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Our Southeast Asia Trip Highlights & Lowlights
It had been a while since we were last on the road. Unlike some digital nomads we only travel part time but, then – despite the impression sometimes given – so do the majority of people who make their living with a laptop and an internet connection. Most long term travellers quickly learn they have the freedom of time as well as geography and sooner or later will stop somewhere and stick around for a while.
On the round the world trip we took in 2002/3 we travelled for nine days before we liked the look of Cusco, paid the deposit on an apartment and settled in. The one year time limit of our RTW ticket eventually spurred us on to visit more of South America and complete our circumnavigation via New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia.
Three years later Corfu became our home for a few months as we waited out Bulgarian visa rules that kept us from completing the purchase of an apartment in Veliko Tarnovo. We never did buy in Bulgaria. Instead, we clipped our wings on Turkey’s Aegean coast, where we now live between our bouts of long term travel. When we next travelled we again began by stopping still. This time it wasn’t completely by choice as we rode out the Egyptian Revolution in the Sinai, in Dahab.
For our fourth extended trip there is no pretence we are going to whizz about the place cramming everything in and trying to see everything. Four days in and all we had seen was a lot of traffic and a couple of rats. We’re fine with that. For us it was a pleasure just to walk foreign streets again. The main sights of Bangkok were seen ten years previously and while we planned to revisit some there was no rush.
Before we arrived in Bangkok we spent three days in Istanbul practicing, and failing, to be backpackers again. The first day we slept, the second we took advantage of having a desk to do some work and on the third we got lost in the snow. Again, we didn’t mind. We have spent ten days in the city before and though I’m pleased to have got some pictures of the Blue Mosque and Agia Sofya in the snow, spending most of our three day stay within the cosy confines of our hotel suited us fine. Both the city and our hotel worked as a cocoon separating our caterpillar life at home from the butterfly travels to come.
On this trip, right from the deciding to go stage our intention was to settle down somewhere: perhaps by the sea, perhaps in that digital nomad mainstay of Chiang Mai. We were going to be ‘wintering’ as people with much more money than us might have said sometime between the invention of the airplane and the decline of the Empire. While winter in Turkey doesn’t have the vehemence of northern Europe it is cold enough that we wanted nothing to do with it that year.
This was to be more of a living abroad trip with a side order of adventure in Myanmar. Our plan was only to stay away until spring – or maybe summer when Didim is a perfectly nice place to be – but winter back home passed into spring, then summer and we ended up arriving back home for the following winter anyway.
But we didn’t mind. We had a good run and couldn’t complain. We experienced and visited numerous wonderful things and places, the following of which have made it onto our highlights reel.
The Highlights
Istanbul
Though I did that man thing and refused to ask directions when there were perfectly good signs to follow (who knew there were two Sultanahmet districts in Istanbul?) leading to a five hour plod through the snow in clothes packed for the tropics, it was nevertheless good to revisit one of our favourite cities. Istanbul allowed us to get our travel heads on, metamorphosing in the warm cocoon of our hotel (the highly recommended I’zaz Loft Apartments) from our home selves into our backpacker alter egos.
Bangkok
The first time we landed in Bangkok we did so on Chinese New Year and, without a place to stay, spent the night rescuing shoeless, drugged robbery victims and trying to catch a nap here and there in bars and late night eateries. When we did finally get a bed for the night it was in small, poky rooms in and around the Khao San Road area. This time we sought accommodation in different areas of Bangkok and from these bases felt we got to know the city much better beyond the tourist sites.
Chiang Mai
We barely remember our visit to Chiang Mai last time we were there in 2003. Ten years later we got to know the city fairly well, spending around four months in a daily routine of plodding away on a laptop keyboard and smoothie drinking. Still only paddling in the shallow waters of expat life we nonetheless felt we were experiencing the rhythms of our own part of town outside of the moat.
Songkran
I can’t tell you how much I love Songkran. It is my all time favourite festival in the whole wide world. Where and when else can you squint streams of ice cold water in the face of old ladies and dunk small children in ice water without getting an ASBO. While the mass water fight on the streets is immense fun small details like the amusement of popping down to the supermarket, where all the customers have water guns slung over the shoulder, also stick in the memory.
