Kindness of Strangers

Last night, I had my first dream about the trip. I’m not sure what prompted it, but it didn’t seem to portend anything very good.  In the dream we are in Indonesia, and have somehow managed to find ourselves deep in the jungle, in the middle of a military coup. Needing to evacuate further into the tropical tangle of vines and creepy bugs, we are prodded to pack a prescribed list of clothing as quickly as possible. I am frantically trying to decide what to pack, and can’t seem to locate my backpack. With the soldiers fast approaching, clothes spilling from my arms, I yell at Maikael, “I knew we never should have come on this trip!”

I’m not sure if this dream reflects a fear of being trapped in the midst of a potentially volatile situation, or my impending anxiety about packing for this trip.

One of the most common question we hear regarding the planning process is, “What are you going to pack?” The simple answer is:  I have no clue.  Packing philosophies seem to differ vastly between travelers. Some people swear by jeans; others say they are the single worst item to pack. Some books encourage men to pack one pair of shorts, which will double as swimming trunks and walking shorts. Others say sandles are the only type of shoe you need, which I’m still trying to figure out. Everyone seems to be in agreement that you should never bring a hairdryer, but I’m bringing mine anyways. My grand compromise is that I’ll leave the straightening iron at home.

I’ve been looking to two of my favorite RTW travel sites for guidance. Susan and Grace at Thirteen Months have an entire section of their website dedicated to what they packed. I am fascinated by their specificity and love of the Ex-Officio brand. The Lost Girls’ packing list seems to fly in the face of conventional RTW packing wisdom, for they include such items as “dressy tanks,” dance tights, dresses, and 12 pair of underwear. They are from New York, though, and, as a consequence of their beefed up packing list, look very chic in most of their pictures. But the general consensus, even amongst The Lost Girls, is that less is more.

If the anxiety about what to pack wasn’t enough, figuring out what to pack it in is even worse. I have no doubt that the fact that I couldn’t locate my backpack in the dream is a deep manifestation of this fear. The big debate is: wheeled backpack or traditional backpack? You would think this would be an easy decision, but I’ve spent hours pondering the matter. Wheels are heavy and will inevitably suck as I slog through day three on the Milford Track. But most of our time will be spent away from hiking trails, in which case wheels are very convenient.  One must also consider issues of weight and carry-on requirements, which the airlines have recently clamped down on. Sometimes I feel as if I am living, breathing GRE logic problem. 

We decided to take a weekend off from trip planning.  Until we finalize our itinerary and purchase our plane ticket (which we’re not quite ready to do) we’re at a bit of a standstill, so now seemed like the perfect time to take a breather.  I knew exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday:  seeing Be Kind Rewind, the new Jack Black film, costarring Mos Def.  It is a film I had been been looking forward to for months, and Ebert called it a “whimsical…amusing film,” which was exactly what I needed.

Let me begin by saying that I really wanted to love this film.  But what I thought would be mindless fluff quickly devolved into mindnumbing boredom.  The characters were quite possibly the stupidest grouping of humans that I have ever seen assembled on the silver screen.  The plot was ridiculous, and not in a good way: there is the suspension of disbelief, and then there is just plain disbelief.  I have only walked out of one movie in my life, and I really wanted to make this one my second.  But it was my day off, and I was supposed to be having Fun.  Not only that, but the film’s WTER stared me straight in the eyes.  In researching visas on Friday afternoon, I discovered the $13 spent on tickets would nearly cover the cost of my Egyptian vistor visa (good for 30 days).  How could a two-hour movie — especially a really bad one — ever equate to 720 hours in Egypt?  The guilt was palpable.  (I also learned, in the course of my research, that overstaying your visa in Indonesia could result in five years of imprisonment.  And, while you are eligible for a stay upward of 90 days in Peru, the operative word is upward:  the Peruvian official will make that determination when you make your way through immigration in Lima, based on unstated criteria, so good luck!)

I soldiered through the movie.  After returning home and taking two aspirin, I determined that my lovely day off was ruined.  So why not do our taxes?

