.