Meeting up with my sister
I’m glad to see my younger sister also has the travel bug. Living in Turkey we don’t see our families too often and were pleased when we caught up for a couple of days in Chiang Mai during her own travels around Australia and Southeast Asia.
Lisu Lodge and Khum Lanna Tour
We didn’t actually do a great deal of what you would call actual ‘travel’ during our time in Chiang Mai and were fine with that. But when the chance arose for a bit of adventure we took it. The Lisu Lodge and Khum Lanna tour is billed as soft adventure and rural tourism, cramming in, among other things, ox cart rides, white water rafting, cycling and cooking classes.
Myanmar
If our time in Chiang Mai was the living abroad part of this trip then Myanmar was the travel bit and the place that sealed the deal when we were deciding which part of the world we wanted to visit next. We formed an early attachment to the country in Yangon, with its colonial buildings and astonishing Shwedagon Pagoda and loved Inle Lake and Bagan. If the country wasn’t so expensive compared to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos we would happily visit again but next time would get off the beaten track a little more.
Another thing we noticed was other travellers talked to us far more in Burma than in Thailand. Whether this was because everyone was excited to be visiting somewhere new, that the country required more effort and swapping of advice, or that internet connections were more sporadic, we found it far easier to engage with other backpackers than a lot of other places in Southeast Asia.
Don Det
Laos is a thoroughly likable country and it was good to be back again. Last time we journeyed down the Mekong to Luang Prabang, in the north, but on this occasion we explored the south. Again the Mekong was in almost constant attendance and the provided the perfect backdrop for lazying around in a hammock – which was pretty much all we did for most of the month.
Volunteering in Thailand
Though Deirdre was afraid every animal was going to eat her (including the chickens) I loved volunteering with the Safari Park Volunteer Initiative near Kanchanaburi. From the absurdity of taking lions and tigers for a walk to playing dodge with Chutney the gibbon, before giving the little guy a backrub, I might have spent more time in a 9 to 5 job if it was like this. Our feelings towards the Erawan Elephant Nature Park were a little more mixed but the time spent around the elephants wasn’t wasted.
The Lowlights
To balance things out these are some of the things we disliked aboiut this trip.
Crap packing – I tried to pack light this time, I really did. I even froze my nuts off for three days in snowy Istanbul rather than packing a coat I would have to carry around for the rest of the year. Unfortunately I had an eye infection when we were due to leave and, unable to see too much, randomly threw loads of useless crap into my bags as usual.
Punching a Bangkok taxi driver in the face – He was threatening to hit me with a baseball bat and followed me every time I turned my back and tried to walk away, but, even so, I shouldn’t have let things get to that point.
Malaysian buses and bus stations – We like Malaysians but for some reason every Malaysian child that grew into a surly dishonest fuckwit seems to have made their career on the country’s bus network. While this has helped to remove these people from the rest of Malaysian society it does make travelling around the country a little unpleasant.
Breaking and losing things – From Deirdre losing her prescription sunglasses on our flight to the region to two busted cameras and a damaged laptop we suffered a much higher amount of equipment mishaps on this trip than all our others put together. The cost of replacing things is bad enough but time spent running around town – especially when we’re only there a short time – trying to fix or replace these items is possibly even worse.
Getting sick – We were already grateful to have accommodation arranged in Bangkok after our mishaps when we first visited the city ten years previously but nothing is more pleasing in your accommodation choice than a clean floor and bathroom – especially when you are slumped on the former and spending a lot of time in the later thanks to food poisoning. Deirdre didn’t have to wait long for her first bout of tummy troubles on this trip after eating undercooked chicken on our Malaysian Airlines flight. Deirdre usually gets sick once or twice every trip but even I – for the first time in nearly ten years living and travelling abroad – got a slight stomach bug and threw up in the streets of Chiang Mai.
Visa runs – While my iron stomach seems to cope well with problem food it doesn’t like being shaken about too much. Though it was a necessary evil, if I never have to feel queasy in the back of a minivan on the way to Mae Sai again I’ll be a happy man.
