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| "Wasn't he pointing the other way?" |
All this time, Matt and I were thinking that we'd be traveling from EAST TO WEST, going from Northeast Asia (starting in Japan), Southeast Asia, Africa, Middle East then Eastern Europe (leaving from Western Russia). There were a few reasons we chose this. 1) We are on a budget, and from what we've heard from those that have traveled in Southeast Asia say that your buck goes a long way - from food to clothing to hostels (or even monasteries). Our thoughts were that we should start spending our money in the less expensive countries of SE Asia before we headed to the more expensive Middle East and Eastern Europe. That way we could see how much money we had left and spend accordingly, ie. to splurge or not to splurge. 2) We are intending to stay in Asia the longest amount of time (6 months out of 13 months on the road) and didn't want to run out of time before we got to Asia. Lastly, 3) Getting adjusted to time zones is supposedly a little easier when traveling from East to West.
BUT, all that changed when we started investigating weather patterns for each of the regions. It turns out that starting in May meant that we would be visiting SE Asia during the summer months, which we've read is the less desirable time to visit. In other words, we would be smack dab in the middle of the rainy season. Oh, well! We'd have fun either way and were thinking whatever, no biggie, let's go anyway. But, then we checked when we would be in Eastern Europe and found out that we'd be getting there (according to our time schedule) around Winter time. Hello cold fingers and frosty noses. SOOO, we had some thinking to do. Our hearts were set on going from EAST TO WEST and we had already been doing all sorts of research for that part of the world, getting all excited. Nevertheless, we talked it through (and I mean A.D.D. style - for like 3 days) and decided changing plans is what it's all about. If you find out some info and it turns out to be better than originally planned, roll with it. So, that's what we did. WEST TO EAST we go, starting in Western Russia (St.Petersburg or Moscow). Time to get excited about a different part of the world and get to buying our first plane ticket. Yay! :)
Here's our itinerary thus far:
