As with any travel, the first step is prep!

Heading to Sri Lanka with a GV Build …. this will be my fourth international build and my fifth if one counts a local one here in my hometown! So far, the trip has been confirmed by GV headquarters and our fearless leader Mr. V. So, I have finished funding the trip, booked my travel and applied for, and been granted, my ETA (electronic travel authority – the “modern” term for a pre-authorized visa!) and am now sitting back getting mentally prepared and pulling together this and that.

One suggestion is to bring a mosquito net. Being a fan of Rick Mercer, I went to http://www.spreadthenet.org and found that it has become part of Plan Canada. Wandering around their site, the recommendation is for a mosquito net that is impregnated with repellant. While they offer to let you donate (the funds for) a net that will be given to someone who needs one, there is nowhere to order a net for personal use! I did write them but, as with many on-line outfits, received no response since my goal was to buy a net that I could donate on departure from Sri Lanka!! After an extensive online search for a Canadian (outdoors store?) supplier of nets, I eventually found a European supplier for a reasonable price. Their delivery charge was more than the cost of the net!! Not only that, it came by DHL – and it cost me $21.47 to have DHL process it through Canada Customs when the import duty owed was, yes, you have it, $0.

So that sits with my work gloves from my last build in Nepal, the bright blue (!!) T-shirt sent by the GV folks and my work shoes in a corner while my file folder with tickets and passport and ETA approval grace the top of the filing cabinet….ready to rock and roll and the trip is yet a month away!!

In the meantime, I travel to visit my mother and a daughter this week….saves me getting over-prepared!