Planning : Information Overload
So it is time of the year again when The Repins is set for another trip. And this is going to be a much longer trip than usual, a total of 23 days on the road ! This time we are going to Turkey ( originally not on our agenda ) and other parts of Western Europe. Actually, the really real original plan was to take a 12-day adventure trip to Morroco, inspired by Tahir Shah's book, "The Caliph's House". But, my better half ( aka the Minister of Interior ) has apparently a better plan, ie to venture into parts of Western Europe. To keep the spirit of democracy alive, I decided to obey the command and thus the Western Europe trip was planned instead ie from London to London but with overland journeys covering the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and France. Although in this respect, we knew very well , that we have made many short trips between us in a number of European cities during our work-life, but this will be different. Previously the travel plan covers the airport-hotels-meetings-hotels-airport which cannot be termed as holiday travel but business travel. Now its gonna be more leisurely, more sedate, to see more than the eyes can see , so to speak. The whole idea is the travel would be stress-free ! Even if we missed the sights ( not flights ), not up to the mark hotel rooms, lethargic tour guides, long hours on the road, nothing of those will induce stress into us. That was the plan.
It was in the month of May, 2010 we made inquiries with Ms Jennifer Tan of Sriaity Tours ( a splendid personalised tour company tucked on the upper floor of a row of shophouses, above a tyre shop ! )to book the trip for Europe. The plan was to cover 6 countries but hardly a month after that the plan has to be aborted upon realising the idea of covering 6 countries in 8 days would be a terrible way to abuse our "young bodies". So, from 6 countries it became 4 countries and a much more relax pace of travel.
Then, sometime around early August, some of our colleagues wanted to go to Turkey on business and persuaded us to follow them which was a brilliant idea indeed. So we added more days to the planned vacation and it became 23 days in total by annexing Turkey to the not so original plan.
All packed...
Now, the bags are packed, tickets in hand and payment to the tour agency has been made, the tour shall begin......and we will try to keep family and friends updated on our travels....
