We're here...

After a frantic few days of last minute preparations, a rather long and uncomfortable journey, and a few hundred feet of red tape. we've finally ended up in Bangkok, expat-cat and all. All rather frazzled. More to follow...

Getting cracking with the packing

T-minus 10 days until we fly, and we still have a flat full of stuff. As my weekdays are occupied until just before we leave with the assembly of yet another riveting piece of 'factual' television, that leaves the precious weekends to cram as much of my life as possible into the luggage allowance, and store anything else that I can't bring myself to throw away.

It's an interesting and slightly surreal exercise that brings the reality of what we're doing into sharp focus. Packing away my warm clothes into storage boxes feels strange - will I really not be needing them at all for the foreseeable future? It comes as a mild shock to realise quite how many clothes I have that I just don't wear at all. I'd packed a whole load of them before it dawned on me that if I don't wear them now, I'm unlikely to want to in a few years time when they're even less fashionable - so out of the storage box and into the charity bag they go.

All those cables and gadgets and things that I've stashed away in case I needed them at some point? I don't need them after all. They can go. Books I'm never going to re-read? Travel guides full of long-closed businesses? Those too. Pointless items I've kept for purely sentimental reasons? Now is the time to be ruthless.

The further down this path you go, the easier it gets. It feels good to throw your ballast over the side of basket of life's balloon. The shocking thing, though, is how little remains. Is this all I have to show for my years on earth? Time to remind myself - you are not what you own.

Cancel, cancel, cancel...

One thing about leaving the country is that it brings home to you just how many loose ends there are to tie up. It's only when you begin to uproot yourself that you realise quite how far those roots have spread, in the form of the various accounts and services that we accrue over the years. Phone accounts, insurance policies, utility suppliers, broadband connections. All those terms and conditions we pretend we've read that bind us to our thoroughly modern lives.

Having had some long and tedious experiences trying to extricate myself from these individually in the past, the thought of pulling the whole lot up by the roots filled me with trepidation. I'd been putting the chore off for a while, unable to face the pleading of the various 'customer retention' departments. I was pleasantly surprised, then, to find that the task was quite painless, and actually rather pleasant. When these people ask for the reason you're attempting to close your account, "I'm leaving the country" gives them scarce opportunity for argument. There's a palpable sense of relief from their end - for once, they don't have to go through the futile script designed to try and make you stay, like the desperate, deluded pleadings of a jilted lover. Or in some cases, the call provides some light relief in an otherwise bleak day - the nice lady from the pet insurance company seemed positively delighted to not, for once, be talking to someone who's beloved furry friend has just died.

Once this tension had been lifted, the conversations became rather jovial, in a way that's become quite familiar now. Throughout this process, I've been at first surprised and consistently delighted by how much people, even complete strangers, are somehow behind us. 'Oh', they say, on hearing our plans, 'how exciting!'. They relate their anecdotes of the time they went to Thailand themselves. They tell you how much they wish they could do the same thing. Somehow, the sheer romance of two people forming a team and setting off on an expedition into the wider world generates a buoyant wave of goodwill that's helped to carry us along this far. It's heartening to experience such generosity of spirit from complete strangers, even in so simple a form as a call-centre worker sincerely wishing us well on our adventures. It's a rare treat in this age to sense a smile at the other end of the phone.

Halfway there

Remember when I confessed that the title of this blog was a lie? I've now at least partially rectified that. As of last weekend, I'm now most definitely somebody's husband. Getting married was much less stressful and much more fun than I'd imagined it would be. Now, after taking a week away from the world of plans for some much-needed honeymoon relaxation*, it's time to uphold the other half of the deal. The flights are booked, and we have just three weeks to pack our life into boxes and suitcases, tie up all the loose ends and leave the country. It still doesn't quite seem real. So much to do.


