a guest blogger writes……………
I hear rumours that people are asking “Where are you going?” and all my dear father-in-law can answer is “Hong Kong”. That is true, but even though there is more to it than that, he has good reason for sounding so senile. He’s coming with us and our plans are fluid and constantly under revision. For example, we were loosely planning on heading through Scandinavia to get to London from Tallinn…..but we’ve been invited to spend some time with a family in Latvia and so we’re looking in to going that way. Why wouldn’t you?
But closer in the future…after Hong Kong, we take an overnight train to Shanghai, where we’ll take in the sights for a few days before boarding another overnighter for Xi-an, resting place of the famous Terracotta Warriors. We abide at a cheap youth hostel for a week (originally a traditional Chinese house built around an indoor courtyard apparently) before taking another overnight train, this time to Beijing. This is our launching pad for seeing The Wall and moving on to Mongolia….where we will stay in a number of gers (you know, those felted wool tents) with two or three different families. Then the train journey continues – four days and nights of it across Russia to Moscow. There we “couchsurf” (sleep on the couch of friendly folks who offer hospitality via the internet)….and then we’ll do the same in St Petersburg and Tallinn, Estonia……..after that? Scandinavia or Latvia? We’ll let you know when we do.
July and August will be spent on a history trip round Great Britain – for a couple of weeks one of Rob’s sisters will join us too. We’ll drag old stories out of Dad and record as many as we can!
After that Dad probably zips to Canada with said sister/daughter and then returns to continue on our odyssey to Europe.
Italy calls, Turkey offers good food, Romania is cheap, Poland has old memories….who knows where we’ll end up?
Can you see why this Blog Author is a bit vague about his plans? It’s not his fault.
kiwijoe