“What type of accommodations do you normally stay in when you travel?”
When we travel for two weeks or less we stay mostly in hotels. Sometimes budget hotels around $100, sometimes we’ll even splurge and spend more.

budget beach guesthouse in the Cook Islands

On our trip we stayed in private doubles of hostels in first world destinations and paid between $40- $90US. Sometimes the hostels have flatscreen TVs and private bathrooms, sometimes you couldn’t fit more than a bed in there. Even on shorter trips we’ve stayed in hostels a few times as a way to stay in a central location without the extra cost. We love the social aspect of hostels, but we try and stay away from ones that target the younger crowd. Just like hotels different hostels have different personalities.

In Asia, budget hotels are a bargain. Our cheapest hotel was $5/night and we hardly ever paid more than $25US. The hotels are usually clean, include wireless, and sometimes even a hot breakfast.

For more on accomodation, you can check out this post

“What are your experiences with health insurance and issues?”

As a Massachusetts resident whom is required to have health insurance, I was definitely concerned about having to drop my employer plan. I ended up making some calls and finding out that you can qualify for a waiver if you’re outside the country. Whew (I may have to update this after I file 2011 taxes though!)

While traveling we used World Nomads, which covers both health and travel issues, and is incredably reasonably priced. We spent $500 for both of us over 5 months. It’s also important to note that if you join certain tours and other activities while traveling, a lot of companies will ask for proof that you’re internationally insured, so if you’re thinking about skipping it, it may be a bad idea.

The last thing about Health Insurance that I was concerned about was access to prescriptions. As I had hoped, most third world countries give you easy access to prescription drugs. The biggest hassle is actually communicating what you want. I had many entertaining conversations at pharmacies. I highly recommend bringing the package of previous prescriptions with you.

“Could you get on the internet and connect to back home? Did you ever feel alone or isolated?”

Internet access is always available. Sometimes it’s expensive (Australia and New Zealand), and sometimes you can’t connect wirelessly (tiny islands like Raratonga and Koh Lipe), and then other times it’s slow (Laos and Cambodia) but it’s always there.

I was always able to connect with friends and family, but actually felt that they assumed we weren’t available so I didn’t speak to them much. Tim and I definitely craved communication with people other than each other, but we usually seeked to find it in person. If we did want to call family, I found the skype on my iphone worked great. It felt just like a regular phone connection as long as the wireless connection was strong enough.

“What’s your top destination recommendation and what was the toughest place?”

Tim Says: Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, Africa. Even though it wasn’t from this trip, he wanted to include it because it’s really the most extroardinary experience to find yourself surrounded by so many wild animals. We found ourselves in the middle of a hyena chase at one point, you don’t see that stuff at your local zoo.

Elephant Crossing

Tim’s vote for toughest place is Vietnam in the middle of Tet. The place is chaos without the holiday festivities, with it you’re just caught in a mob filled with gold tinsel in every direction and orange trees unexpertly attached to the back of mopeds.

Robin says: Hoi An in Vietnam was my favorite place that I would particularly recommend to the ladies. I wouldn’t even call myself someone who likes shopping but Hoi An was just spectacular for tailors and super cheap everything. The best part was the town itself was the most scenic little town with great restaurants and entertainment.

My vote for the toughest place is Australia. I thought I would steer away from the obvious answers and go with a place that people might assume is easy. They speak English, after all. The thing about Australia though is that it’s super big and super expensive, and due to the drinking culture its pretty easy to spend more time than you planned drinking. The only way to really overcome this successfully is to use Australia as a working spot to take advantage of the high wages. (min wage = $15.50)

“What were planning resources you used?”

Best book: Vagabonding
Best Documentary: A Map for Saturdays
Best sites: Wikitravel, the Bootsnall forum

“How did you finance your trip?”

We saved $200 – $400/month each for around 2 years. There was also a small contribution that came from some vested company options I had, I would say less than a quarter of the trip was funded through that though.

“What is your top travel tip?”

Tim Says: If there’s something you really want to do, do it, don’t worry about the price because you may never have an opportunity to come back there again.
Robin Says: You can literally buy everything on the road, and usually cheaper, so bring a half empty backpack.

Other questions we got from MPG attendees

“How did you manage to not kill each other traveling together.”

Well…it wasn’t easy. Couples are not meant to spend 24/7 together. The best days were when we met a lot of people and went out for meals and activities in bigger groups, so I highly recommend attempting to meet people as often as possible.

being stuck on a boat for two days is way better with friends

Lastly, if you’re traveling as a couple bring entertainment. We played cards during dinner, or sometimes chess on the ipad (I didn’t even know how to play chess before the trip). On nights we didn’t go out after dinner we would watch downloaded episodes of Dexter on the ipad. Trust me, staring at each other with nothing to say across the table isn’t the best way to keep a relationship strong.

“How can I work on the Road?”
Well, I once worked in the Gold Coast of Australia as a cocktail waitress. Other than that I don’t have any first-hand experience, but we learned this much on our trip:

You can get a work visa in Australia but you are required to work 6 months in the rural areas first. I met people who worked at a vinyard for example. Now, there are other ways to get jobs in the cities in Oz, or you can Aupair, but it’s best if you know people to make that happen.
New Zealand actually has a very easy work visa policy and I highly recommend looking into it. Also there are plenty of opportunities in Thailand/Laos to work at hotels and bars, the pay might be low but it will usually cover costs in that part of the world and then some.
Lastly, teach ESL. Places like Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan will pay really well, but you can usually find openings all over Asia, Africa, and South America. You usually need to commit at least three months, but I have rarely met anyone who didn’t like the experience.

