Another slight inspiration: Morgan Spurlock

Last night we watched Where in the World is Osama bin Laden by Morgan Spurlock (the producer of Super Size Me and 30 Days.

While we do not plan on taking survival training, much of his tour from Egypt to Pakistan did have some interesting comparisons and contrasts with our plan, starting with the vaccinations. I still can not figure out why he got the yellow fever shot unless he was planning to go to Sudan or somewhere else that was not on the film.

A nice reassuring point is that a long trip can be more rewarded when planned around a theme, and having some sort of continuity in what one looks for from one place to the next. I was a bit amused to observed that he was a white guy traveling through a good section of the Arab world and two "-stan"s, while I am the Arab planning to travel to most of non-Arab, non"-stan" Asia :).

Thankfully we plan to stay on a far less dangerous, easier to travel route (kept in check by sticking to rail lines), and will try to be as good at taking notes, pictures, and asking questions of the locals, but unfortunately we do not have a video crew and will probably not have the gall (or the slip of tongue/lack of local custome) to ask improper questions and get thrown out of places...