Should we cross into China in a cargo boat?

We found a fast cheaper way to get to China direct from the north of Thailand! It involves

1. a Chinese cargo boat

2. us having to register as "boat crew"
3. this toilet

Shall we do it?!

What to (ex)pack when you're (ex)packing...

Travel light.

I remember when Fly FM used to tell us to always unpack half the stuff we pack, because majority always over pack. Actually, most girls would. Luckily, we're not most girls.

My last backpack trip, about 5 years ago saw me wearing my pagoda shirt several times without washing. All I did was air dry em', unless we were in a place long enough for me to simply rinse and dry it out. As for Jules? Well, she apologised in advance, telling me not to be disgusted. I guess we're pretty much on the same page in this.

Oh, but we are going through different climates, thankfully no where near winter though. Phew!

A friend recently commented and advised us to bring rain jackets and waterproof shoes. Man, shoes are the weight of the world when you're trying to pack light! Don't think we have much of a choice though, better to carry weights than to have drenched feet. I experienced that in autumn before, not fun at all.

Damn, I'm tryna minimize on costing on pre-travel stuff, after all we are traveling responsibly ya' know. Leaving as little carbon footprint as we can, buying new gear sure ain't helping. Let's see how we can go around it! Speaking of trying not to buy new stuff, there is an item I actually can't not buy.

Remember I asked for tips on peeing in China? Well, I went and got myself an apparatus that would allow me to pee standing up, just like you boys. hah!

 I surely can't be using a recycled peeing apparatus now, can I? Of course, I didn't get it in bright pink!! Actually, maybe China will surprise me and have doors and super clean public loos. Hah!

How else can a girl pack light? How do you pack light?

Our route.

4 Weeks And Counting

As we scramble to get ourselves together for our first trip, we also realize that the clock is ticking hard and fast as we've not even got our passport photos done, let alone apply for the necessary visas. I guess we are true blue Malaysians, leaving things to the last minute.

In this week we found out that with the Russian visa, you got to know exactly what date you are entering the country, no two ways about it, as told to me by the staff in the embassy. What?! You mean we can't decide to extend our stay in Kazakhstan prior to Moscow last minute? You also need to identify which exact airport you are leaving from! I guess we gots no choice but to adhere, after all...it is back in old country. 

4 weeks and counting, and we've got nothing prepared yet. Well, except maybe this blog. We've not even check on the weather situation on our ETA to all the northern countries. Heck, I've not even cover up this grammatically wrong Russian tattoo I got on my ankle. Though I doubt that we'd be wearing shorts in Russia. Still, I don't want Russians to see it and think of me as a stupid fool as I do with people getting weirdly wrong Chinese/Kanji tattoos. Ah well, what goes around comes around.

If any of you have gone on the route that we are taking, feel free to tell us what not to eat and what to see, where to go and how to cover ourselves when we take a piss (in China of cos), what to say or whether we should smile at single men or even shake their hand. As China is also a big part of our route, we know we're going to be in for a really inneresting ride! After all, we are Chinese Virgins. You know what we mean!

~ Carol

Why friends are bad influence, travelling sucks, and Russia is but a train ride away.

Finally, we have our blog up and running. And by up and running we mean we've actually only registered for fifteenfings.blogspot.com. So while Carol challenges her age by trying to work out the customization process of our new blog, I shall sneakily bang out a few words...

Late last year we both were feeling a little jaded about life and things in general; Carol and her husband's full time photography was taking off which meant massive commitment to their studio. I found myself tied hands and feet to a new job with an exciting boutique events/concert promoter agency. It wasn't that we were complaining about how things were going - on the business side, Carol had a lot of creative freedom with her shoots and I was working on pulling off the biggest music festival in South East Asia. Even we acknowledged that we were fortunate to be doing for a living what most others only dream of doing...but one of us made the mistake of asking the other: is this it?

You see, Carol and I both have a terrible terrible infliction. We like travelling extensively over long periods of time, and at a leisurely pace. Separately, we've travelled across India, South East Asia, Europe, South America and as people with itchy feet will know, the travelling never stops. And how could it? How can you read an article about the 7 different Machu Picchu treks without wishing to be on one of them? Who never had the longing to work for a travel magazine even to just review hotel rooms? How many times do you watch TLC thinking that you too, can make a good travel host? (Actually that last bit is true; you probably can make a good travel host compared to the kind of dubious people who appear on TV nowadays.)

But hang on. Stop here for a second. Before you go on reading, we would like to make it clear that we will not be held responsible for sudden impulses to quit your job/relationship/kids/life to drive from the tip of Argentina to the ends of North America. Neither will we take the blame for you deciding to spend your life savings on a 3 month trip exploring the Amazonian jungles of South America. In fact, we would like to take back everything we just said about travelling. Don't do it. Travelling sucks. It's shit. Only meant for no life losers. 

Even worse, do not even attempt to think about doing what Carol and I are planning to do on April 21st. And that is to ride various trains from Kuala Lumpur, across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Western China, Kazakhstan, right up to Moscow, Russia. It will take more or less 5 weeks, we will cover more or less 15,000 km, and we will shoot/record more or less 1 tera of footage.

Friends ask, WHY?! We say, we like trains. We say, Russia is a cool destination. We say, we want you to be jealous. But actually, we dunno. We no can give good answer. You see now? No one should adopt the appetite of travelling. It's ridiculous, wastes time & money, and is ridiculous. Not to mention a possible factor in the breakdown of jobs/relationships/kids/life.

But all the same, if you want to wish us good luck, we'll take it anyway. We have exactly 4 weeks left to go before we take the first train out of Malaysia and man, are we excited! And hopefully when we come back a month later, we will be able to put our rail adventures into a coffee table book. All for the love of travelling of course, because we're no life losers like that.