“Would you ever do a trip like this again?”
I think we feel good about the trip we took and whats on our radar now are things like buying a house, that don’t mix well with long-term travel. I wouldn’t mind living internationally though. If we want to take some time off again 10 years down the line we would be more inclined to spend time volunteering for a month and traveling slowly from there. One lesson from our travels is less is more. The more time you spend in a place the easier it is to connect and really find out what it’s about underneath the touristy stuff. We need to stop being in rush to check things off the list.

“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.”
— Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect.

While we haven’t been to any exotic destinations recently, our travel spirit remains alive. Tim and I are speaking next week at a National Event called Meet, Plan, Go. This is a seriously cool event. It’s all about promoting long-term travel among North Americans (because believe it or not, long-term travel in kind of normal in other places like Europe).

Tim and I are thrilled to be involved with MPG, not just because the other people involved are even more passionate about travel than we are, but because the opportunity to travel has meant so much to us that we can’t wait to encourage other people to take the same leap of faith.

If you don’t live in Boston, that’s okay because there are 17 events going on through-out the country. (the one in Boston just happens to be the coolest)  If you’ve ever thought about traveling for more than a few weeks then we hope to see you there.

P.S.  If you have been missing my traveling words of wisdom, Here are two places I have been moonlighting recently.

• “How Much of My Trip Should I Plan?”  On Briefcase to Backpack
• A Chronical of our experience in Cambodia on TeachingTraveling.com

on the island of Boracay in the Phillipines

(Note: I know I have been neglecting the blog lately. Although I was hoping to write more about our experiences, since there is still so much we never shared, I think Tim and I’s life has officially moved back to boring/conventional mode. Therefore, all thoughts of beaches and exotic curries have been replaced with excel files and how to find a decent apartment to rent in Boston. We hope you’ve enjoyed the posts!)

People always want to know how much money we needed to save to quit our jobs and travel the world. It was the question we got from everyone before we left, so Tim and I decided to keep track of everything we spent. (okay I did, and I bugged Tim about everything he spent money on that day during dinner.)

scribbles to convert between Kip, Dong, and Dollars

Now, I’m opening up my budget notebook. I want everyone to know just how cheap you can travel in Asia. How much money did we need to travel for 5 months and spend 6 weeks unemployed in the States?
Roughly $32,000 (or $16000 each)

Is that a lot of money to pay for six months of unforgettable experiences? I personally don’t think so. In fact, we know we would have spent far more than that living in Boston. More importantly though, we could have done it cheaper. We could have chosen not to fly so much. We could have skipped the more expensive countries. We weren’t trying to see just how little we could live on, but we were trying to stretch our budget where we could. Here is the breakdown.

Daily Spending
Daily spending included: accommodation, local transport within a destination, all food and drinking, activities/entrance fees, necessary purchases for the trip (ie toothpaste, sunscreen, a new bathingsuit), internet fees, etc

Total Spent: $13,080
Average Daily spend: $90.21
Average Daily Spend in just southeast Asia (excludes NZ, AU, and Hawaii): $72.66

Cheapest Destination: Hanoi
Average spent over 5 days: $54.10 or ($27US each)

Most Expensive Destination:Perth, Australia
Average Spent over 5 days: $242 (with a 1:1 exchange and a beer costing $10AU we didn’t have much hope. We even cooked in the hostel a lot of the time during our stay)

Transport and other major Costs
Flights are the major expense in this category, but we traveled by all different means. We also sometimes included other “special expenses” in this category such as booked tours.
Total Spent $11,048

In case you’re interested, here’s a breakdown for our travel.
18 Flights
9 buses
5 Minivans
5 private cars
10 boat/ferries
1 train

This of course only lists the main travel method between places. Once we arrived at the airports we had to navigate subways, negotiate with Tuk-Tuks and Songthaews, and say a few prayers before jumping on the back of a motorbike even. Either way, getting from point A to point B was always an interesting affair.

If we really wanted to save money we would have spent more time overlanding through Southeast Asia. All of our flying besides one flight was during either the first six weeks or our trip and the final three weeks. While in Malaysia/Thailand/Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia we crossed the borders on tiny crowded boats.

Other Expenses:
Trip Insurance: $510 (Global Nomads)
Bills/expenses to be covered: $2,300
Exchange fees: $300 (at least!)
Gifts/Souvenirs: $530
Donations: $230
Visas: $375
6 weeks at home unemployed: roughly $4000 (high gas prices not helpful during our many trips to Boston)

Recommendations for other backpackers
After our experience, some guidance on what reasonable budgets would look like:

Thailand and Laos: $40 to $45 a day per person. We averaged less but it was only because we went out of our way to be very budget conscious. Laos may be a poor country but they hardly make anything themselves and instead import from Thailand or Vietnam, making most food and store items more expensive. Thailand is flooded with European tourists and have steadily increased prices in most popular beach destinations.

Vietnam, Cambodia, Bali and the Philippines:

It's really easy to be a multi-millionaire in Vietnam

Malaysia and the Cook Islands: $50 per person. Malaysia can’t figure out if its a first world or third world country. This means food could cost $2 or $20 depending on what restaurant you choose. In Borneo they charge outrageous prices for most entrance fees or tours. Cook Islands uses the NZ dollar but you can find budget places and buy fresh fish to cook with friends and get by without spending too much on other expenses (unless you enjoy diving).

Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii: $80 to $120 per person. In these places you can get a dorm bed for $25 to $30 or a private double for $50 to 60. The two X factors are – what are planning on seeing in these places? and How much time will you spend in bars. If you’re excited to climb a glacier in New Zealand, or taking surfing lessons in Oz – you’ll blow your budget. Similarly, the second you see the inside of a bar in any of these places you probably won’t walk out until you’re $50 poorer.

The biggest lesson we learned was always set your budget higher than your estimation. Assume everyplace will have increased their prices by at least 5% more than what is written down in your notes or your guidebook (And then attempt to negotiate it back then).

Intrinsic Cost and Value
Money was hardly the biggest obstacle in planning this trip. The costs that seemed to be the greatest were the risks we opened ourselves up to in leaving our jobs to travel. I’m happy to report that it was worth it though. It was worth the money. It was worth the stress. Blog posts can only say so much, but taking the time to see the world together was the greatest decision we ever made. We learned that our lives in America are almost too good sometimes, we learned to be informed but not try to control the situation (because you don’t control a trip – you just let it happen), and we learned that there is no greater feeling in life than sharing great moments with people you love.

We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again – to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.
– Pico Iyer, “Why We Travel”

We slept in 58 different beds on our five month trip. Sometimes we slept on mats, other times we slept on the most luxorious beds in the world. We slept in huts, guesthouses, with local Vietnamese families, on trains and planes, in hostel dorms, in five star resorts, friends’ houses, and even in treehouses 150 meters off the ground.

We took pictures of the places we stayed so you can see what the more mundane part of our backpacking experience was like. Without further ado I give you Robin and Tim’s “Best of Southeast Asia Accomodation” awards.

Most Expensive
Nomads Queenstown Queenstown, New Zealand
Pricetag: 110NZ (90US at the time – bad exchange)

Nomads is an upscale hostel. If you didn’t think such a thing could exist, think again. Hostels in New Zealand are the way to go. The private rooms are like a hotel room within the hostel. We had a flatscreen TV and balcony. There is a huge lounge that is always filled with people and it’s location couldn’t have been more perfect. It was worth the splurge.

Cheapest Room
Some hotel we followed a guy to when we got off the longboat in Pakbeng, Laos
Pricetag: 50,000Kip ($5.50US)
There were six of us looking for a room. We were also climbing up a steap pile of rocks and trying to claim our backpacks in the chaos that ensues on arrival. In a probably unwise decision in retrospect, Caitlin and I followed a local to check out the rooms while the four men waited for the bags. It turned out fine and the rooms, were um, sleepable, but there was ashady back staircase leading from right outside Caitlin’s room – so they ended up moving to another hotel. Tim and I discovered that even though we had hot water it only switched between scolding hot or freezing cold. It should go without saying, but I did not shower that night.

Most creative accommodation
Chai-Niz Village in Pai, Thailand
Price tag: 300 Baht ($10 US)
While Pai has all kinds of strange places to sleep, from tents on the river to large commune huts that overlook the town, we found the Chai-neeze VillageChai-Niz Villagehand-made each year from local bamboo. They’re simple 10 by 10 rooms that you feel like you might fall through with a comfy matress on the floor and an outside balcony. The bathrooms are in the common area. When the rainy season hits they let the huts get carried off in the river, and rebuild again the next year.

Worst Room
Friendly Guesthouse in Huay Xai, Laos
Price tag: 10000 Kip ($11 US)

It should have been a bad sign when the woman limped up three floors of stairs dragging her bad leg behind her like Lurch, and then had trouble matching the number on the doors with the numbers on the keys (in all fairness Laos doesn’t use arabic numbers), but with all the chaos of finding an empty room that matched her keys we forgot to check the bed. I’m pretty sure someone thought the boxspring was a matress. I think the floor would have been more comfortable. Also, to add insult to injury, our German friend recommended a different guesthouse after we returned from our two night tree house escapade, and for the exact same price we slept on the coziest mattress of the entire trip (Westin mattress excluded naturally).

Best Views
Paganakan Dii Sepilok, Borno, Malaysia
Price Tag: 150RM (50 US)


While a little out of our normal price range, this place was worth it. The open air lodge had the feel of being in the jungle of Borneo, but with the luxury and cleanliness of a 5-star resort. The best part was showering with a view of rainforest.
P.S. the mosquito nets are totally necessary.

Best Hospitality
Sam So Guesthouse Siem Reap, Cambodia
Price Tag: $14 US -Our long-term rate: $12US (we paid in US not Riel)

We really can’t say enough about Sam So and Teri. The husband and wife team were amazing. They had bright smiles for us everytime we saw them during our two week stay. Sam So woke up at 4:30am with us one morning and sat with us while we had coffee(which they specially prepared for us) and told us stories about his family during the Khmer Rouge. Sam So speaks German, Italian, and English fluently and always seemed to have one of his two children perched contently on hip lap. We have never felt so welcomed and taken care of anywhere, nor have we ever met a couple that had such warm hearts.

Best Atmosphere
Shiraleas Backpacker Resort Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand
Price tag: 500 baht ($18US) for the fan/cold water bungalows

Tim and I felt like family at Shiraleas. The owner, Richie, spent just as much time having drinks with us and giving us insider tips on the island as he spent behind the bar. We loved the tab system that allowed us to order anything at anytime and leave our cash somewhere else. Shiraleas is a 3 minute walk from the beach and the bar is always crowded with a great mix of Shiralea’s guests, dive bums, and other locals. With Hammocks and cushions to chill out on, and the best beach (haad Yao) on the island, footsteps away, Shiraleas was the kind of place where days could have turned into weeks, and for some it did.

