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To break up the monotony of our posts, I thought I’d throw in an update on our macro itinerary. This is mainly aimed at you family, but also may be of use to our friends who’s instant messages begin with “where are you?†or emails that end with, “btw, what country are you in?â€
Our situation: We’re planning a visit to the US this summer. One reason for our decision is that July will mark one full year of traveling abroad and Joylani wants to visit home to see and catch-up with family and friends. The other reason is that two of our best friends are getting married (not to each other) within a day of each other in early August. After a month or so at home, we’re planning to hit the road again for another 6-9 months, making it back to the US by summer 2009 (although that portion of the itinerary is beyond the scope of this post).
Our Itinerary: What follows is our loose plan of a pretty circuitous route from here, Pulau Perhentian, to San Francisco. From here (NE coast of peninsular Malaysia), we’ll head down the Malay Peninsula to Singapore, with stops in Pulau Tioman and KL, along with a detour to Borneo. From Singapore, we’ll travel to Indonesia. At the moment, its unclear how far east in Indonesia we’ll travel, but at some point we’ll have to stop and catch a flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Before we began this trip, when I daydreamed about this part of the trip while looking at the world map in our dining room, I envisioned us island hopping across Indonesia to Papua New Guinea, then the Solomons, and out into Micronesia. Or perhaps a more southern route out to East Timor and down into Australia. Google “east timor†or “papua†and you’ll see why we’re not pursuing my daydreamt plans. As I digress, complete the Malay Peninsula by March, Indonesia by April (one month visa), Vietnam by May (one month visa), and into China by early June. We’ll spend the balance of our time traveling north through China. That should take us into July, when we’ll likely fly home from Beijing, Seoul, or Tokyo.
Other Thoughts: We’re at about the end of anything we had planned prior to embarking on this trip. Once we knew we were starting in Europe, we knew South Asia was next, to be followed by SEA. But we never really thought about after that. And to plan beyond is to consider and talk about the other places we want to see on this trip. China and Japan are musts. Korea’s right there and seems worth visiting. South America is also up there. Besides East Asia and South America, I think we’ll only have time for one more region: Australia/New Zealand or back to Europe for more? So right now we’re debating between a circle of the Pacific or another true round the world itinerary.
I’d love to meet up with you guys when you’re back in SF.
Hope you’re both doing well — you’re lookin it! 
I can’t wait to catch up with you guys. I’ll have traveling stories too so yay! August!!