July 2009

Will Chloe’s pollen allergy follow us all across the continent? If a kid develops a raging fever, how will I tell malaria apart from dengue, H1N1, bird flu or typhoid fever in the absence of nearby medical care? How many chicken bus rides in India would it take to make the odds of us perishing in a spectacular, fiery crash statistically significant? Will we all want to kill each other anyway, long before we get to India, after living in a series of small, single rooms with each other 24/7 for weeks on end? Will the kids still speak any French at all by the time we return? Will I have the time or motivation to keep posting updates on this blog after the trip finally gets off the ground?

What will getting to Bali—our first destination—be like, as we spend a total of 24 hours in the air plus 5 hours of stopovers at the world’s busiest airport (O’Hare, Chicago) and in the world’s most populous city (Tokyo), finally arriving in Denpasar, Bali at midnight local time, which will feel like noon to us? (Ouch.)

When people shake their heads admiringly after hearing about our upcoming trip, are they secretly thinking, “Wow, what a great idea—we should plan something like that, too,” or are they nodding and smiling while thinking, “Man—these people are completely insane”?

We caved in bought the two Nintendo DSs plus a whole whack of games, but have decided against the new netbook. Most of the other gear we need has also been gathered and is patiently resting in a couple of boxes piled on top of each other in a bedroom. Mark finally chose a backpack the other day, a big, roomy 90-litre Osprey that zips all the way around to make it easy for the entire family to pile their belongings into pell-mell. For a while, he was threatening to buy a 136-litre duffel bag instead—so while I plan to stay far, far away from the pell-mell situation myself, I’m glad he backed off on the duffel bag and chose something that he can haul around in tropical heat without quite so much sweating, swearing and furrowing of brow.

Of course, I could be entirely wrong, and may spend the entire trip wishing I’d chosen something like Mark’s bag instead of the top-loading traditional backpack that I opted for. But what are the chances of me admitting that?