More WTER moral conundrums abound.  Today I called the totally awesome New Mexico Travel Health Clinic (who, incidentially, has the best billboard EVER) to figure out what vaccinations we would need to receive prior to departure.  It turns out we need to start with the yellow fever vaccine, because some South American visas require proof of this particular vaccination.  It also turns out that this vaccine costs $99 per person (certificate included!).  My dilemma is this:  can trip-related costs carry a WTER?  Technically, a vaccination is a WTER.  But it’s just not very much fun, and I can’t help but feel that only fun trip-related costs should receive a WTER .  Then again, visas aren’t a lot of fun, either; although, visas lead to more fun things than vaccinations.  Japanese encephilitis, anyone?  

We thought we had the last laugh.

After deciding to purchase our RTW ticket through American Airlines’ One World Alliance, we began the arduous task of using their on-line, interactive map to plan our itinerary.  The One World program can be an excellent value, but it is mired in bureaucracy; I feel pretty confident that some government official created it.  What looks like planning a simple route soon becomes an exercise in artfully dodging red tape.  Ten hours later, you’re scratching your head, wondering how you’ll ever get from Europe to Asia using two of your twenty alloted legs (only 15 of which can be stopovers).  It is, quite simply, a logistical nightmare.  Hindsight is 20/20, and if we could do one thing over, it would be communicating with the airlines earlier in the process. 

But it’s more complex than that.  I am someone who hates to be told “no,” so I usually avoid tasks at which I think there is a good chance that I’ll be disappointed.  This, I believe, is the chief reason I didn’t want to call the airlines earlier.  I knew it would be complicated, and I knew they would take down each of our carefully crafted plans one by one, like ducks in a carnival shooting gallery.  And they did.  We have created nearly 20 versions of our itinerary, and each one has contained a fatal flaw that catapults a wrench in the works, gumming up our plans and causing us to start all over again. 

We thought we had pulled the ultimate fast one over on American Airlines.  In becoming initmately involved with the ins and outs of the map, Maikael discovered what looked to be a direct route from Rome to Sydney.  While you, dear reader, may consider this an insignificant detail, it represented a major coup.  We are interested in the One World Explorer pass, which bases your ticket price on the number of continents visited — not on mileage, as is the case with the Global Explorer pass.  Therefore, in bypassing Asia completely, we could save nearly $800 per ticket, plus the cost differential between the two plans, of which the continent-based program is cheaper. 

We were practically dancing around the house singing, “This is it!”  We excitedly called American Airlines, who proceeded to dash our hopes and dreams.  They told us that there is a stopover in Hong Kong between Sydney and Rome.  And, because you are required to change planes and, therefore, set foot on Asian soil, it counts as a continent, as well as an additional leg. Have you ever heard the sound of American Airlines laughing at you?  It sounds like this. 

This seemingly minor issue kicked off a two-day process of revamping our itinerary, becoming way more familiar with the interactive map than we would care to admit.  By Saturday night we were haggard and embittered.  It was becoming clear that there was no ideal itinerary, and that we were going to have to make some difficult decisions.  Destinations had to be cut.  But how do you decide between the Galapagos and Easter Island, knowing the chances of ever seeing either of those hard-to-reach locations is slim to none?  I had grown so tired of this planning process that I wasn’t even sure what I wanted anymore.  I couldn’t remember the places that had initially excited me.  I began to wonder:  at what point are you being flexible, and at what point are you giving up your original vision?  At this juncture I didn’t even know what my vision was, and I wanted to bag the trip completely.

We decided to clear our heads over Chinese.  At the end of the meal I cracked open my fortune cookie to reveal the following message:  “One always regrets what one should have done.  Remember that next time.”  It was a message from the universe, albeit in cookie form.  I would be more likely to regret not going on this trip than making a few compromises.  In the end, the things that were dragging me down were just details:  stone heads instead of blue-footed boobies. 

We went home and, pumped full of MSG, cranked out our best itinerary yet.  We called American Airlines this morning with the final three versions of our itinerary, and for the first time they didn’t shoot down each one like clay pigeons.  We may still have the last laugh. 