Worst night sleep
Tie: Vietnamese night bus/ Old Firestation Hostle in Fremantle, Australia
Price tag: Nightbus roughly 20US for an 8 hr ride/$60AU Private double

You can refer back my Australia post for the reasons why we only slept between the hours of 3am and 8am during our five nights on the West Coast of Australia. The night bus was a unique experience though. We would have avoided it entirely if it weren’t for the Tet holiday causing all the trains to be booked. The night bus mixes locals and travelers and then goes out of it’s way to do bizarre things, most likely so travelers can try and “one up” each other on their experience. I have heard of people sharing buses with chickens, taking 55 hours to get someplace that should have taken 12, and even a bad mishap where a Brit we met had a knife pulled on him when he suggested to the Vietnamese driver that he would like less bags of rice under his seat so he could lie down properly.

The way these buses are set up is that there are two levels (like bunks). Choose carefully. The second level is closer to the speakers blaring Vietnamese music or Variety shows (the newer buses had TVs to our horror). Also when the lights are flicked on two inches from your eyes for no apparent reason, any hopes of sleep will be fleetingly replaced with anger. The lower level is more ideal, unless of course you find that the bus crew has decided to use the empty isle space to store bags of bread, or fish, or let a person sleep in the isle directly beside you. It’s truly an interesting gamble. The first night bus we took stopped constantly to pick up said supplies. The second time we took the night bus it never stopped at all, which was wonderful, until I realized there was no bathroom on-board. Then I waited, and waited, until we stopped on the side of the road again. We were in front of residencial houses. Now I won’t go into detail about what happened next but only say that I was not the only woman who had been crossing her legs, and also that I don’t think the Vietnamese family whose house we were outside of appreciated our presence behind their tree very much. As it turned out, our reason for stopping was because of a flat tire. If we ever go to Vietnam again, we’re booking flights between each and every destination.

Place we’ll definitely come back to
Nhi Trung Hotel Hoi An, Vietnam
Price Tag: 480,000 Dong($24US)

While $24 is considered overpriced for Vietnam, this hotel had everything from a beautiful balcony to a full breakfast included. The hotel was on the border of the old town and so it was quiet and still easy to walk everywhere in town. Hoi An felt like the most perfect little town to us, and this pleasant hotel certainly added to the appeal.

Best Value
The Wild Orchid Chiang Mai, Thailand
Price tag: 300 baht ($10US)

$10 was cheap even by Thailand standards. We had stayed in another guesthouse on our first visit to Chiang Mai and it had been more than twice as expensive. The Wild Orchid had an incredibly friendly staff, cozy rooms, and was in the area of town that boosted of the most nightlife, yet thankfully not so close that you heard it when you were tucked in your room. We were a little lazy during our stay (a long two-day trek earlier in Pai had drained us) and we spent a lot of hours holed up in our room there, most of them watching the crime channel (the only channel in English besides the news and HBO). If I lived in Thailand and could understand English I would be thinking there are a lot of murderers in America, what a dangerous country it must be.

Our Favorite Hotel
Indaprastha Homestay in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
Price tag: 20,000 Indonesian Rupees after some negotiation ($22US)

Maybe it was just that we didn’t expect such a serene room at the end of a winding alley, or just that the koi pond at the edge of our deck was so completely mesmerizing, but our stay in Ubud was like one of those odd dreams where everything is completely strange and foreign and yet everything about being there still seems absolutely right. If all of our experiences were anything like the one in Bali I think we would still be in Asia now, soaking up the novelty of having complete language barriers with our hosts and still being able to laugh with them and being treated like royalty.

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Stopping for Sushi in Japan

Can you Navigate this?

Tim and I had never heard of Nagoya before in our life until we were going there. In fact, I don’t think I have ever met anyone who has ever even been there. We had to look it up. It turns out Nagoya is the fourth largest city in Japan and in the area of central Japan.

There wasn’t much that was fascinating about it, but then we were only spending nine hours there. We ended up with the stopover after I became desperate to get us home without shelling out an extra thousand dollars more than we had budgeted. We had found flights earlier that went from Manila to Hawaii, and then Hawaii home for a good deal. When we went to book, those rates were no longer there. It’s a likely story when you’re living your life one “one-way ticket” to the next.

I have a PhD in flight route planning these days. I have most airport codes memorized and a good understanding of what airlines fly where. I use several resources to find airlines that aren’t listed on regular sites, and we’re not above wiring money or paying cash in person. When all of these options fail though, I use the kayak multi-stop function. It saved us a ton of money on our tickets. It also earned us 9 hours in Nagoya, Japan.

It’s worth noting that we booked out tickets before the earthquake struck and were scheduled to visit seven days after. This added a new level of “fun” to our adventure. Our stop-over went like this:

We landed in Nagoya at 11am. An American flight attendant urged us not to go into the city because of radiation levels. This was BS. We were further from the nuclear plants than Tokyo. We ignored her.

We stood in the wrong line, finally found the right customs area, got stamped (no visa required), and headed for the trains. We put our carry-ons in a locker and grabbed a map…in Japanese. This was our first sign that our day-trip was not going to go well. I stared at the map with Japanese characters marking each stop, turned to Tim and said well let’s buy a ticket.

Buying a ticket required a lot of pointing and shaking our heads no. This was not good. We finally got our tickets and were on the train. All we had to do was look for the character that looks like a house followed the one that looks short of like a “W” (but not) to come up and that was our stop.

We missed it.

We went to the next stop, got off, and took the train in the opposite direction. It was an express all the way back to the airport. So, about 50 minutes after leaving the airport we were back again. We tried a third time, this time I pointed at the map to a father with two children beside me and mimed for him to tell me when we were at the stop. Success!

