Just before the final kitchen cleanup, everything must go.
Everything.
So here’s today’s recipe which consists of the remaining cans in my kitchen. As it turns out, the contents were surprisingly tasty.
Recipe of the day: Mixed cans
Leaving things behind
It is now eight days since documenting visa week. So this week was the cleanup week in my old flat. I still live here for a couple of days, though. Yeah – sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor. It looks like I definitely can’t wait to leave.
Рето в Берн (Reto in Berne)
This was visa week. Whew – lots of traveling and queueing. But I got all the necessary documents for the start of my trip. My passport currently contains the visa for Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. I still need to decide where to get the Chinese one (Zurich, Almaty or Ulanbataar).
Most notably, the Mongolian visa will be done while staying in Irkutsk, since the Embassy here in Switzerland is just too far away (sic!).
Under normal circumstances, I might try to send the Mongolian application by mail – but Easter holiday is taking away valuable processing time at the Embassy. Moreover, since I’ll be moving out from my current flat the week after, there is an obvious and serious risk of not receiving my passport back in time before leaving.
Visa, Exchange Rates and Global SIM cards…
Parts of my upcoming journey will cross Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia within six weeks before arriving in China. That gives a total of seven tourist/transit visa to obtain. Most of the travel guidebooks and online blogs from other travelers rightly talk about the “visa hell” when visiting Central Asia (or: the “Stans”).
Continue reading “Visa, Exchange Rates and Global SIM cards…”
Should I take the laptop – yes or no?
The question whether to take a laptop computer on a round-the-world-trip will be answered by anyone you ask in a different way. After reading through a lot of advice on travel forums, I guess it comes – for me – down to answering a couple of questions.
- How long is the journey?
- Are overnight stays planned mostly in individual hotel rooms?
- Blogging a lot?
- Need to edit photographs?
- Have a light / small laptop?
- Renounce to a laptop in case of loss or theft?
There are actually a couple of answers which might point in favor of lugging my old, bulky Acer Travelmate 2300 (3kgs) with me. It is so old, that I don’t really mind anyone stealing it. But then, what’s the point of bringing it along if I don’t mind not having it anymore. Yes, I like to crop, edit and resize photographs – so that my shots will look perfect when uploading them to the blog. But do I really want to spend my time in the evening – somewhere in the Mongolian desert for example – editing pictures?
What’s this round the world trip thing about anyway?
Most of my close friends already know that I am leaving Switzerland for a couple of months to travel around the globe. Eventually, they have been very helpful in buying most of my legacy electronic gadgets and thus partially financed this trip.
Continue reading “What’s this round the world trip thing about anyway?”