Gettin’ ready

Oh my, here I go.  I’m ready for my trip.  Well, at least physically ready, I’m not sure if I’m mentally all there.

I have spent the last week tying up loose ends and getting my stuff together for my little adventure over to the other side of the world.  My bag is packed and I’m ready to go.

Yep, that’s it.

You see, during my thruhike of the AT in 2009, I learned a very important lesson in life: heavy stuff, carried on your back, sucks.  The reality is, simply, that over time, all I did on the AT was leave stuff behind.  I have learned to only carry things in my pack, that I am willing to discard at any point.  Being attached to things in your pack is a burden in itself, condemning the hiker or traveler to lug around useless sentimental items only to end up resenting them and ultimately throwing them off a cliff in some violent rage, or making a Northbounder pack them out for you in an irrational fit of rage.  The point is, I am packing light.  I am leaving behind some things that I desperately want to bring, like Peter Cottontail or my pocket rocket stove, but alas, my pack has no room for such luxuries.

Now insert “life” everywhere you read “pack” above, and we’ve got a nice hip metaphor going on.

I am hoping this post isn’t one that I will read in 3 weeks, as I am sitting in a Burmese guesthouse dirty and smelly and wishing I had more clothes.  We shall see.

So Myanmar or bust!  I’m ready to go.  I’ve spent the last couple of days sending out CouchSurfing requests, so that hopefully when I arrive there I can stay with a local and learn about the country from their perspective.  I am still awaiting replies.

Here are all the valuables I will have.  Note the tan colored money belt.  Pure style:

Now, the only thing that’s jammin me up is a little hurricane called Sandy.  Apparently, this thing is going to make it’s way up the Eastern seaboard over the next couple of days, and the day before I’m set to fly out (I fly out to Beijing on Thursday), the hurricane is gonna swing a left, and come right into the East coast where I live.  And, where I am flying out of, JFK.  They are predicting days of power-outages, floods, etc.

This is the visual:

The little blue astriks is where I live.  Yikes.  In the words of Tammy, its gone be bad.  Real bad.

I tried to change my flight to fly out tomorrow or the next day, but it would’ve cost me.  Stupid how that works.  They’re going to have to change my ticket any way, they just will wait until after they delay my travel plans.  Oh well.  I’m not in any rush, really.  I just don’t want to jam up my CouchSurfing arrangements.

So the gears are in motion, and the honey badger  is on the move.  Four more days of  life as I know it, and then I will fly to never never land.

Oh, and apparently WiFi is hard to come by in Myanmar.  Yikes…