A New Big Adventure

When I moved to Portugal I had a well thought out vision for the future. I thought at the time, and proudly told people too, that it would be for life. That I would move there, find a job and set down roots (hence the tree related pen name!) for a new and long life in Portugal. I had these visions of the future where, many years from now, my wife and I had retired in Portugal, out in the countryside and my children would all come on holiday to visit us.

Well, it seems that Fate has a different plan up her sleeve. Bangladesh. One thing is for certain, it is going to be oh so different from Portugal. I've seen pictures and videos on the internet and it all looks very busy and bustling in Dhaka, which is where we'll be heading out to in just over a month's time.

As you'll know from my old Portugal blog, my family and I are part way through getting our tropical vaccinations done, but there are still more to do. In about a fortnight's time, our second dose of jabs are due and the remaining ones for the kids that missed out on the first time round because the Pharmacist didn't have them in stock. But we're up to full speed on how that all works now, so it should (with luck) all go smoothly.

But that's just the start...

There's shipping to organise. Most of our worldly goods will be going on ahead, in a shipping container by boat and will take about six weeks to get there. We've found a company to do the removal, had a home visit (to assess the volume) and a couple of emails but that is that.  For that we need to get organised, since there is a requirement with Customs that we supply a full list of all the items that will be shipped, in Portuguese, for Customs leaving Portugal, and also in English for the Customs Office on arrival in Dhaka. We then need to arrange it all in our house so that we can easily tell the packers what needs loading up, and what does not. And all of that means that we actually have to decide for ourselves what needs to be sent on ahead, what we can take in suitcases on the plane and what needs to be sold off or thrown out.

Suitcases? Oh yes, we'll need some new ones. I remember when we moved to Portugal that at least one of our cases at that time arrived in a somewhat worse condition than it left England. I'm not completely sure how many survived that trip in good enough condition to now make it all the way to Bangladesh, and so we have some choices to make. Do we buy expensive new ones in the hope that "you pay for what you get" and that by doing so we are investing in new suitcases that will not only get us to Bangladesh but also see us through next year's obligatory holiday to Blighty? Or do we hit the basement in the Chinese Shop in Cascais, buy cheaper ones and risk that they will be "One Trip Wonders"? And how many to buy? And what size? It's a minefield out there!

Of course one of the big things to do is sell our car. Last week I set up an advert on Stand Virtual (which is like Portugal's version of Exchange and Mart), but aside from the initial couple of enquiries that were clearly trade offers, not one single interested private buyer as yet. I did set the price at the high end of what I believe to be a good price for the car, expecting to have potential customers haggle it down, but alas, I think the time has come to lower the advertised price. It will truly be a sad state of affairs if it doesn't sell and I am forced into flogging it off dirt cheap to a car showroom for half of it's true value. This is unfortunately a harsh reality for Expats in Portugal, in that it can be difficult to sell your car when trying to leave Portugal.

Then we also have to tidy up the Portuguese loose ends with the taxman and the social security, after all, I don't want to at some point in the future find a letter in my mailbox, having taken 6 months traversing through various international postal systems, informing me (after I have Google Translated it!) that I have 15 days to pay a large fine for not following the correct procedure before leaving Portugal. Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but who knows, I mean really, who knows this kind of stuff? I know people that have left Portugal, and as with these kind of things, everyone has their own experience. The trick is, or so it would seem, to build up a comprehensive knowledge base of as many different people's personal experiences as possible by polling as many expats and locals as you possibly can, and then carefully sift through the plethora of conflicting information, filtering out what you need. Or, maybe I'll just take a trip down to the Finanças office with a good book and  take a numbered ticket.

The Last Post

Hello Again! It's nice to be back!

"Back? But this is the first blog post? I'm confused," I hear you say. Well, yes, and no. It is the first post on my Bangladesh blog, but most of you will no doubt realise that this is a continuation of my blogging career after my old blogging escapades through my life in Portugal.

Either way, if you knew me before, or are a first timer reading my blog(s), I wish you a hearty welcome and hope that you stick around for a while and check up now and then on my goings on, inane dribbling and occasional photo blogs. I can't guarantee any kind of regularity to my posts, so you'll just have t keep coming back now and then and checking up on me.

But before I get lost in my new life in Bangladesh, I have one final post (coming up very shortly) that I wrote in Portugal and never somehow managed to get around to clicking on the Publish button before everything else about moving to Bangladesh just became so enormously terribly urgent and important. So, read on, for one final time, about the last few weeks of my Life in Portugal, before we move swiftly and deftly on into my new life as an Expat in Bangladesh.