Michelle and Brock were married at the Albert Park and Port Melbourne Baptist Church on the 12th of January 2008. For their wedding gifts, they setup a Flight Centre Wedding Registry, hoping to fund an extravagant overseas holiday. And largely thanks to the amazing genirosity of their family and friends, they are off to see everything (almost) there is to see in South East and Central Asia.
Starting in Bangkok at the end of May, we are travelling initally to Cambodia, visiting Siam Reap, the beach and Phnomh Penh, then going to Vietnam where we get to see Ho Chi Minh City, Nha Trang, Hue, a couple of other places and then Hanoi. From Hanoi we fly to Vientiane in Laos, travelling north towards Luang Prabang and then into the heart of the dragon, China!
Starting in China in Yunnan province travelling through the tibetan foothills and walking Tiger Leaping Gorge. After spending a week or so in Yunnan, the plan is to train north to Chengdu then join a river cruise down the Yangzi River on a boat shaped like a dragon! From there it is a bit of a clean slate until we join another tour starting in Beijing - The Silk Road!
The Ancient Silk Road has been used by traders from the beginning of civilisation and Shell and Iare going to see it in style, from a train going at about 100 miles an hour! Before the ardours of long train journeys are irreversibly burnt into our collective memories, we will spend time in both Beiing and the ancient capital of Xian. From Xian the trains set out west through the Gobi desert to ancient oases such as Kashgar and another place starting with T or maybe D.
Leaving China just before the start of the olympics we enter the little known and frequently misspelled Kyrgzstan, a mountainous and secluded piece of Asian heaven previously locked up tight by the Soviets. Alpine lakes and mountain tracks will be the order of the day for a while until we arrive in Uzbekistan, the world champion of cotton growing. While we've read the tour notes and looked at the atlas frankly we have no idea of what the central Asian states will be like. Very Interesting and exciting is My bet.
Finally leaving Tashkent, we will fly to Moscow and spend a while between there and St Petersburg. After seeing the sites in the old Russian capitals we escape back to the West via the train to Helsinki. After confirming the rumour that Finnish people are as boring in real life as they seem in Nokia ads, we fly to London to our new home (for a year or so at least).
