Some questions answered

So the last post I asked what you all would like to hear and you gave me some pretty good suggestions. I'll do my best to gather more funny anecdotes, particularly ones involving people we've met or as my mother put it "flora and fauna". Not so sure about the poetry, haikus and limericks...might be overextending my literary range there. Also per Jenelle's request there should be some more videos up later this week...have to find time to upload them since that takes a bit longer than photos. My grandparents sent along a few more specific inquiries which are pretty easy to address and others might find interesting (like, say...Ecuadorian newspaper reporters..).

Planning, schedules and budgets: To be honest, I didn't plan much. I just sort of got to Ireland then my riding partner(s) and I took it one step at a time. I generally try to have a pretty solid plan of action in place for 1-2 days out and a slightly more vague plan for the next month or so at a time. Having this loose structure means that I'm not really "ahead" or "behind" schedule...just sort of floating along.
As of right now the rough plan is to be up in Chiang Mai around the 9th or 10th. Dan's Thai visa expires then so he will be doing a run across the Burmese border to renew it. Then we hope to be into Laos around a week later. We are intending to take a boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang and then ride on to Vientiane. From there we have to figure out how to get to Cambodia. If things work out correctly I will be able to get to Bangkok around the end of April. Should have enough money to get a flight to the west coast of the US and then meet up with my friend Jon to ride across the US. I may have to find some work once I hit the US shores sicne the flight will eat up the last of my savings. Then again, I've hobo'd the US once and am confident I can do it extremely cheap this time.

Eating, sleeping, communicating: Once again most of this is last minute stuff. Eating enough food is nearly impossible. I could spend all day and all of my daily budget on food and still not get enough calories probably. I haven't gone to a hospital and weighed myself but the few scales I have come across seem to indicate I've dropped about 20 pounds. I will probably lose more by the end of the trip. I have been trying to incorporate some resistance exercises in my daily routine to keep my muscles from being cannibalized.
Sleeping in Europe and the solo stretch of Asia was a very last minute thing. I would generally ride until dark, find a spot for my hammock and just crash out. A few times if I was in an area where camping looked difficult or the weather was threatening I would find a cheap hotel or guesthouse (Albania...parts of Malaysia). Now that I'm with Dan its easier to split the costs of a room for the night so we've been doing that. He also isn't carrying much in the way of camping gear. I plan to return to a more camping-mode style in the US.
Communications with the locals is quite the task but enough pointing and gesturing usually gets the job done. We almost never know what we are ordering at restaurants. I must admit I feel somewhat guilty about my lack of effort to learn much local language. I was pretty discouraged that just as I was learning some basic Malay I crossed into Thailand and had to start all over.

Okay...so factual things aside, tomorrow I'll keep a keen eye out (and memory) for some of the smaller, funny things that happen that I usually just disregard. Hopefully I can bring you all a little more in-depth to what its like to do this day in and day out. Cheers!