Laptop Blues

I wanted to get a small portable PC to keep in touch, use Skype etc etc. When last in the States I found out about a new notebook - the Asustek Eee-PC. It's a Linus based animal, Firefox, Thunderbird etc (No Windows so cheap), no hard drive, no moving parts at all in fact, weighing in at less then 1 kilo, and £200. The demand was so great I couldn't get hold of one and so place an order in Dec 2007 for 3-4 weeks delivery. 3 weels went by, still no joy and I found a website tracking stock at about 25 major suppliers in the UK. Lo and behold there were 2 sites with stock. I reviewed them both on the web, dropped one immediately and phoned the other to see if they had stock. "Yes sir they said, they're in the building" Can I place an order "Yes but only by the web". So off I goes, places the order to receive in quick succession - acknowledgement - delivery 3 days - no stock and no delivery date for stock. I cancelled that order, the original order and went out and bought a Packard Bell Easynote XS - Windows XP 30G drive .75kilo. Its a bit cheap but is serving a purpose. No DVD drive is interesting - when it comes to loading programs - have to share a netdrive on the desktop and load from there!

Itinerary

This is us in our itinerary outfits.

Still working on getting the trip sorted. We have all of the flights booked although the airline are changing some of them... c'est la comagnie aerienne! Getting the Visas was a bit of a contrast. The Indian visa comprised a visit to the embassy in the Aldwych. Queue in the rain and wind for an hour to get your appointment to come back later that day. - return at the due time to scrum down in the waiting room, with great shouting rows going on between officials & people trying to get permanent work visas. Giving up your UK passports for them to disappear, getting kicked out for lunch break and back into the scrum after lunch. In all took about 5 hours. The Aussie visa took 5 minutes on the Internet.

We have so far planned:
Delhi - A trip on the Palace on Wheels - its the Indian version of the Orient Express. It goes around Rajasthan on a 7 day trip and visits Jaipur - the pink city & Amber Fort; Jaisalmer - Thar Desert, latticed mansions and sandstone fort; Jodhpur - forts, & Jaswant Thada cenotaph, and get some trousers.; Sawai Modhopur, Ranthambur National Park, tigers; Chittaurgarh, more forts; Udaipur, Jag Niwas lake palace; Bharatpur, the Maharaja Suraj Mal's capital, national park; Agra, Taj Mahal; back to Delhi for a tour round the old ad new cities.
Singapore - Based in the harbour, we have a free spa treatment thrown in at the hotels. Sentosa Island cable car, maybe some museums and eating out in china town.
Perth - Wandering the city by foot and tram and then driving outback and up the coast, dunno where yet.
Aukland - City then Rotarua sulphur stink and off to Waitomo glow worm cave. Maybe take in a subterranean raft trip, if Lin can stand it.
Brisbane - Drive up the coast stopping on way to visit Fraser Island, Rockhampton on the way to the Whitsunday Islands for a bit of barrier reef snorkeling, weather & Lin permitting.
Sydney - Fly back to Sydney from Hamilton Island, city sight seeing, bridge climb, people watching in the harbour, Bondi Beach, Lin wants to see the Aussie lifeguard bums - I don't know what she means!! Driving down to Canberra and then back up the coast road, just chilling.
Uluru - Ayers Rock. Fly out into the desert for a trip round the rock, watch the sun up sun down, a bit of local culture, some grub and wine in the red.
Melbourne - Back to the city and then down to the gold fields at Ballarat. Lin keeps asking about Opal mines. Can't imagine why?
Christchurch - Down in the South Island, Hanmer up to Kaikoura and perhaps a chopper ride up to the West coast glaciers.
Fiji - for a chill on a south coast all inc resort.
USA - Across the big pond to LA and a stay in San Diego, fish & ships, Coronado etc - On to Orlando and crash in the villa, 60th birthday bash with pals out there. Some golf and whatever takes our fancy. Perhaps the blue men this time.
Blighty - back just in time to go on the golf hol.

Planning the Trip

That's us in our planning getup.

Quite a task! Started with getting flights organised using airline group's standard "round world" packages. Lots of problems - yes sir you can get to India, but you can only get out by going back to London. That's a bit of short world trip, I thought. Finally settled on Virgin/Air New Zealand/Singapore Air "Great Escapade" It went to most of the places we wanted to go and there was a useful planning tool on the Virgin Atlantic website......or so we thought. Planned the route, got on the blower to Virgin, started booking sections, got right round to Fiji and asked for a flight from Fiji to LA. The agent said no can do, it's impossible. I said, well its on your handy planner and there is an ANZ direct flight according to their website. Agent - I can't help that, I can't book anything. What do we do, then, what other options are open. Agent - go somewhere else. With so much help from Virgin and their tools, I phoned Air New Zealand . What a contrast, got a guy who knew the ropes completely, knew options, when best to fly, how to get Visas and booked all stages, including Fiji to LA , in 30 minutes on the phone. Great stuff ANZ.