Perhaps I am revealing my travel ignorance here, but there are a lot of wacky airlines that I never knew existed.  However, thanks to my friend, Amanda, I have been enlightened.  As a resident of Bangalore, India, Amanda has been helping us to explore the many budget, regional carriers that serve Asia.  There is Yatra, Jet Star, Tiger Air.  Yesterday I discovered Air India, whose website is described as, “the entity into which Air India and erstwhile Indian [Airlines] have been amalgamated.” Erstwhile:  not a word you use every day. 

But my hands-down favorite low-cost carrier is Thailand’s Nok Air. The reasons are numerous. First, their mascot is a beak. Not a chicken. A beak.  While this provides the perfect canvas for the nose of their aircrafts, I can’t think of many airlines who choose a body part as their totem.  Secondly, you can visit the Smile Shop for your buying pleasure. Here you can purchase Nok Air promotional items, including inflatable Nok airplanes, bizarre watches, and clothing emblazoned with the tell-tale beak.  Third, their flight attendants are dressed like a cute, NASCAR pit crew, with their jaunty crimson ball caps and matching zip-up jackets.  What’s not to love?

I read an article on the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, and was disappointed to learn that we won’t get our estimated $1,200 check until mid-May.  This means no bolstering our trip fund until we’re nearly ready to depart.  But there is a silver lining to this seemingly dark cloud.  Our friend, Pete, happened to read my post on the rewards we will reap from the Act.  He had a brilliant plan:  why don’t we track how we spend our stimulus act monies, and report it via our blog in WTER terms?  So, beginning in July, get ready to be wowed and amazed by how we will stretch $1,200 over the course of eight months.  Thanks for the idea, Pete!

Round-the-world travel is a complete subculture.  It even has its own name:  RTW.  In our research, we discovered that there exists a whole brand of travel agents who specialize in RTW airline tickets.  Like, seriously, that’s all they do all day:  book tickets for people like us.  Being a career counselor I find this fascinating, and can’t help but wonder who ends up pursuing that line of work.  As someone who can barely use Orbitz to find a simple airfare from Albuquerque to Phoenix, this job is my worst nightmare.  I imagine ex-backpackers, hopped up on caffeine, furiously chewing gum and typing madly, smoke whisping from their fingers.  They know all the airline abbreviations.  They know the quickest way to get from Brisbane to Timbuktu, and can list, in alphabetical order, the airlines that serve the Kathmandu airport.  They are the gurus of the RTW world.

After last Sunday’s disappointing call to the airlines, we decided to investigate the options available with RTW agents.  There are a number of outfits out there, most of them located in major metropolitan centers (read: not Albuquerque), so we sent out a slew of emails detailing our itinerary.  Within a few days we received our first response from Charlie, an agent with a brokerage firm in London.  Because we learned it’s dramatically cheaper to begin from Europe, we decided to research the option of beginning our RTW ticket there, and Charlie put together a pretty good itinerary.  The next day we received another response, which Maikael forwarded me.  “This is from the place in San Francisco,” he wrote.  The agent?  Charlie. 

I was confused.  Charlie isn’t a name you hear every day.  In fact, I know only one Charlie, and he goes by the name Charles.  What were the odds that there were two RTW travel agents named Charlie?  Convinced I had read the email wrong — it must have been another email from London Charlie — I scrolled back up to the top.  But no, it was definitely a different Charlie.  Or, as I now call him, San Francisco Charlie. 

San Francisco Charlie is from AirTreks, one of the largest firms in the RTW biz.  He offered us a pretty good itinerary, too, and I can’t help but wonder if, in a few weeks, there will be a bidding war between the two Charlies.  We will pit them against one other, Charlie to Charlie, driving the price of our RTW ticket down to cost.  I can hear the phone conversation now:  “Well, San Francisco Charlie said he could do it for $4,000.  Can you do any better, London Charlie?”  Maybe they will someday meet and write a travel book together, offering tips of the trade.  The title, of course, will be, “A Tale of Two Charlies.”  I am beginning to wonder if being named Charlie is a prerequisite for this job, the advertisment reading, ”Seeking RTW travel agent.  Must type 800+ WPM.  Those not named Charlie need not apply.” 

A few days later we receive a response from another San Francisco-based agent.  He says our itinerary is too complicated, and that he can’t do any better than the OneWorld Alliance.  I scroll down to the bottom of the email.  His name is Chris.  It never would have worked out anyway.