Now we needed to locate the local subway to Nagoya Castle. This took some patience but ultimately we arrived. The Nagoya Castle was destroyed and this one was a replica of the fort like structure from almost a thousand years ago. We were thankful that some of information was in English, although we didn’t see one non-Asian person there, or anywhere in Nagoya.

After a quick stop at a Tea house (I couldn’t resist), We only had one other thing that we needed to do. We were in search of Sushi. After wandering aimlessly, like the clueless foreigners that we were, we found a place that was exactly what we wanted. It was the kind of place that counts the plates when you’re done and adds up the price by color.

We walked in and were created by shouts from the Sushi chefs behind the counter. Did we win some secret contest? No, it turns out they shout like that when anyone walks through the door. It’s like a surprise party every few minutes. Tim and I once again resorted to a mixture of pointing and we searched our brain for the Japanese words for the fish we wanted (suddenly very thankful sushi restaurants in the U.S. often keep the Japanese names on their menus). The sushi was fresh, unique, and had way too much wasabi. I was in tears, and Tim almost was too – from laughing at my face. I realized there was a thick layer of wasabi between the rice and fish in the maki rolls. Lesson learned.

At the end, we probably ate as much as family of Japanese would eat, and it cost us about as much as we would have spent in a week on food in Cambodia.

adding up our plates

Stomachs full, we headed back to the airport ( a full 2 hours early). We had very little faith in our ability to navigate ourselves successfully back to the airport, but we did fine. A few hours in Nagoya was enough. We had certainly been spoiled by the amount of English there was around us in Southeast Asia. Japan seems to be for a different kind of traveler. One that has money, can pronounce sounds from pictures, and has had more than an hour of sleep.

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”
– Clifton Fadiman

So I guess we’ll go to Singapore?

We didn’t mean to go to Singapore. Travelers never rave about their trip there. This is what people who have been have to say:

• Disneyland with the death penalty
• world’s only shopping mall with a seat in the United Nations
• Asia Lite
• spotlessly clean, sterile, well-regulated (Read: boring)

This pic taken by Shane when we happened to sit down on the floor next to he and his friends

The thing was, stopping in Singapore was a better and cheaper option than stopping in Manila twice. So with a few days notice we booked a flight, and then we emailed a guy we met in Bali over suckling pig. His name was Shane, and he was an American living in Singapore, who had recklessly said, “If you find yourselves in Singapore come stay with me.” So with only that much of an invitation, we did just that.

This is the beauty of long-term travel, of course. Our plan can change at anytime, and we can just improvise as we go. We constantly depend on the people we meet on the road as we stumble through the world. Singapore is expensive. Shane did us a huge favor by letting us stay in his beautiful townhouse. Even without accommodation expenses we were doubling our budget for the three days we were there (hardly difficult when a beer costs $10).

In short (because really Singapore isn’t interesting enough to be long-winded about) here are the top five things we did during our three day excursion to the “Red Dot.”

5. Little India. If you want to buy souvenirs and you’re tired of bargaining go to Little India. We found all the stuff that was in the Kiosks in the rest of Asia with a neat little price tag constantly leaving me with “wow, we should have payed that little, huh?” moments. Skip the food, better Indian food is sold elsewhere (we learned the hard way).

Bangles were not in short supply

4. Orchard Road. This is the main drag in Singapore. Mostly you, um, shop. We did go to a really great bar though. It reminded me of Rodeo Drive on a whole new scale.

3.Chinatown. I particularly liked the Buddha museum. It’s Buddhism for dummies, where Buddha tells the story of his life in first person. We have spent so much time in Buddhist holy sites, and we always seem to get bits and pieces. I finally felt like I knew what Buddhism was all about after our visit there. Oh, there’s also good shopping in Chinatown.

2. Smoking a Hookah at 2am on the waterfront. Ana, a Brazilian, was passing me the hookah, as she went into raptures on the problems she faces as a Brazilian in Singapore, and before that a Brazilian in France. I’d take a puff and remove my mouth piece (we were in Singapore after all, literally everything is sterile) before passing the Hookah back to the Iranian owner who could tell his own story about his move from Iran, to India, and then eventually Singapore. What Singapore lacks in wonder and spontaneity, it definitely makes up for with multiculturalism.

1. Chili Crab. I don’t know what to say about this. The pictures say it all.. We were told we needed to have Chili Crab so we did. We went to a place outside the tourist area called “No Signboard Seafood.” It was delicious, and the crabs were a sight to behold.

Just getting started

A little later. I had to start cheering him on,

So, Singapore was not the highlight of our travels, and it left us a little light in the pockets and with a fair amount of indigestion (but really, what else is new?). The city/country was worth the visit though, just to see the strange contrast between this small nation and the rest of Asia. It’s almost as if just when you’ve given up hope that anyone understands how to stand in a line or bring out the food you ordered within a half hour – there’s Singapore – where the taxi drivers are friendly and honest, and you can walk on a sidewalk without risk of being run over. It’s not something you appreciate unless you spent the last three months enduring these things, so we thanked Singapore (and Shane) for the hospitality before heading on the Philippines.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” – George Harrison

Cambodian Immersion at its Best

A procession of local Villagers...dressed in drag

“I hate looking at monuments. I hate waking up in the morning and thinking, ‘Oh! Today we’re gonna visit this abbey.’ We don’t do it at home, why should we do it abroad? The only thing I’m interested in is people, views, restaurants, and a clean, warm place to crap, as What’s-his-name said. You never meet real people when you’re touristing.”

