Well right now we should be in China heading for Tibet, probably somewhere around the Terracotta Warriors about to get on the world’s highest train to Lhasa. Unfortunately we’re stuck in the UK like a few million gazillion others. Our STA flight to Beijing was booked for last Friday but by Thursday morning we all know what had happened. Iceland used to be my favourite place in the whole wide world 
.
We phoned STA on Friday and rebooked for this morning, and engaged smug mode as, by then, we thought it must all be over and we had a confirmed flight ahead of the hoards of people there must be in the backlog. We’d even (via STA) managed to potentially book two tricky internal flights from Beijing to Xi’an (Terracotta Warriors) and Xi’an to Lhasa (a flight you just can’t book yourself on the internet it would seem) so we could catch up on our expedition. We held off actually booking though just in case, and that was just as well. It would appear our five star, ”Defaqto” rated travel insurance from American Express is anything but “Remarkably Good” as it says on their website, and is actually rather poor and very similar to not having any insurance at all or just buying anyone else’s out there. Basically they wont cover anything not related to industrial action, adverse whether or public transport breakdown. So we wont be using them anymore.
Just had a call from STA though asking when we’d like to re-book to (quite impressed, that was right out of the blue). Looking like a few weeks off now to fit in with our hectic schedule. Just emailed our travel co in Tibet (www.TibetanExpeditions.com) though to see what the damage would be if that old volcano keeps going and we needed to cancel. We’ve been really impressed with them so far. They’ve changed dates, shipped tourist permits accross the country, cancelled trains and generally replied to a million emails over these last few months very very well. Lets see what happens now!
Leaving party!! Yes, we’re finally leaving so no more of us going on and on and on and on about it! But seriously, it makes all the pesky travel planning worth it! Hopefully everyone had a brilliant time, I did until about 2am then the only evidence is pictures Can’t believe it!) On a sad note it reminded us that we wont see our friends for 8 months and how we really don’t make the most of what we’ve got in brilliant Brighton. Also the friends we’re handing the keys of the flat to.. Matt and Anna were there to see just how debauched we could be. Please don’t trash our flat or anoy the neighbours!! We’re nice people really!
Pictures can say a thousand words I hear so here are 29,000 words, makes writing a dissertaion seem very easy http://www.flickr.com/photos/30094104@N02/sets/72157607197264832/
See you soon! Kath and Tim
Now I really have gone super geek! And I’m possibly more excited about this than my really really nice new camera. Sorry that can’t be right! Cameras are creative and take interesting pictures and this thing I’ve got simply isn’t and doesn’t, it’s pure geek.. but I think I’m gonna love it, and it’s bargain! I’ll get to the point. I got a GPS data logger today! (after tons and tons research AGAIN! - I really need to not spend so much time in front of the computer)
Basically this little box sits in your bag quietly recording your position and you can then download the info onto your computer and do mildly (or amazingly – depending on your point of view) interesting things with it. I just wanted to be able to plot my route on google maps and put it on this website but it can also, as a total Brucey bonus update the info (meta info) on your pictures from your camera with the location they were taken based on the time they were taken and the time GPS data was recorded. That’s only GPS data so not that useful generally but you can then upload pictures to google maps (somehow not quite sure yet) and they appear on the map (somehow) in the right place! Great little tool to put on a travel blog me thinks so I’ll give that a go!
I hear some fancy pants cameras are getting this capability built in but not for a while or they cost loads also I want this to track our route more than anything. Bargain at around £50-£60 for this GlobalSat DG-100. I got mine from easydevices.co.uk with no problems and delivery, although pricy was next day as promised.
Check out http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/GPS_Reviews for very useful info on all things GPS. One thing I did find was that there are good and bad ones out there for sure! Loads of people ranting “don’t buy this what ever you do” so the one I got in the end seems like a good one, no major rants I could find. Time will tell! Look out for battery life, number of satellites it can track and number of points it can record if the memory can’t be upgraded.
I must be getting really really old! Leaches, quicksand and running from rolling boulders and creaky booby traps doesn’t bother me right now. Getting somewhere and finding I’ve lost a silly bit of paper or I can’t claim on that picky insurance because I haven’t got the receipt would really tick me off I reckon. So another kinda top tip… Google Documents (http://docs.google.com/). I’ve stored scans and copies of all sorts of things, from our STA Itinerary (basically our ticket!) and hotel reservations to Yellow Fever certificate, Birth Certificate, drivers licences, passport and receipts for all this kit I’m going to lugging around. I scanned in all the paper stuff and one great thing about it is you can forward emails to a unique address given to you and they automatically get added to your Google Documents account. Kinda similar to saving things in your email account I must say but if you’re limited on space or just want a separate secure place for all you travel docs it might be worth a look.
A family friend, just back from an Everest Base Camp expedition had one tip - get yourself some merino wool pants. No more worrying about how many to take, washing the ones you’ve got and lugging them around the world. One pair should do you for days or even weeks! I jumped at the idea but my girlfriend is not so sure. 11 days to persuade her!
