My main preoccupation lately has been my upcoming vacation to Thailand. For a while I thought about just canceling the entire trip. I don't have as much money now as I hoped I would, plus the traveling alone thing is getting kind of old. Finally though, the thought of staying at home by myself for two weeks was far too depressing. I figure, I'm going to be alone for two weeks anyway, so I may as well be alone in a really neat place.

I think this time I'm going to spend some time in Bangkok first (Hi Greg!), then head down to Koh Samui for a week. In addition to that, I'm thinking of going there by train. This is partially to save money (1600 Baht return vs. almost 8000 by air), but also because I just like trains. It's kind of a secret nerdy fetish, although I guess not so secret anymore. For a short time I considered traveling all the way down to Singapore by rail. If I had more time, money and balls (or a traveling companion at least), I might do it. Poorer heads, if not cooler ones, prevailed this time.

While I'm on the subject, do you realize it's technically possible to travel from Singapore to London almost entirely by rail? (You have to cross Laos by bus because apparently there are no trains in Laos, which is a fascinating fact in and of itself, but that will have to wait for another time.) I'm not saying it would be an entirely pleasant trip, only that it's possible.

See, you start in Singapore and take the train first to Kuala Lumpur, where I think you have to change, or maybe it's in Butterworth. Anyway, you have to change somewhere in Malaysia. Then you change again in Bangkok, then get across Laos to Hanoi. From there you can pretty much go directly up to Beijing I think. Then of course, once in Beijing you hop on the Trans-Siberian railway to Moscow, then on through Europe, and then you finally reach London via the Channel Tunnel. Simple.

See, this is where it gets dangerous...I have to be very careful not to get too carried away with this sort of thing. I only thank God I was born an American, otherwise I'm certain I'd standing out at Clapham Junction with an anorak and a thermos. The medication helps too.


Then again, I wonder if...I'm just thinking out loud here...I wonder if I could turn this into one of those things where a guy proposes doing something crazy and then gets people on the Internet to pay for it. Like the one who traded red paper clip for a house, or the guy who paid for college by getting a bunch of schmucks to pay him a dollar to rent a pixel on his web page. I could blog, photograph and podcast my 3-4 week excursion across Asia and Europe. I would meet all sorts of colorful characters along the way, and my readers (that's you) would all chip in because it would help them feel a part of a grand adventure...

Nah, probably not. Or maybe... Nah...