I added to the Facebook post that I can hardly remember how much less prepared we used to be when taking international trips in the mid-1980s. I guess, we read and relied on guide books. Finding complete, up-to-date information via the Internet was, of course, not possible. In a way, those were the formative years and I'm a little thankful we learned the ropes. We had no choice but to arrive in an big, unknown city with zero reservations and only a few names scribbled in a notebook.
The Net has changed things. We already have air tickets spanning various dates during most of the upcoming winter. After three months in Sri Lanka, we are planning to take another six weeks in SE Asia before returning home. The dates of the sixteen nights in Burma (Myanmar) are already set. We also have tickets from there directly to the capital of Cambodia. Then, after visiting Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville, we will probably take a bus into Vietnam. This is why we were checking out the link at the top of this blog post. From Hanoi, we will probably go south into Laos by bus. As we get closer to the end of the trip, we're still keeping things flexible. It's always nice to be able to stay longer in a place that strikes our fancy. No itinerary should act as shackles.
We do know that we will need to get back into Malaysia at least a few days before our China Eastern flight back to Vancouver. We think Kuala Lumpur is an excellent city for the last few days away.
I've saved a copy of this map on Flickr. Click it to see a slightly larger version.