Yay finally got a rucksack, it’s been weeks if not months of searching and I’ve finally found the sack of my dreams! It had to be big and have loads of strappy and pockety bits and “functions”. This one’s got ‘em all; 85 litres, front opening for those hard to reach areas, sleeping bag bit, water carrying bit, pouches, netting, toggles and pulleys and even better: two things I can’t even identify. Great. Now I just need all those other things I’ve not got!
Sorry – got carried away and had to add a picture!
Mad as a box of frogs! That’s what I reckon after trawling through hundreds of memory cards and more websites than I care to remember. I could have been doing something fun but no! Instead, memory card fever has taken hold. Can’t quite believe I’m writing a post about this but I feel something should come out of all this tediousness! Who could have thought choosing a memory card could be so frustrating? The rest of this post, if not the first part, you can already tell is a bit ranty and techy so I’ll get straight to the point (you can read more rantings and raving below if you really want!) A quick scan of memory cards on dabs.com, 7dayshop or ebuyer etc give you a ton of results, narrow them down to the size you want and you’ve still got a ton. The next thing you’re interested in is the speed but almost invariably that aint so obvious. It’s hidden behind branding like “Ultra” or “Extreme” or “Pro”. So is Pro faster then Extreme? Is a SanDisk Extreme as fast as a Kingston Elite? How do you compare these bleedin’ things! It isn’t easy and no one seems to have collected this info in one place and I can see why! It’s a real pain to find. Basically this is the info I collected on my investigations. It’s just about the major bands as these are what you find out there really and I’ve had enough!
| Manufacturer |
Model |
Write |
Read |
Label |
| SanDisk |
Standard (no speed rating) |
4.5MB\Sec (30x) |
4.5MB\Sec (30x) |
None |
| |
Ultra II |
9MB\Sec (60x) |
10MB\Sec (66x) |
66x |
| |
Extreme Ducati |
20MB\Sec (133x) |
20MB\Sec (133x) |
133x |
| |
Extreme III |
20MB\Sec (133x) |
20MB\Sec (133x) |
133x |
| Kingston |
Secure Digital |
|
|
|
| |
Secure Digital Elite Pro |
7.7MB\Sec (51x) |
8.2MB\Sec (55x) |
50x |
| |
Secure Digital Ultimate |
20MB\Sec (133x) |
21MB\Sec (140) |
133x |
| |
Secure Digital Class 2 |
2MB\Sec (13x) |
2MB\Sec (13x) |
Class 2 |
| |
Secure Digital Class 4 |
4MB\Sec (26x) |
4MB\Sec (26x) |
Class 4 |
| |
Secure Digital Class 6 |
6MB\Sec (40x) |
6MB\Sec (40x) |
Class 6 |
| Crucial |
Secure Digital |
3MB\Sec (20x) |
3MB\Sec (20x) |
None |
| Lexar |
Platinum II |
8.5Mb\Sec (57x) |
8.5Mb\Sec (57x) |
None |
Apologies if anything is wrong or incomplete, it’s just a guide (and if a manufacturer sees this and it’s wrong – bleedin’ make it easier to find!!!)
I completely believe all the manufacturers got together (except SanDisk I have to say) one day in a room and came up with the most opaque, random and damn right hard to fathom system of classifying the speed of their cards. Possibly it took them a week.
Basically I think all you need to know about a memory card is how big it is, that’s easy peasy and then how fast it is. To find out how fast it is you need a standard of course and you also need to be measuring the same thing each time. There is a standard out there (1.5MB\Sec = 1x) but not everyone uses that, and then there are two really important things to measure that matter the user, read and write speed. But then there are other measures too, erase speed and of course you can average these (or choose to just average two of them etc etc!) Basically trying to compare memory cards from the info you are given is almost impossible. Some manufactures don’t even display any speed info about their products or hide it way away in techno babble in some distant document.
Does speed matter that much? Possibly not if you’re just snapping away with a compact camera so I’d stop reading right here – (a bit late sorry!) there are better things to be doing right now. It would definitely matter on professional digital SLRs but could also definitely matter on your more standard DSLR like I have or the new compacts capable of recording HD TV video. What I was more interested in though was just getting the best card for the money, going off a big trip like this one, it’s going to be a real arse if I get somewhere and I’ve either run out of cards because I bought too few because they were too expensive or bought the cheapest biggest cards and missed that amaaazing shot because the camera couldn’t write the last picture fast enough. Second thoughts, I don’t think I’m going to take a camera now. You can spend too much time looking through a lens.
Sources and more info:
http://www.valuemedia.co.uk/sd_card_speed_tests.htm
http://www.sandisk.com
http://www.kingston.com/flash/photo.asp
http://www.trustedreviews.com/storage/review/2006/07/22/Memory-Card-Roundup/p5
http://www.trustedreviews.com/storage/review/2006/07/22/Memory-Card-Roundup/p7
http://club.cdfreaks.com/f122/sd-cards-speed-ratings-card-readers-writers-199888/
And the main thing is planning the leaving party! I’m quite excited about it really, my passport might still be at the Vietnamese Embassy, I might not have a rucksack, sold my car or have enough Malaria tablets yet but hey, at least we’ve got nibbles.
Sorry I’ve been very very lax recently on the internet side but promise to put loads and loads of interesting things up soon! This travel planning really does take up your life. 14 days to go and 29.5 hours to party…
