To fly or not to fly?

Well as you have read my intention was to do 90% of the way to Australia on boat, bus and train, after the planning session the other day it's just not practical to do this as we want to spend 3.5 months around Europe covering 12 countries. The stumbling block is the Visas for Russia and China, as they both have to be obtained in our own country first as we cannot get them in Europe :( . So this cuts out a massive chunk of the way overland, the other way is through the Middle East, countries like Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and India which would be exciting and terrifying at the same time. So to be safe and give my mum peace of mind it looks like 4 plane journeys are needed to get to Aus.

If you take a look of our basic route plan of Europe on the photo section you will see that we are covering a lot of Europe on land from Paris all the way to Greece through 10 other countries, this may change but the end goal is to make it to Athens for the beginning of August. So I can't be too upset about not flying!

The plan after Europe is to fly from Athens to Cairo, ride a few camels, see the pyramids and get eaten by crocodiles on a dodgy felucca down the Nile. If I survive the crocodiles it's another flight to Hong Kong, with a stop off in Qatar for an hour or two.

In Hong Kong we will be getting the Visas for China and Vietnam, which should be straightforward to get and we can then continue travelling overland again for 4 months, round China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Laos. This should take us up to mid December and from there it's a decision to stay in Malaysia for Xmas or head to Australia? Guess it's wherever we feel comfortable, either way its going to be warm and I'm still hoping for the BBQ on the beach J. Malaysia to Aus will be the next flight as its hard to get from Malaysia by boat, as only cargo ships do this journey and its very, very expensive to get on them.

That's our basic plan, it's all subject to change but best to have a basic route, doing it this way brings in the Pyramids, which we would of missed before but also cuts out Mongolia, something I really wanted to do, but you never know I may make it there yet!

So the dream of not flying has been cut due to Visa restrictions but the adventure continues in a new form.