Hello again folks! As September begins we are entering the final chapter of our Korean adventure. We have only 3 months remaining until we set out traveling through Asia next year and WE. CAN'T. WAIT!!!
We really enjoy living in Mokpo, and in Korea in general, but our feet are itchy and we are ready to get going somewhere. We are tired of work and it has become more stressful this past month. Our director opened a new academy and it requires more from the students in both the difficulty and volume of the work. In short, its just more stressful than need be. The kids are great but there is no longer time for games just work and studying and there isn't even enough time for that. With so little time left it is hard to get attached to the new academy. After almost a year of this with little to no vacation time we are ready to hit the road and just wing life for a while. Fortunately, that is coming soon enough and we will have heaps of time to relax.
We have ambitious plans for next year and they all start in India! On December 4th we leave Seoul and fly to New Delhi. This has been the plan for a long time but we final have our tickets and it seems that much more real now. Our travel plans will last for more than a year so I think it will be easier to explain this via pictures and steps. So lets start with step 1 because that seems logical.
STEP 1: GO TO INDIA!!!!
We plan to travel around India for 3 months, from December 2012 to the end of February, 2013 (presuming the world doesn't end). A while ago I tried to make a rough plan to follow when we are there and I came up with this:
That is definitely a bit ambitious and we most likely won't get to all those places because India is rather massive but we will give it a shot. We most likely won't head to Kashmir and Jammu (north of New Delhi) or to the Darjeeling area between Nepal and Bhutan as they are rather out of the way, but we will head to Sri Lanka! When we get down south we will either fly from Bangalore or just try to haggle our way onto a cargo ship headed for Sri Lanka. I've read that this is not too difficult and cheaper. We shall see, I am definitely hoping for the cargo ship plan though.
STEP 2: 6-MONTH ESL JOB IN CHINA...OR KYRGYZSTAN
When our Indian adventure is finished we are headed to....well, we don't know yet. We are in the process of searching for a 6-month ESL contract in either China or Kyrgyzstan. We are talking to one school in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan who have been on and off are far as consistent communication. We think it looks like a good opportunity, and certainly something new and interesting, we aren't getting our hopes up yet. We are also talking to a few recruiters and schools in China, they seem a bit more hopefully. An issue we are coming up against is how early we are apply for these jobs. ESL schools don't look to hire until about 2 months before they need teachers and we are 6 months out so we are a little early. We would just like to know where we are going to live before we go vagabond around India. Is that so much to ask?
STEP 3: THE HIMALAYA OF KYRGYZSTAN AND NEPAL
Where ever we end up, China or Kyrgyzstan, we will head to the Himalaya afterwards. If we live in China we will head to Kyrgyzstan for a few weeks to hike and train and kick our selves into better shape. Also, this will give us an opportunity to train at a higher altitude.
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| This is where Kyrgyzstan is if you are wondering |
After exploring the old Soviet stomping ground we will head to Nepal! This (if all goes to plan, which it won't) will be around October/November 2013 so almost a year from now. Oh man, that is so far away! We plan to spend over a month here exploring the mountains and getting our trek on. We hope to first go explore the Annapurna region and then head over to the Everest region and hike to the city of Gokyo. We don't have much interest in Everest Base Camp. If I'm not climbing the mountain than I don't care about saying that I have been on it. There are plenty of other awesome and places to go. Plus, we will hopefully avoid some crowds.
STEP 4: SOUTH EAST ASIA
After several months of backpacking and living in the wilds and towns and villages of the Himalaya we will be ready for a beach vacation so we will hop on a plane in Kathmandu and fly to Hanoi, Vietnam! This being December-ish, 2013. We then plan to spend 6-months making our way by land from Northern Vietnam to Bali, Indonesia. The planned route being to head down the Vietnam coast, do a figure 8 in Cambodia, follow the Mekong River along the Laotian/Thai boarder and into Northern Laos, cross over into Thailand and work our way down to Bangkok, hop on a plane to Myanmar for 2 weeks, fly back, head down the peninsula and into Malaysia, stop over in Singapore, catch a flight to either Sumatra or Java in Indonesia and work our way east to Bali.
After all of this we will finally got on a plane somewhere and head HOME!
This time line gets us home about April/May, 2013. Given this all works, we will have been gone 2 and a half years. If we include our trip to New Zealand, we will only have been home for 3 months in over 3 years. I imagine at this point we will be very ready to come home and see all of our friends and family. We miss everyone and being able to just call or make plans with people. This is our adventure though and we love it, for now, those are just the things we have to do with out. Unless anyone wants to come visit us of course!!!
So that is the plan. We have spent the year planning, budgeting, saving, researching, and re-budgeting over and over again and we are pretty sure we can make it happen. If it works, fantastic, if it doesn't, we tried. We are thinking big and setting out to make it happen because thats the only way it will. Now, all we have to do is survive Korea.
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