inverter face

I leave in 6 days. It’s raining in Mumbai, and in Delhi, and in Agra, so it looks like the monsoons are still about. I've been researching more on India and I like the look of the north. I may try to venture in to Nepal as well. Mountains, camels and elephants have recently been added to my ‘to do’ list. I've been told there's flooding in the north of India, near Nepal. I may not be going there anymore. Downer.

I've had my photograph taken in one of those machines for visas and the like. I don’t like it how you’re sat there looking in to the camera, staring at your own face thinking ‘that’ll do’, then you press the big green button, it flashes, then it shows your face again looking like a goon. They take your face and invert it so it doesn't really look like you. In short, I have a backwards face, and I'm not too pleased about it.

I took all of my new gear to Keswick at the weekend to test it out. The mosquito spray was useless, as was the penknife. I sprayed a badger and knifed a squirrel but they were never real threats to my safety. The best thing I took by far was the head torch. Mainly for the fun factor. You feel like you're in a swot team, when all you're really doing is annoying people.

so it begins

getting organised for this trip hasn't been as easy as i expected. mainly because i didn't know what to expect. meaning i hadn't really thought about it. i bought my trip in the kensington olympia branch of STA on my first trip to the branch. i had a rough idea of what i wanted to do, which was to go everywhere in the world. my lack of planning was apparent as i went through my itinerary with Ben from STA. after nearly 3 hours of chatting a mixture of impossible routes, pandas and maps we came up with a trip which actually looked realistic. Ben removed Madagascar, New Zealand, Japan, Fiji, Cancun and North America from my trip. these are all small places where very little happens so i'm fine with that. i bought a place on the inca trail, some travel insurance and an australian visa. it all came to around £2200. i put it on my credit card, Ben gave me about 12 sheets of A4 paper, and that was that. spending money is far too easy. Ben basically designed my trip for me and for that i will be eternally grateful. unless it goes massively wrong, then i know where he works.

picking up visas for China, Mongolia and India were all different experiences, all had their hiccups, but neither was a real pain in the arse. i waited at the indian visa centre for 1 hour before deciding to sample the delights of the local Victoria greasy spoon cafe to kill some time. true to form i re-entered the visa centre to discover i'd missed my place in the queue. the extremely kind woman on the front door let me push in, thus ill-tempering many frustrated indians. 3 days later it was ready for collection.

by far the most interesting of the visa centres i visited was the Mongolian embassy. one man sat behind a desk in an underground living room. i expected to be able to fill in an application form in the centre, like in the Indian and Chinese centres, but this is Mongolia, everything is online in Mongolia. Bill Gates is Mongolian. after filling the form in a local internet cafe i returned to hand it in. the man behind the desk didn't remember me. i'm fairly sure i was the only person in the embassy that day.

injections have been the real pain in the arse. I've left everything too late, therefore I'm heading off without an immunity to hepatitis b, rabies and some sort of Japanese disease. all should be fine, as long as i avoid any temptation to play with needles and dogs frothing at the mouth. that's about as medical as i get. you can get most of the injections on the NHS, but i decided it would be better to spend over £150 in a private centre. so that's nice.

finally, all i need to do now is sort things out like money, clothes, accessories and the like. all of this will be done in good time, or possibly not at all. all that's important is that i get on a plane to Mumbai on September 1st. then the adventures begin. i'm planning on doing something different and something good on every day of my trip. we'll see how that pans out.