Planning for the trip is now well in hand. The vaccinations from my India trip taken in 2014 hopefully will carry over to end of 2016. Three month supply of anti-malarial pills purchased along with water purification pills and anti-biotics to handle any serious stomach problems that could be encountered en route. Feels a bit like a travelling pharmacy store, but understand from experience that it better to be safe than sorry.
I will be travelling through six countries and have been trying to work out the breakdown for foreign currency purchases. The US greenback still reigns supreme in many countries, and have opted to pre-purchase only basic amounts of local currencies for the first few days in each country, until I can locate local bank exchange facilities. I am told that in Laos, any purchase can be made with $US, but any change is almost always handed back in the non convertible local Lao currency. Wish to avoid buying local currencies with my $US, as this invariably involves exorbitant double commissions, my base funds being $Canadian.
I really enjoy having good books with me when on the road, independent coarse travel by its very nature, entails lots of idle time waiting for something to happen. Likely that a steady diet of late night local Cambodian TV will be less than enthralling. As this journey is back-pack mode, space/weight is at a premium and I will have to be brutally restrictive with the book choices. Usually able to gather up in hotels en- route titles left behind from other tourists. Apart from the mandatory Lonely Planet, plan to take Winston Churchill's 'Second World War' (vol. 5) which is very dense, thought provoking and over 600 pages.
Interestingly, I took a photo of my foreign currency to illustrate this blog entry and tried to edit in a couple of software programs---both programs froze with a warning that it is forbidden to photograph currency.
I will be travelling through six countries and have been trying to work out the breakdown for foreign currency purchases. The US greenback still reigns supreme in many countries, and have opted to pre-purchase only basic amounts of local currencies for the first few days in each country, until I can locate local bank exchange facilities. I am told that in Laos, any purchase can be made with $US, but any change is almost always handed back in the non convertible local Lao currency. Wish to avoid buying local currencies with my $US, as this invariably involves exorbitant double commissions, my base funds being $Canadian.
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| Stock photo. |
Interestingly, I took a photo of my foreign currency to illustrate this blog entry and tried to edit in a couple of software programs---both programs froze with a warning that it is forbidden to photograph currency.
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