Banks freezing our money – They say trouble comes in threes and at the beginning of our trip this seemed to be true. Along with eating dodgy chicken and losing a pair of glasses, we were refused access to our bank accounts on landing in Bangkok. To be honest our preparation for this trip was a lot more half arsed than usual but, even so, because we live abroad anyway we didn’t expect our banks to deny us our money from an ATM simply for being in Thailand. Luckily we had some dollars left over from a previous trip otherwise it would have been a long walk into town from the airport. A phone call to the bank fixed the problem but they did the same thing again when we returned to Thailand from Myanmar.
Breaking US sanctions to Myanmar – As amusing as it was to be placed in the same category with gun runners and white slavers this could have been a lot more serious. Simply by logging in to our PayPal account in Myanmar we were flagged for potentially violating United States regulations administered by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. We couldn’t fix for problem until we left Burma a month later and were lucky – because we live in Turkey – we have some post, including bank statements, sent to the address of a family member otherwise the issue would have remained unsolved until we got home nine months later.
The price of accommodation in Myanmar – We loved Myanmar and would happily visit again but that is going to have to wait until accommodation prices start to fall to sensible levels.
Not making enough of our time in London – Despite loving the city where we used to live we have usually bypassed London whenever we have returned home. It’s too expensive to stay there and with a lot of our friends having moved away and family elsewhere in the UK we tend not to do much more than pass through nowadays. This time though – thanks to Palmers Lodges – we did enjoy being Londoners again for a few days but not for long enough. We would have liked to have set aside a little more time to be tourists and also to catch up with some old friends but a combination of Deirdre being unwell, the need to just sleep in a comfortable bed after a week on the floor, work, and having to make an unscheduled journey out of town to collect a finally repaired laptop, all ate into our time in the city.
Coming home in winter – We had intended to come home for the summer but ended up staying away longer and returning the following winter. While our town is warm and lively in the summer months this is a sharp contrast to the winter (though this winter has been pretty good weather-wise, especially when we see all the rain dumped on the UK in the past few months). Next time we’ll make sure we have enough money in the bank to cover our bills for a couple of years – just in case we don’t want to come back.
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This updated piece was first published in three parts in the old version of our blog which included the following comments:
Yvette and Phil said: “Lovely to hear you are in exotic climes again (and Burma-bound!). I have been travelling, staying put, travelling etc etc for many years, ever since receiving your JAB updates in text format in my old Hotmail account (many moons ago!) It’s been great reading your job ads and your blog posts – feels like your site has been a much loved piece of luggage!
We’re home (Sydney), saving, chipping at the mortgage and renting out our place again to head off on our 3rd one way ticket. No firm plans this time but Puglia is calling us back again & Isreal is on the cards. Will definitely be Helpx’ing/WWOOFing again and will buy a van. We don’t earn $ online from the road, we only have savings, WWOOFing and a little from the house – it’s a good thing we really enjoy WWOOFing! Anyway, just wanted to let you know what we are intending to do because, no doubt, you will be part of our luggage again!”
– we replied: “Hi guys, I think this is my favourite comment ever, especially as I don’t think a traveller can bestow a greater compliment than a comparison to much loved luggage. Those JAB email days were a while ago and I’m so glad to hear some of our long time readers are still travelling. I hope your next trip is a great one and that on your work exchange there will be less wine fueled flashing of grumpy locals this time.”
Amy said: “Sounds like you’re having a good time so far, I look forward to hearing more about your adventures in Asia. Slow travel does seem to be the way to go and I know everybody recommends it I fear that Andrew and I are already falling into the trap of packing too much into our itinerary and we haven’t even left yet! I hope after a few months we learn to slow down.”
– we replied: “Hey Amy, we are having a good time even if we haven’t done a great deal. When you have been saving hard and making sacrifices it is only natural to want to be let loose and do all the things you have been dreaming about. My little sister is currently in Australia and I know she is haring about the place throwing herself off or into things.
I think travellers find their natural pace in their own time and there is certainly no right or wrong way or speed to travel – at least we don’t think so anyway. Today we did what we do best which is to eat then find some shade and sit in it. Tomorrow, just to vary things, perhaps we will find some shade and eat in it.”
