V is for vaccinations and visas. Which sums up pretty much what has been keeping us busy since the last blog entry.

We've had a frustrating time over the past few weeks with our local doctors' surgery. There's been a fair amount of stress caused by various issues such as a part-time GP not having time to review Kirsty's forms, miscommunication between the travel nurse and the GP, misunderstanding about who was advising who, ill-informed receptionists panicking us about the length of time needed to order vaccines and no-one experienced enough to give us advice about antimalarials. However we think we have now resolved the issues and definitely feel that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

In addition to the vaccines we are having (or have had) from our local surgery there are a couple of vaccines that the NHS couldn't help us with, however we were directed to a specialist travel centre that was able to give us the relevant advice and medication.

So far we have had jabs for typhoid, Japanese encephalitis and rabies. We still have to have one more for Japanese encephalitis and a further two for rabies. We have also had the first of two doses for cholera (the vaccine is a drink) and Kirsty has had, in addition, yellow fever, combined diphtheria, tetanus and polio and hepatitis A. The effects of having all the jabs in such a short space of time has meant it has been hard-going and a very lethargic month!

One of the biggest headaches has been caused by our need for antimalarials. Unfortunately for virtually all of our trip we will be in regions where there is a large malaria risk. Even when we are out of these danger zones, it's not long before we have to be back in them again. This leads to an issue as most antimalarials require you to take them for 28 days after you've left a "hotspot". Therefore dipping in and out of danger zones, we'll have to take antimalarials continuously during our trip.

We've done a lot of research regarding the various options finding answers to issues such as whether it's possible to take the tablets in a stop-start manner, whether certain tablets can be taken continuously for the whole trip, whether two different antimalarials could be taken for different parts of the trip, what the side effects are and how much the pills cost. There is not a lot we don't know about malaria now, certainly more than our self-professed "humble GPs' surgery"!!

Yesterday we met with our travel agent again, this time to make our first tentative forays into the world of visa applications. We have completed the paperwork for the visas for Russia, Mongolia and China, which covers us for our Trans-Siberian trip. We just need to send the paperwork off with our passports and sit back and wait to receive our visas.

We will also need visas before arrival for Vietnam and India however we will have to spend some time applying for these while travelling as they can only be applied for a certain time in advance and once issued are only valid for a certain time. We have therefore earmarked Beijing as the place to apply for our Vietnamese visa and Singapore for our Indian one. All other countries either need no visas or they can be obtained upon arrival. One interesting quirk is Thailand which we will be entering overland. This entitles us to 15 days in the country without a visa. If we were to arrive by air, we would be entitled to 30 days.

I officially resigned from my job this month. I had already informed them verbally but have now confirmed it in writing. Initially the reaction was, understandably, one of disappointment. However after explaining why I was leaving there seemed to be a mixture of encouragement and intrigue about our plans.

The accommodation in Quito, Ecuador has also been sorted out this month. We will be staying at the same hostel for the four weeks we're spending in the city, while I attempt to improve my Spanish. It will be interesting to see whether we enjoy the stability in the middle of our trip or whether we will get itchy feet as we'll be so used to constantly moving on. Having had an on-off relationship with learning Spanish (mostly "off" to be honest!) I'm really looking forward to an opportunity to have one-to-one immersion learning for a month.

Only 5 weeks to go.....!