Shopping meeting

Well, we've been planning for couple of months and the day of our departure is approaching in a considerable pace... but we still don't have a backpack, nor a mosquito net!

It's a high time to fix it.That's why we went shopping last Friday! :)

Although a shopping meeting doesn't explicitly belong to the concept of "strategic meetings", it could be very well compared to all previous ones of that kind, at least when it comes to duration. We started at 10:30 and finished at 17:30 - just because I had to go home, otherwise it would have probably taken much longer... we actually started really shopping that time:)

Performing on-the-spot quality check.
It was my task to prepare the plan:

• Lunch at the University (clarifying objectives and deliverables of the meeting - was skipped as the restaurant was closed)
• Army shop (to feel the spirit, get educated on how to survive in the jungle, try out fancy army wear and eventually buy few security gadgets and some other handy equipment)
• Rock Point, Hudy, etc. (to experience quality)
• Drapa, Hervis, etc. (to take advantage of economies of scale)

In reality... well, how would I say... as soon as we started to improvise a little bit in the middle of the day, the time plan had to be slightly reconsidered (= went to pieces:))

All in all, I'm sure it was a productive meeting, as usual:) Despite spending less than 200€ / 5000CZK in total, we managed to compare many products and acquired a fair overview of what needs to be bought next, where, and for how much money.The rest is just a routine shopping.

Besides, we discussed many related issues planned for the 4th str. meeting that is going to take place tomorrow.

In the picture: "Fatal shopping list" - each item is evaluated (receives points according to respective moving scales) based on its indispensability, physical dimensions including weight, cost and color. Shopping is really easy then!:)

On behalf of the fatal crew :)
Martin

Dreaming of a fatal experience, with a brand new backpack!

Fatal bye-bye party! :)

209 days since me and Zdenek shaked our hands and decided to make this voyage happen,
114 days since our first strategic meeting,
37 days since we bought our flight tickets to India,

...and just 29 days to go!

Therefore it is our pleasure to announce we are organizing the...

FATAL BYE-BYE PARTY

Tuesday June 17th 2008
19:00
(place is to be specified)

Also, Zdenek is taking his final bachelor exam on this day. Let me wish him good luck and loads of persistence in upcoming rush period!

We are both looking forward to meeting many of you on this special occasion!

On behalf of the fatal crew :)
Martin

No haircut, no shave...

To make our trip easier going and to prevent some unpleasant events from happening, we have decided to:

• look as shabby as possible to repel all potential thieves and criminals
• look as little attractive as possible in order to discourage all potential Asian females from approaching us (such distractions should disturb our traveling experience)
• look as poor as possible so all people would feel sorry for us and would accommodate us somewhere each night
• and last but not least, to feel and look like real travelers (since we wouldn't be able to achieve this in any other way :) ...)

Therefore, we will not get a haircut nor shave during our 3-months trip!

On behalf of the fatal crew :)
Zdenek

Third strategic meeting

With 54 fatal days to our departure, we have met once again on 27.4.2008 at my house to discuss further details.

This involved mostly:

1. Time plan concerning our visas and final division of responsibilities
2. Brainstorming on complete equipment for our trip
3. Discussion on how we will be financing our expenses while abroad
4. Next steps concerning course of our trip

1. Time plan concerning our visas
We already have visas to India :) ! Hooray :) !

As a next step, we need to take care of visas to Thailand. Martin is in charge of that and while the granting procedure is really screwed up, he is fighting hard. Since we have no flight tickets to Thailand and are therefore not entitled to receive regular travel visa and transit visa does not help us much (we need to entry Thailand 3 times altogether), we will have to write a special letter to the Ambassador. And hope he will anticipate our request :) ...

Afterwards we need to obtain visas to Nepal and Vietnam and we are all set, at least on the bureaucratic issue! Visas to other countries we are going to visit will be taken care of on the spot.

2. Brainstorming on complete equipment for our trip
We finally have almost a complete equipment checklist! Some of our items are:

• beach purse
• shitty watch
• PEPO
• lubrication gel (and candles)
• 5 clothes pegs
• weapon and tear gas
• mouth organ
• ear plugs
• chewing gums
• crayons
• leadership books (wtf?)
• small pillow

We already found some equipment at home, this can be seen on the photos. We will probably have to buy 2 new cameras as well, since ours are piece of ... Other important things to be bought are tent and backpacks. (I hope they make one with a porter, because we are not going to carry all the stuff ourselves, are we?!)

3. Discussion on how we will be financing our expenses
We need to analyze how much our home banks will charge us for an ATM withdrawal abroad. I am in charge of this "analysis". Then we will decide how much money we are going to exchange in next 2 weeks.

4. Next steps concerning course of our trip
Martin proposed that he will put together the most important information about each country and its beauties. This material should help us to gain the necessary background and the particular decisions on where to go will be made during our trip on a daily basis. I am in charge of preparing the trip through India, since this will be our starting (hopefully not fatal) country.

Random news and other announcements

• Vaccinations are going excellent. We are (or will be) vaccinated against hepatitis A+B, typhus, meningitis A+C, cholera and rabies and are still alive. Martin will not manage the cholera cocktail, so it is strictly advised to take at least strawberry cocktail with him, just in case diarrhea occurs.
• Insurance is almost fixed, it is not that expensive as we have expected
• Martin is arranging our Prague-Vienna return bus tickets

Well, if we will manage to fight our school responsibilities (which does not seem that positive on my side) we should be departing soon :) ! Stay tuned.

On behalf of the fatal crew :)
Zdenek

As usually, we had a lot of fun...