*You may well be wondering, just where do you go on honeymoon when you're about to up sticks to the tropics? Obviously, you go to Glastonbury. What better way to soak up as much as possible of this country's culture before we leave, and to bask in the glory of it's lovely countryside. Thankfully, the weather gods agreed for once. A wonderful few days, and a fitting goodbye to the green grass of home.

Expat Cat - Pt 1

The soon-to-be Jetset feline contemplates the green green grass of home.

There can't be many cats that get to travel on an aeroplane. We don't want to leave our pampered furry princess behind, though, which means figuring out the complicated process of taking a pet to Thailand. Today she and I took the first step towards that goal by taking her to see her new vet. He was so helpful and reassuring that I'm happy to give his company, Village Vet, a plug here.

So what has this expensive and complicated process to drag a few kilos of ungrateful fur and claws a few thousand miles consisted of so far? Mainly, a great deal of googling and wading through a swamp of confusing, contradictory information. It turns out, though, that the necessary steps are fairly simple. First, find an airline that will transport your beloved furball. It turns out that the lovely people at Thai Airways, already our preferred way to reach the land of smiles, are happy to let you bring cats onboard as hand luggage, so you don't have to subject your pet to the unknown horrors of the luggage hold. You also need an export certificate, which means finding a vet approved by the government for this purpose - which is why we went and made a new friend today. He administered the necessary rabies shot, made sure her other vaccinations were up to date, and advised us what to do next. Which, unsurprisingly, involves filling in a form - the evocatively-named EXA01. This raised a number of awkward questions. How old is said cat? I felt I really should have known the answer to that one. In the end I scoured my hard drive for a photo of me proudly clutching my then-tiny bundle of fun, looked at the date and added the six weeks or so she'd been alive at that time. Turns out my best guess was at least a year out. What address will you be importing her to? Trickier, when you're moving to a new city without a permanent place to live arranged. I'm hoping the address of our temporary accommodation will suffice. What date are you importing your pet? I'll answer that one when we've booked the flights. Did I mention there was quite a lot to do?

UK paperwork is bad enough, but the Thais seem to have an affinity for slow-moving red tape, so with some trepidation I also found myself emailing the relevant local authority in order to enquire how to obtain an import permit. I'm hoping the resulting form will take less than two days max to fill in. Some sources seem to think this is unnecessary, and you can simply deal with the Thai paperwork on arrival, but I'd rather not risk that.

There are also more basic matters to consider, such as how to carry a cat through an airport and onto a plane. After much searching, I bought her a Sleepypod Air - the ultimate in carry-on cat comfort. It's business class for moggies, with a price tag to match, but it seems ideal for the task, is airline approved, and crucially can fold up at the ends to fit under the seat in front of you during takeoff and landing, whilst allowing the backpacking beast some room to stretch out and rest in between. I've left it open on the living room floor, and she's spent approximately 65% of her time asleep in it since, so I think she likes it in there. It does look more tempting than an economy seat, to be honest.

And so today we found ourselves at the vets for the first of several visits. As ever, she embarrassed me by persistently jumping off the table and giving his examining room a thorough examination - she's not a shy creature. The dreaded needle came out for the aforementioned jabs, her microchip (another necessity) was scanned, and much advice dispensed. It turns out that once the civil servants have processed my lovingly-filled-in form, they'll forward a second, even more complicated piece of paperwork directly to the vet, who will then examine the creature again and attest that she is healthy, appropriately vaccinated, and generally not a threat to anyone's well being.

So it's complicated, and it's certainly not cheap, but for now, once the forms are filled, we wait and hope the the documents arrive in time and that our intrepid furry friend can embark on the next stage of her unusual adventure.

A confession

Before we start, I have to get something off my chest. The title of this blog is a lie. Completely untrue. I don't live in Bangkok. I'm not even anyone's husband. But both those things are about to change very soon. Life is a whirlwind of planning right now. I'm aiming to do my best to document here what it takes to move one's life halfway round the world.