So true! And yet each place that we went to we felt it was our duty to “see the sights.” Meeting locals and doing what locals do is even harder when you’re in places with cultural gaps as large and they are in Asia. A white person unfortunately equals a dollar sign. In Germany you can meet a local and have a conversation about their political system or have them explain what microbreweries they recommend. You have to work a lot harder in Asia to have an experience like that. And we stayed at homestays, in local villages, met locals on buses – but there was always a wall up between us and Asia. We were simply tourists in the end.

By the time we got to Siem Reap we were so excited. First of all, we could stay put for 13 nights! Second of all, we could take a break from museums, waterfalls, and more recently, war remnants. Going out into the village opened up even more for us though. We became accepted.

There are temples in Ruluos (where we volunteered) and one day when we had to use a substitute driver(refer to tuk-tuk accident in previous post), he pulled up at the temples to find out which way to go. When we pulled up we were instantly surrounded by touts. The driver asked which way to the school and all the women instantly fell back, smiled warmly, and one said “You help at school?” “Oh thank you, thank you,” we were instantly vindicated.

Karaoke is not for the Timid
Our regular driver, Pom Sen, was our favorite link between Cambodian culture and ours. It took Pom Sen a week to grow on us. Being eighteen, he was more interested in flirting with girls, then being around on time to take us home. Also, his motorbike was constantly backfiring, leaving me leaping out of seat every time the sound surprised us. By the second week though, we treated Pom Sen like a mischievous little brother. We made fun of his cologne, teased him when we found him flirting when it was time to go, and I actually kicked him and demanded he go put some clothes on when he sat down in nothing but a towel and helped the school admins and I to cut up badges at the reception area. Pom Sen was always serenading us as well, mostly with Justin Bieber. Finally, when we met two other American volunteers, we decided it was vital that Pom Sen bring us to Karaoke one night(Always the rage in all of Asia).
Well, I had learned before I left that a lot of Karaoke bars in Asia were, um, let’s say multi-tasking, but that fact has slipped my mind until Pom Sen brought us into a well-guarded club and we were marched past a dozen or so scandalously dressed and sulky women. We all looked at each other as we were led to a private room for Karaoke. It was a “what have we done” moment. But soon Pom Sen had the playlist going and was up and singing, and so we laughed and ended up making to most of our own private Karaoke party.

Sights are better with a story
We finally decided we should see the ancient temples that were in the village we were volunteering. These temples were special to the villages, and most tourists who visit them don’t realize that they still have large celebrations at the temples at night, when they are closed to foreigners. One of the older orphans had aspirations of being a tour guide, so Tim coaxed him into accompanying us as our “guide.” We teased him by asking obtuse questions about each carving, but it was when we stopped asking questions and let him tell us about the legends behind each temple that we really were rewarded. We could sense that the temples held an importance to Seyha that we could never grasp, but it made our experience there seem less like sight seeing, and more like a friend showing us his backyard.

An invitation we couldn’t refuse
As Rick Steves says, “When you go to the famous tourist town, you are part of the economy. You go to a little town with no tourism, you are part of the party.”

When Channtheng invited us to a village party, we couldn’t wait to go. We had no idea what is was. It went on at night and then again the next morning from 8am until noon. Tim and I had never heard of a party that happened in the morning, but we couldn’t go that night because Tim had been hauling wood in the mountains (long story). So we got there at 10am the next morning. It was explained to us only afterward that we had attended what is probably the equivalent of Thanksgiving in our culture, and the holiday origins are that the day is the death of Buddha, although every village celebrates at a different time. It was nothing like American thanksgiving.

When we showed up, we were instantly greeted by Channtheng and many of the other teachers and students from the school. (Tim and I suspected that many of them arranged to be there at the same time us to help us feel welcomed and comfortable). We first had to make our way over to the elders table and make a donation in exchange for a gift. After that, two large table were pushed together full of people we mostly knew, amongst a crowd of around 300 people. We heard moaning through a microphone system. Khimchey, another teacher, explained we were outside the monks’ dining hall and the monks were saying their prayers. I could see them all knelt in the dining hall. We were served fish, rice, and sauce for the tables I watched what the others did an followed their lead. Then the prayers turned to traditional Cambodian music, and the strangest thing happened. We watched the villagers come out in drag and dance. The music turned briefly to rave music and more and more people stood up to dance, and at one point even turned into a Black-eyed Peas song. Our friends all demanded we get up and join in the dancing. Tim and I followed them, but tried to blend in to the background (this is not really possible when you’re the only white people). The drag queens ended up leading the entire village around the dining hall in almost conga line fashion. We followed in the back mostly just walking and clapping to the beat as the other villagers twirled around and put on a show.

After the village party, we went back to Channtheng’s house with many of the others and met her parents (pictured). Even though they spoke no English, we tried to convey our thanks for them having us. The house was simple, and we never went inside. In Cambodia the eating area is usually out of doors and the house is mostly for sleeping. We were touched that we were invited to participate in their holiday with them, and invited to their home. We really saw what life was all about in rural Cambodia, and it turns out they have a lot more to be thankful for that Tim and I would have thought.

“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been. Travelers don’t know where they’re going.”
~ Paul Theroux ~

This post is very near and dear to Tim and I. We knew we wanted to take advantage of the time we had during our travels to volunteer at some point on the trip. Cambodia always seemed like the most likely place. Half of the 12 million people who live there are under the age of 22. (In America half the population is under 36). There are politics involved with volunteering though. Many orphanages demand a fee – and it is not insignificant. Volunteering for three to six months is the best way to get around this, but not everyone has that much time. We were lucky to run into a woman in Phuket who had just come from the Savong School and gave us the info. Our experience there was phenominal.

