Back to Kaiser today to pick up our stockpile of pills. We walked out of the pharmacy with:
- Malarone (Malaria): We’ll take one tablet the day before going into Malaria-risk areas, one tablet every day we’re there, and continue taking tablets for 7 days after we leave.
- Typhoid EC Capsules (Typhoid Vaccine): Our Typhoid vaccine isn’t given as a shot, it’s a series of 4 pills we take every other day. Once it kicks in it should be good for 5 years. We have to keep them refrigerated as they’re “alive” according to the pharmacist. I did a quick Google search to find out exactly what’s “alive” about it, but no luck with a quick answer.
- Acetazolamide (Altitude Sickness): We’re expecting to need this in the Nepal / Tibet areas. We take 1 tablet a bedtime the day before we begin an ascent. We’re not expecting to scale any mountains, but it is recommended for even general travel over 8,000 feet.
- Azithromycin (Antibiotic): I’m allergic to penicillin and so was concerned about access to non-penicillin based antibiotics in some of the more rural areas. Azithromycin is basically just a super heavy duty antibiotic helpful for diarrhea and other ailments. Cipro is also a name a lot of people are familiar with, but we were told that some of the places we’re going are resistant to Cipro, hence the the prescription for Azithromycin.
So we now have a small traveling pharmacy to take with us. The bad news is that it set us back almost $700. Sheesh. Of course costs may vary with your medical plan, and how much of your annual deductible has already been used – but regardless it’s no joke. I think the Malaria medication was really the bulk of the cost since we each needed about 2.5 months worth.
This afternoon we went to our appointment at the Kaiser Adult Injections department to get our first round of vaccinations. Before making the appointment, I did a bunch of research at the Center for Disease Control website (www.cdc.gov) which was very helpful and suggested the following vaccinations for where we were going:
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B
- Typhoid
- Japanese Encephalitis
- Polio
- Rabies
We sat out in the waiting room for about 30 minutes past the start of our appointment, presumably because the form we filled out when we checked in listed over a dozen countries we intended on visiting. When our names were called, we were led to a small, curtained off corner of the lab about the size of a walk-in closet. The nurse, a very nice woman in her late 50s with the intensity, volume and vocal timbre of a buzzsaw, asked us several questions about when we were leaving and how much time we expected to spend in rural areas. Though we we never farther than an arm’s length from one another, one had to assume that her questions were also being addressed to an assembled crowd, 50 yards behind us.
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Sometime between July and September 2009, Anjel and I are putting all business on hold, selling or storing all our possessions and fleeing the country to travel the globe for a year (*UPDATE*: The departure date has been changed to early August. We’ll be starting the trip with a partial trip across the country: Bonneville Speed Week, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Chicago). We’re putting out a call to every family member, friend and client that we can think of, looking for help! (For an explanation of what actually lead to this decision, please read our “about us” page)
Our goal is to plan enough of the trip that we don’t show up to a border crossing only to find that we really needed to sign up for a Visa 6 months ago – but besides a rough plan, we are leaving ourselves 100% open to detours and side trips. We’re also planning on signing up for several volunteer opportunities on our trip. Anjel has already lined up a project working with rescue elephants in Thailand for 3 weeks. With any luck with will have one or two more stops along the way.
In order to stretch our travel dollar as far as possible, we’ll be backpacking most of the way, leaning towards budget travel and accommodation (with the occasional splurge). What we’re looking for at this point is… pretty much any help people are able to provide! Places to stay and people to visit are definitely at the top of that list. Whenever possible we’re going to be staying with friends and friends-of-friends to not only save money, but hopefully get a more genuine and immersive experience.
Where are we going?
Our kitchen-sink list of possible destinations is:
- New Zealand
- Australia
- Malaysia
- Philippines
- Vietnam
- Cambodia
- Thailand
- Burma
- India
- Nepal
- Tibet
- China
- South Korea
- Japan
- Mongolia
- Russia
- Czech Republic
- Germany
- Amsterdam
- France
- United Kingdom
- Ireland
- Italy
- Greece
- Turkey
- Tunisia
- Algeria
- Morocco
Some of these are definite stops for us where we may stay for days or weeks, others we may miss or simply travel through. In all likelihood there will be other stops we didn’t plan on. In anycase we would love the following:
Places to stay / People to visit: This is really the biggie for us. We’d like to think that we’re responsible and trustworthy enough to stay in someone’s family vacation home and flexible enough to just crash on someone’s couch for a night. Even if lodging isn’t part of the equation, a friend we might hit it off with or someone you know who’s a great local guide would be just as good. You probably know us well enough to know what kind of guests we’d be (the answer is “great ones”), but incase you wanted to refer us to your own friends or family, we’ll be creating a page with a little about us as potential lodgers (short answer: we’re clean, responsible, happy to help out & anjel loves to cook).
Places to visit: There are a million guide books out there, and we’re doing plenty of research, but any suggestions of secret spots, great tours, epic train rides. etc… are welcome.
Tips: Any lessons you learned the hard way? We’re more than happy to learn from your mistakes. 
Finally, if you do have any suggestions, please send us an email to:
connal {at} adangerousbusiness {dot} com
or
anjel {at} adangerousbusiness {dot} com
(don’t use the comment section below – unless you just want to leave a note).
Thanks!
Connal + Anjel
