Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Just to let y'all know, it'll be quiet around here for the next six weeks or so. We're taking a long-awaited and well-deserved vacaaaaaaaaaation!

On Saturday we head to Singapore, and spend most of Sunday there before flying to Bangalore, where we'll see my good friend Hemant and his wife for the first time in years (actually I've never met his wife, but I know her - long story).

We'll then ramble around southern India hitting Hampi, Hassan and surrounding temples, Mangalore, Udupi, Kannur and surrounding villages, Calicut, Wayanad (Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary), Cochin and the Kerala backwaters, hopefully in the most eco-friendly way possible.

Then we'll take a 26 hour train up the Konkan coast to Bombay - yes, Bombay - where we'll meet more friends and go sightseeing before boarding a plane to...

...Cairo! We'll spend 4 days in Cairo and around before heading down the tourist circuit to Aswan, where we'll spend a few days relaxing by the Nile and a day in Luxor to hit a few ancient temples (after Hampi and the Pyramids we figure we don't need to see more than a day's worth of temples) before heading back to Cairo to transfer to New York.

Then I'll head up to my parents' house and visit relatives for a week while Brendan does the same in Maine. We'll meet again in New York and head down to DC for a few days to visit friends before returning to Taipei on one looooong trans-Pacific flight.

Brendan's excited because he's never been to India before (so am I, even though I've already been to about 50% of our itinerary - we're hitting the main sights because he's never been), and I'm excited because I've never been to Egypt before. Our flights will circle the globe - heading across the Indian Ocean to Africa before hitting the Atlantic and the USA, then crossing back over the other way. It'll be my second round-the-world and Brendan's first.

I'll still be around on here, posting the occasional update from the road - but it'll be March before you get any more Taiwan blogging out of me.

Happy New Year - Xinnian Kuai Le and Gong Qi Fa Cai!*

*again too lazy to type in Chinese