While no day was the same during our two weeks. Here’s what our days were filled with:

An interesting Commute

Our stylin' driver

Mornings At the Orphanage
Our arrival was always greeted with anticipation. Some mornings the younger children would be on our laps before the tuk-tuk was stopped. Other days if lessons were in session we would see waves from the classroom and the older boys would instead steal our attention for a few minutes (anxious to talk about hip-hop “do you know who Nas is?”) before heading to teach the younger kids a song or game if it could be helped instead of teaching a serious lesson. The older kids sat for the next hour.

Watching "The Lion King" on the ipad turned out to an exciting event for the kids

Lunch
There are no tables and chairs in the orphanages. All meals take place on the kitchen floors. the floor is thoroughly mopped and swept before each meal, but that doesn’t stop it from getting dirty quickly. There are puppies at the orphanage that tend to be tempted into the kitchen by the food as well. It wasn’t an usual event find a small puddle on the floor next to where the children were sitting.
The meal consisted of rice, fish, and a broth or sauce of some sort.

Trying to get the fish smell off our hands proved to be the biggest issue

Nap Time
After lunch the younger children and many of the older ones napped. Like most hot weather countries, it’s considered normal practice to nap and then bath perhaps a second time. I spent this time usually on a swing seat chatting with the older girls who were just returning from their morning classes. It was my favorite time of the day. I especially wanted to understand what life was like for a sixteen year old in an orphanage in Cambodia. And they wanted to know what my life was like. After several days with them no topic seemed to be off-limit. We spoke openly about life for women in Cambodia versus in America.

Teaching English at the Savong School
The school was just down the road from the orphanage and offered free English classes (or Japanese classes) to students in the surrounding villages. The school is quite popular. Classes are held from 2pm to 7pm (as not to interfere with government school). There are three classrooms that are all in use during these hours. We would teach five classes back-to-back ranging from beginner to university students. each was a unique and exhausting experience.

The biggest question we get is, “Did you know how to teach English as a second language?” The answer is no. Normally there is a Khmer teacher there that can help guide you while you teach, but the teacher who taught most of the classes we were working with was out sick the first week. We were handed a marker and told “Okay, teach.” Tim and I looked at each other, bewildered and then learned very quickly what to do. There were classes we had to teach the “perfect continuous tense”, classes that were learning about careers, and then there was our fourth class. That was when over 50 young children would fill into the small cinderblock classroom. As they came in the heat would rise and the smell assaulted our noses. This class learned shapes and farm animals. We spent a lot of the class yelling over them the lyrics to songs like Old McDonald. Before this class began I would sit on the side and watch the kids play games in the grass. I was enthralled by the way they played. No one was left out, no one was made fun of, everyone just smiled. Tim and I tried to remember what the lives of these children were like. Learning English was an indulgence for them. They were thankful to be there. Tim and I were never left alone for too much time to get lost in though though. Between classes children loved to practice their English with us. They also wanted me to tell them what snow was like, and American foods. I felt like I was telling them fairly tales. Of course, now I feel like I’m telling you fairy tales, about a society so innocent that they don’t know to be cynical. They don’t know they’re supposed to think school is lame and call other kids names to make them feel superior. They grow up to be the kinds of people that you want to make up this world.

Maybe it’s just the old axiom that you can’t help others without helping yourself, but there’s no doubt that we learned more than we taught during those weeks. We know absolutely that it was the single greatest thing we did while in Asia, and we would love to do it again. There’s nothing better than volunteering, if you do it in the right place. We got to help people who sincerely needed our help in the world, and at the same time it made us better people.

Also, because I can’t help myself please enjoy these other moments from the orphanage:

riding with two of our faves: Soon and Utdom

we donated (among other things) 250Kilos of rice...

...which broke the tuk-tuk and sent us flying into a ditch later that night(unhurt)

Tim helped make a small fence for a garden...

...the children decided to use the saws to make wooden knives and bow &arrows. I couldn't take them away.

My money was on the chicken

bath time

“You and I can’t change the world, but we can change ourselves. We can change our own families, and we can even change our own neighborhoods. There, nobody has excuses.”
– Manu Chao

some of the thousands of skulls dug up from the Killing Fields

Losing our Appetites in Phnom Penh
Everywhere we went in PP was sad. There were people with no limbs in the streets. I was once forced to step over a naked baby in the sidewalks, her mother most-likely purposefully positioning him there with this idea in mind. But the worst sight wasn’t of Cambodians it was of white men. They were everywhere.

The first night we went to dinner, we sat in a restaurant near our street and at each of the tables around us sat an old white man by himself. The one nearest me sat, doing a crossword puzzle, humming to himself in a satisfied sort of way. That was when my stomach flipped in a strange way, and I glared. I glared like I have never glared at anyone in my entire life. I stopped and turned to Tim and said, “How can they sit here standing themselves. They know everyone else knows exactly why they’re here, and they just sit there, without a care in the world.” I noticed Tim’s expressions were the same as mine. disgust.

The hotel room we checked into had a list of rules on it as well. Rule #2 was check-out was a noon. Rule #3 was no sex with Children. Rule #4 was no smoking. Just like that, like an “oh, by the way”.

No one wants to talk about it, but in Phnom Penh the main form of tourism is sex tourism. It’s not just one kind, it’s what almost everyone is doing there. It’s not just that it happens, it’s that it’s so common that it is accepted, and that’s what makes me sick.

