Alright!   The time has come!

Time for another adventure!

Unlike my recent 2-3 week trips, this one is a whopping 4 1/2 weeks.

So, let’s get on our way, shall we?

A stress free departure

Whenever I go on a trip, I always leave on a Monday since I work on the weekends.

Since I work on the Sunday night before I leave, that means I only have a few hours Sunday night to get my ducks in a row and be fully prepared to leave the next day.

Laundry needs to be done, dishes, garbage has to be taken out, the fridge needs to be cleared and final preparations for cat care have to be done.

Not to mention the last minute double check of the packing making sure everything I need for the next month is in my backpack.

Now, normally when my flights are in the morning, I end up going to bed at 2am and waking up just a few hours later to get to the airport.

This trip, however, my outbound flight wasn’t until 8pm which meant I didn’t have to leave for the airport til mid afternoon.

And that meant no stress!

I could take my time getting things finalized last night, get a full night’s sleep, and take my sweet time getting ready today to go to the airport.

After last goodbyes to my cats for a month, I was out the door at 3:30 this afternoon ready to embark on this new adventure.

Meeting up with Nathan

After a fun two hour adventure on Translink, I was finally at the airport just before 6pm.

And waiting for me was a friendly face – my friend Nathan.

Nathan and I have worked together for 10 years and we also travelled together for 3 weeks during my Balkan Trip 2023.

When I mentioned I was planning a trip to Central Asia to visit the Five Stans, he was totally on board and now, here we are, out exploring together again.

The normally easy online checkin for our upcoming Air Canada flight gave me an error message last night and instructed us to go to the checkin counter at the airport.

Luckily there was no line so we went up to the attendant and soon found out why I couldn’t check us both in earlier.

It seems the UK has instituted a new ETAS visa since I’ve last visited there.

All the planning in the world, and here we were forced to apply for evisas on our phones at the checkin counter.

Luckily, it was a (relatively) easy process and wouldn’t cause any disruptions at all.

I say “relatively” because it took quite a few attempts to both get a clear, non reflective, photo of our passports and to also scan the embedded biometric chips.

Eventually, after 20 minutes and £20 ($38), our visas were approved and our checkin could finally commence.

After a quick 5 minute trek through YVR security, we were at our gate a full 90 minutes before our flight.

A 9 hour flight

Despite a bit of a bumpy ride in the middle of the trip, we got from point A to point B relatively easily.

We took off at just after 8pm and by 9pm I had my specially ordered gluten free dinner in front of me.

Chicken with mashed potato and veggies, a corn salad, a bun, and a chocolate chip cookie.

The cookie was definately the winner.

Now, breakfast, on the other hand…

What the actual hell, Air Canada?

You used to give us a nice breakfast of eggs and sausage and now, here I was, staring at a muffin and a cup of fruit cocktail.

Big, big, downvote on that!

It seems that in the race to be competitive by offering low prices on their flights, they’ve found ways to cut costs in the most annoyingly way.

I’m gonna go on record as saying, I’m more than happy to pay an extra $20 on a $1300 flight to get a real breakfast.

Do better Air Canada.   Do better.

Okay, rant over.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah, arriving at point B…

Hey London!   I missed you!

At 1pm local time (5am Vancouver time), we touched down at the London Heathrow airport.

London is actually my most visited city as I’ve used it as a hub to journey into Europe and beyond a few times now.

In fact, this was visit number 5 to the city but, since it was just a transiting journey, we would be here for less than 24 hours.

By the time we reached our hostel, it was almost 4pm which was teetering on 19 hours that I’d been up.

Poor Nathan, who woke up earlier than me yesterday, was nearing that infamous 24 hour mark of being awake.

Nope, there’d be no grand night out exploring London tonight.

We were starving though so, after a quick checkin and freshen up, we headed straight out to a burger place nearby that I had visited on a previous trip.

Honest Burgers is a little burger joint about a 10 minute walk away and they offer everything on their menu gluten free.

And, honestly (slight pun intended), I don’t know about you, but when I’m starving, nothing satisfies like a big juicy burger.

After our meal, we walked off our gluttony by heading over to the nearby Tower of London and neighboring Tower Bridge.

Our plans to enter the grounds of the Tower of London were dashed by a 5pm closure time and our plan to climb the top of the Tower Bridge by a £18 ($34) price tag.

It was all good though as, honestly (okay, pun definately intended), we were both pretty beat.

After a quick stopover at Sainbury’s to pickup some Aquafresh toothpaste which, apparently, you can’t buy in Canada anymore, we were back at our hostel at just after 6pm.

And, after a nice long hot shower, I was in bed by 7:30.

Like I said, no big adventure around London for these boys tonight.

It’s all good though, as the real adventure begins in a couple of days when we reach Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Tomorrow is another travel day as we’ll be heading from London to Almaty.

But then, the Five Stans adventures begin!

Happy you’re here with us!   See you tomorrow!