A Pipe Dream (that may come true)

A couple of posts ago I mentioned being given a real gift—a sabbatical to travel and to take a break. After the past couple of years, I am feeling tired, but I get excited when I think about my travel plans… Here they are. They may change and there’s plenty of flexibility in what I hope to do. Although I have 4 months, I’m learning that you can't do everything, even with that much free time!

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Starting at the first of June, I take off for a round-the-world trip. Unless there are unforeseen circumstances, I will fulfill this trip without getting in an airplane. My rough itinerary is to take the train to Oakland, California, board a container ship for Japan and then Hong Kong. The photo is of the actual ship that I’m booked on. I’ll get off in Hong Kong and travel inland into China. There are a few things I’d like to see in the South China, the Li River with its funky looking hills along with Tiger Leaping Gorge (which I hope to hike). In July, I will jog down to Haoni (jog metaphorically, on a train) where I hope to meet up with a friend from Utah who has 16 days to travel with me. We’ll take off on a bus for Vientiane, Laos and then find transportation on a long boat upsteam on the Mekong, stopping at nights to sleep in villages. We’ll end the boat trip at Chiang Khong, Thailand. From there, we’ll bum a ride to Chiang Mai, where we’ll board a train to Bangkok. From Bangkok, we’ll go to Ankor Wat, Cambodia, then by boat to Phnom Phen, the bus to Saigon. Somewhere along the way, he’ll have to be getting back to the states, but I’ll continue on north, with a planned stopped in Hue, before going on to Haoni, then on to China, ending in Beijing. After seeing the sights, my plan is to catch the Trans-Siberian for Moscow, taking it through Mongolia. Having never been to Europe, I plan to come in through the back door! From Moscow, I’ll make my way through Europe, meeting my family somewhere along the way. We’ll come back at the end of August on a cruise ship leaving London for Amsterdam, Brussels and Dublin, before heading north for Iceland, then Greenland, then Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and finally New York. From there, I will continue on home via train (having traveled untold number of miles in four months). There will be many things to see along the way, as well as lots of folks to meet, but as cliquish as it sounds, the journey is the destination.

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By the way, the photo at the bottom is not the ship I will sail on from Europe. But it’s the same company! When I was a kid, I was a stamp collector and a friend of my mother’s mother gave me a whole bunch of post cards. This one was from 1924. There is still a ship named “Rotterdam,” but it’s a little newer than the one here (but not nearly as graceful as those old steamers).