When a Library Can Be So Much More
At the school that we were volunteering and teaching English, we met another American. She was studying in Hong Kong and had stopped by for a week. Her parents had generously decided to donate the funds to the school so they could build a library. They had never visited Cambodia. Samira, was the first in her family to do so. As we drove up in the tuk tuk, she squeled. She jumped out and looked at the library and seemed to be dancing around with excitement at finally seeing, in person, the materialization of the donation. It had just been a building to Tim and I, but it was much more to her family, and it was much more to the children that use it. Their names were on the library and on a plaque, and she stood in awe, and said “I can’t believe that’s my parents.” And at that moment I thought, there is definitely not one place that family could have spent their money and got any more pleasure from.

Ancient Wonders
From watching many of the other temple goers at Angkor Wat, you would think it was a chore to see these walled cities from over a thousand years ago. I didn’t see it that way. I wondered how they looked when they were first built in the 9th century, when there was most likely bustling markets and villages set up around the temples. Stepping through each doorway was a reminder that people were stepping through the same doorway in ancient times. How often do you get to do that? The most amazing thing is seeing how time effects a man-made structure. How nature takes over.

Genocide Kills More Than Just People
There’s no way of knowing how many people died during the time of the Khmer Rouge, but it was in the millions. We learned that they killed even the babies (in the most brutal ways possible, including smashing them against trees, or throwing them in the air and shooting them with their mothers watching) because they were afraid they would grow up and seek revenge. Several categories of people were considered enemies of the Khmer Rouge, most notably (to us) professionals and intellectuals. Almost every teacher, artist, and doctor/healer was killed in the 1970s. Cambodia is now a country that has forgotten how it learned. Families cannot quite remember how their ancestors used medicine – the knowledge that was passed down for centuries is wiped-out.

Rice for Three
On our last night in Cambodia, we went to Green Star. A restaurant in Siem Reap that is non-profit. Doug, an Australian expat that moved here some years ago, took the time to talk with us, as he seems to do with all his guests. His girlfriend Avee sat with us as well and made me laugh. Like all the Cambodians met met, she was easy to like. As our conversation with Doug grew more serious regarding our observations while in the country, he mentioned that before he had met Avee she had been starving. She had, in fact, been pregnant with twins five years ago, and was living off of a cup of rice a day. “Can you Imagine?” he asks. And the answer, is no, we simply cannot. You hear of poverty all the time, but it is not normally regarding the person sitting at the table with you pouring lemon water into your glass.

Tastes like a chicken wing

If you’re in Siem Reap, stop by and say hi to Doug. We highly recommend the frog.

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

The infamous "sleeper bus"

We covered Hanoi and our favorite spot in Vietnam, Hoi An, in seperate posts. Check out what the other destimations in Vietnam had to offer.

Ha Long Bay
Everyone who goes to Vietnam goes to Ha Long Bay. It’s simply beautiful. We took pictures, we went in caves, we kayaked, and we drank “Happy Juice” out of a gasoline can at night while we listened to the crew sing awful Karaoke.

inside the caves

He's down on one knee singing...and we were praying it would stop.

Huế and the DMZ
The Purple Forbidden City was fun to visit around Tet. We mostly headed to Hue to spend the day touring the DMZ for the day. I was thankful our tour guide seemed to be from South of the DMZ so the propaganda was manageable. There were cililvian tunnels on the north side that residents lived in during the war. Babies were born in there – and they had kitchens and small nooks as bedrooms. The thing that surprised us the most about the DMZ though – was that it was gorgous. We always think of warzone as these souless abysses of dessert -and that challenged my assumptions.

Playing Shogi (Vietnamese Chess) with live people inside the Forbidden Palace as part of the Tet celebration.

In the tunnels

Nha Trang
Don’t forget, Vietnam is all coastline, so they have plenty of beach. We loved Nha Trang. Mostly because it has the cheapest diving in the world – and the conditions were great the day we went. We also had a blast on Vinpearl island. For $16 you pay for a round-trip cable car ride to the island which has a wonderful aquarium, a water-park, amusement park, and (we discovered this last) an arcade where every new, high-tech game is set to free. We felt like kids.

The view from our balcony

Saigon
Saigon was interesting to us because it was a very striking illustration of how much less communist the south of Vietnam is. Saigon seemed littered with beautiful parks. The traffic was still crazy, but there seemed to be more traffic lights and order involved. We were extremely amused when school children walked up to us and asked us in English what we thought of things like: traffic, the environment, and crime in Saigon. It’s still Vietnam though, don’t let your guard down or you’ll find yourself in a cab that the meter had been tampered with thinking, “I just thought maybe they didn’t do that here.”

Saigon by night

a tight fit in the Củ Chi tunnels

The Mekong Delta
We saw some tours that went from Saigon all the way to Pnomh Phen (where we were headed). So we thought, “hey we should see the Mekong Delta too” and that’s as much thought as we put into that decision before handing over $40 each (for 3 days and 2 nights with everything included except a few meals). The area is where the Mekong splits off into a maze of canals. We were able to see the iconic floating markets, and villages that specialize in a specific craft (rice paper, candy, etc), and even stay with a local family, before on the third day taking a boat all the way to Cambodia.

the floating market

The Mekong, it turns out, is just a giant bathtub

Of course, crossing into Cambodia awed us in a whole new way. Even though they may be neighbors, they had very little in common.

“The sentimental tourist makes images in advance; they grow up in his mind by a logic of their own. He finds himself thinking of an unknown, unseen place, as having such and such a shape and figure rather than such another. It assumed in his mind a certain complexion, a certain color which frequently turns out to be singularly at variance with reality.”
–Henry James, “Saratoga”