I'm no longer going on the entire trek by myself, and it shall now be deemed a "Brothers Trek!" (OK, I only just made that name up - it might change...)
Anyways, while driving down to take my former baby grand piano to it's now current home with my dad and my brother two Saturdays ago, I was talking about my upcoming trek. After mentioning wanting to visit and hike the "world's most dangerous hike" in China, my brother mentioned that he wanted to do that as well (after my dad looked it up on his phone and noted noted that first I, then both of us were crazy!) Before long, the conversation turned into utter seriousness and discussing the realistic possibility of Matt accompanying me on the entire trek!
Up to this point, no one except a friend, who was contemplating seeing part of Russia with me, and my grandmother, who had mentioned a desire about seeing the Giant Pandas in China along with a river cruise, had shown interest in accompanying me on the trip. So it was rather a surprise to have someone joining me at this point! Going on the Iceland trip with Vic back in February was different from all of my other previous travels, but not in a horrible way. It was nice to be able to share the experience with someone and to have someone able to take pictures of me without a dreaded selfie stick, though I had to adjust to having to share and make plans together. So the concept of my brother joining me had similar appeal, but also some concerns.
It also added some potential issues as we were just talking while driving:
- My brother does not have a passport! (Despite me telling him for years...)
- I'm planning to volunteer for 6-7 weeks in Mongolia with a small family business - while they take on a couple volunteers each week, would they still have room? AND would Matt be interested in volunteering with them for the extended period?
- He has never traveled outside of the country before, will he have issues?
- He had some personal things to determine whether or not he could truly go that had to wait till Monday to figure out.
After talking more about what all it would entail, it became clear that not only was he interested but serious too. Having recently been released from a work contract, he's getting unemployment until finding a new job - of which he hasn't found yet. He moved home about a month before I did to save money and find a new job, so those expenses were gone. And he was now single, unfortunately. It actually places him in a great spot to travel where as I am quitting my job, have saved up some with the ability to bridge the remainder cost of my travels.
Over the last week and a half, I changed my direction slightly and buckled down to get a solid estimate on the costs expected for the entire trip - Matt had to know if he could actually afford it. We also spoke with Stepperiders in Mongolia and, while he would probably only be a regular volunteer, they did have room for him to join for those 6-7 weeks. In the meantime, Matt looked into his personal concerns and realized that there might be some issues but most shouldn't be a problem if he took off for almost 6 months.
Aside from the cost factor, which my dad has noted that he is concerned even on my end let alone my brother's finances, the only major factor is getting Matt his passport, along with everything else I still have yet to plan and book. Unfortunately, the company I plan to use for both the Russia and China visa is not able to help with the passport in the manner we would like. They would have to process his passport application first and ship it back before continuing on with his visas because the passport needs signed, and I need his passport number for the Russian Invitation letter needed to apply for the visa. After looking into other options, the end result is we are expediting his passport through the mail and not using a service. We are actually far enough out that its not possible for him to have the rush expedited service (though it still puts our timeline very snuggly to departure day!)
Early last week, we had the fun of applying for his passport. After getting multiple passport photos for each of us, we went to apply for his passport in person at the courthouse. We went there because they permitted walk-ins, except when we got there we discovered that they were not able to overnight the application like we had wanted! In addition, they questioned Matt's passport photos due to words on his shirt and having his sunglasses hanging from his shirt - despite Rite Aid not saying anything when they took the pics! Thankfully, they advised us that Latrobe Post Office allows walk-ins as well. So after a quick stop back at Rite Aid where they retook and reprinted his pics, we headed off to Latrobe. Once there, it actually was quite a breeze since we had everything already done and lined up! Matt ended up deciding to not overnight the application to Harrisburg, which honestly might have only saved us a day due to the upcoming weekend. The goal now is be able to get all of the visa paperwork completed to be ready to turn around after we get Matt's passport, and overnight the applications for the visas so those don't get delayed or need rushed either. It'll be close, as in we might get our passports back just before we leave in June - but if needed, I do believe that they will expedite (and charge for it, of course) to get them back before our departure date.
Then we had a slight change of plans - Matt realized he didn't want to miss a concert and was concerned about having enough money in time for the entire trip. Meanwhile, I have been doubling down to get as close to a good estimate as I could for each leg of the trip. We both realized that no, unfortunately he would not have enough money to go on the entire trip - mostly because he would need to spend so much upfront just to get started. However, we started talking about if he only did a portion or leg of the trip with me, which one he would prefer.
He actually is most interested in getting to China and Tibet, rather than Russia (and Mongolia fell off the table rather quickly!) The nice element there is that I will not be getting into China until the beginning of September, which would give him plenty of time to save up and prepare for a shorter trek. I also started looking at possible options if my grandmother (or anyone else actually) would want to just do a leg in China, and how best I could plan that around my actual travels. (I also had to actually plan the post-Tibet part of my China trip for myself!) I had everything planned and ready to propose .... when I realized that they would be entering China during National Holiday Week: the week that the entire country is on vacation and traveling, and every single tourism site states to avoid. UGH!
That's when Matt got home the other night and we actually sat and talked about costs involved, dates, itineraries, etc. He actually still wanted to get into Tibet AND was ok with doing a longer trip through China. We sat down and crunched numbers, as the trek into Tibet has to be with a tour and the 15-day trek is not the cheapest. However, the numbers added up nicely! Matt also did not think that it would be a problem taking 6 weeks to travel around with me.
So the plan is that I will be embarking by myself through Russia and my stay in Mongolia. After that, I will continue on the Trans-Mongolian Railroad into Beijing. Matt will fly separately into Beijing and meet me. From that point on, we'll explore China together so that I don't have to backtrack at any point. I have not entirely ruled out rearranging things to permit our grandmother or others to join us, especially as she noted she had a desire to see the pandas and take a river cruise, however that needs some more tweaking and confirming of plans before it happens.
Otherwise, things are progressing rather quickly with the trip and planning. I'm trying to book as many of the trains that I can book myself, while at the same time trying to use an agency to reserve/"book" the other legs. The one between Ulan Ude and Ulaanbaatar is a key one as it's the day I need to leave Russia per my visas, and I need to get into Mongolia in time to start that experience. There's also still a lot to get done for the first part in Russia - places to stay, sights to see, etc. I have also already looked into booking the train tickets in China and will get those booked via a different agency once we confirm our travel dates and China destinations. The only thing we need to pay for the later half now is the Tibetan trek reservation and the cost of our trains/flight in/out of Lhasa, since they have to book that for us due to the Tibet permit.
Note, I'm also still in the middle of working hard to downsize everything I have, selling what I can, and moving things home - plus work! Plenty more to do, and I'll have more to post here shortly as I get the Russian itinerary set.
FYI - Cyrillic isn't so easy, I haven't divested much time yet into learning Russian - and the farthest I've gotten on Mongolian, Chinese, and Tibetan were to download a couple language learning apps!
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