The General Plan

In an earlier post here I mentioned that what Marty and I do is travel improvisationally, that is, make things up as we go with no reservations or transportation arranged in advance. But certain dates can't be missed, like getting to the airport for a flight home. So, some reservations must be made. 

Here's what we know in advance. We arrive in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city of 10 million people, at 1pm on Monday, October 22nd. We will leave Cincinnati at 9am on Saturday and spend Saturday, Sunday and a chunk of Monday on various flights as we work our way to Indonesia. From Jakarta we'll improvise on local buses starting at the southern tip of Sumatra, the largest of the Indonesian islands and the sixth largest island in the world, to its northern tip. That journey is the core of our trip. I'll report here as we travel. 

Once we get to Medan at Sumatra's northern tip, we'll jump to Penang in Malaysia, where we'll spend a night - reservations there have been made - and then train from that area to Bangkok for a flight home. It was crucial that we have train reservations for that overnight journey, and we do. 

Marty organized everything himself, using the internet, even getting a friend in Thailand to go to a train station to buy our train tickets so we won't miss the flight home. 

Trip Summary: Cincinnati to Jakarta; Jakarta north throughout Sumatra to Medan; Medan to Penang; Penang to Bangkok; Bangkok back to Cincinnati.