Melbourne to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Today has been a typical travel day. The only exception to that was that was that a friend came to the airport to have breakfast and see me off.

Then it was that time. The time to walk through those doors that led to customs and the departure lounges. Somehow for me that is one of the best bits. It means I’m really going.

The flight was uneventful as far as flights go. The good thing was having two seats to myself so I could stretch out. Passing through the airport as a transit passenger was strange. Giving ones passport to a stranger and being handed a small piece of paper in return is some what disconcerting.

I must say that it is an advantage once out of the airport. It is the first time I haven’t been mobbed as soon as I stepped foot outside the airport.

I think Ho Chi Minh is growing on me as a city, or maybe it was just great to be out in the world again. Maybe a bit of both.

The traffic here is it’s usual seething mass of motorbikes, push-bikes, Tuk Tuk’s, trucks and buses going every which way with a chaotic sort of order. I was astounded when we stopped at a traffic light and saw that they were red. I mean we actually stopped for a red light! I thought, ‘wow things do change.’ Then the inevitable happened. The horns started and the bikes, motorbikes, tuk tuk’s, buses and trucks all started edging forward until we were all moving again. The light was still red.

Some how it was a relief. Somethings just do not change, and I’m not sure they should.

Canberra to Melbourne

So it begins.

Sometimes with travel it starts with the familiar.

I was lying in bed waiting for my alarm to go off. Then it hit me. I rolled out of bed quickly checking the time. 0700 hours by my watch. 0600 hours by my mobile. I’d forgotten to set the time on my phone to daylight savings time. Amy alarm was set in my phone.

It is just as well I tend to allow plenty of time to get to the airport including things going wrong!

Still it did not really hit me until I was picking up my bags from the lounge room. I am finally going travelling.

Today the journey begins.

I picked up my cash and travellers cheques at the airport. Travellers cheques, it is an age since I’ve resorted to travelling with travellers cheques. I much prefer using my credit card and ATM’s. Still there are parts of the world that that is not really a viable option due to the distinct lack of ATM’s and Lao’s is apparently one of them.

You see it is the signature that gets me into trouble. The first few cheques are fine, the signature still looks like mine so matching the signature on encashment is not really a problem. By the time one gets to the end of signing my signature has mutated to a line with a few bumps in it. Matching that at the other end can be problematic.

So there I was sitting near the window at the airport signing my cheques, wondering how I was going to match the squiggle my signature had mutated to when the boarding call came.

I can worry about matching the squiggle when the time comes. For now I’m off to Melbourne.

The first, small, step begins.

So I only have a few days to go, well 5 days to go.... I am pretending that that is a few.

Most things are done, airfare, insurance, ‘nice’ nights accommodation booked.  I only have to get the travellers cheques and cash.... then pack..... then leave.

I just looked at the countdown again…

It is still 5 days, oh well. 

Maybe that should be, It’s only 5 days!!!!!

Ok I’m not sure if this is going to work yet.  I guess I will not know until I post it but at least the image uploaded this time.  Still right now it just looks like a rather meaningless string to me.  Even if it does work I still basically have a problem.  While I can make the photo’s suitable for publishing on the web on my home computer I have no idea how I’m going to manage when overseas.

It must be possible though because I have seen other travel journals with images uploaded on them and from what I can work out most of them are using internet cafes while travelling.

Oh the image is one of the pictures I took while in Cambodia in 2003, in Angkor.

I still haven’t had much luck putting the random image box on my home page.  I just can not seem to get it to work, it is very frustrating.  I hate it when there are instructions but whoever wrote them has written them as if you already know what you are doing, which in this case is not correct!

I’m wondering if this one is smaller in size, I hope so because the other one was huge.  Still at least it works.

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I paid for my airline tickets, travel insurance and accommodation the other day.  That has left a, um, slight dent in my savings account.  Still that is what it was for.

18 days, 1 hour, 2 mins until I leave town to head off for my trip.  Not that I’m counting, the computer is doing it for me.

I managed to get a header and links to my website up the top of the gallery the other day.  It is amazing what difference having a day off can make.  I just opened the file and altered the template and it actually worked.  Well sort of.  So it does not look too flash at this stage, still I do not mind.  I just wanted it to work.  I’ll worry about how it all looks later.

The next thing I’m trying to work out is to put a photo on the journal pages.  One would think these things would be easy.  There is a little upload button that apparently does this for you but it just tells me the files are too large and while I’m sure I should be able to use the images that I import into gallery I’m not sure how to do that yet.

More things to play with!