Another 3 months under our belts.

Drinking fresh beer at a street bar in Hanoi, in front of the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City with Jo, Angkor Wat, Releasing a lantern into the sky on New Year’s Eve in Chiang Mai

Countries visited in the last three months (1st October to 31st December)

Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand (total visited to date on this trip = 10)

Have you managed to stay within your budget (£70 per day)? And what has been the expense breakdown?

Easily within budget, our average daily spend over the three months has been £55.89. Our daily spend to date since we left home has been £66.09.

• Accommodation is the biggest expense at 28% – a lower proprtion than the previous two quarters as it’s incredibly easy to find reasonably priced accommodation in SE Asia. Indeed you can usually find a VERY nice room for about £30 per night, and a clean, ensuite room with air-con in a guesthouse is only about £10-15. We’ve generally mixed between the two.
• Food is the second highest at 23.7%, much higher than previously. I’m not entirely sure of the reason for this as eating out has also been very cheap. My suspicion is that we’ve been a lot more relaxed about stopping off for a mid afternoon coffee and cake or refreshing fruit smoothie as we knew how under budget our spending was. We’ve also splashed out on a few meals at very nice restaurants, notably Les Jardins de la Carambole in Hue, Xu in Ho Chi Minh City, and Haven in Siem Reap.
• Intercity transportation is also up from the last quarter at 13.4%. Over half of this is accounted for by our flights from Hong Kong to Hanoi which cost £180 each.
• Living expenses is quite a big proportion this quarter at 6.4%. Quite a bit of this is the cost of an upgrade to our website hosting to give us more space for photos, but it also includes a new pair of walking trousers for Andrew and £20 for one month’s internet usage at our apartment in Chiang Mai.
• Entertainment and entry fees – 5.5%. Almost a quarter of this is our week long passes for Angkor at US$60 each.
• Guides and tours – 5.2%. Quite a lot of our activities in Vietnam fell into this category, from the Street Food Tour in Hanoi, to the Ha Long Bay cruise we took from Cat Ba island, and all of the activities that we did in the Mekong Delta

What has surprised you most in the last three months of travel?

Julie – Everything that I’d read said that it’s ridiculously easy to live cheaply in SE Asia but the reality of it didn’t really hit home until we started travelling here. And while we’ve continued to monitor our spending, we really haven’t had to try to stay within budget – there’s been no penny pinching on food or accommodation so that we could afford to do some of the big experiences that we wanted.

Andrew – The sheer number of motorbikes and scooters. Yes, I know south east Asia is densely populated – especially in the major cities – but it hadn’t occurred to me to wonder how everyone would move around. And not only for the daily commute, we’ve seen motorcycles and sidecars configured to sell all manner of tasty street-food such as noodles, fried rice, dried fish, grilled fish, kebabs, phad thai, fresh fruit smoothies, tea, coffee, and banana pancakes.

Apart from family and friends, what are you missing most about life in the UK?

I know it’s cheating a little bit but we really feel we’ve missed out on family related celebrations in the last three months. We’ve spent Christmas away from home before, but never without having a ‘Christmas Day’ on a different day before we left, and although we had a lovely day and fantastic meal here we were both a little homesick. In addition to that, both of our nephews had birthdays in the last three months (Scott was 3, and Olly was 1) and we’re hugely excited about the imminent arrival of nephew (or niece) number three but also know that we’ll be sad not to have a cuddle.

What’s the most memorable sight that you’ve seen in the last three months?

Julie – I loved the old town in Hanoi. The different craftsmen grouped together, the twisty alleys, the motorbikes with unlikely loads, and, oh, the food…the world’s best spring rolls, freshly fried prawn cakes, bowls of delicious noodle soup and 21p glasses of bia hoi (fresh beer). And, although there were lots of tourists, I loved that there didn’t seem to be, it was just lots of locals getting on with their lives and activities that didn’t have anything to do with tourism.

Andrew – I’m going to eschew the first and obvious sight that springs to mind, and instead choose the variety of things carried on motorbikes – the most memorable of which needs the stage setting so here goes: Julie, Jo and I are in a regular taxi on the ring road heading out of Saigon to the bus station, when I happen to glance across the 6 lanes of busy traffic to the on-ramp of the opposite carriageway, where the pillion on a 125cc semi-automatic scooter catches my eye because he has his arms fully outstretched like he’s on the bow of the Titanic. “Why are his arms outstretched?” I’m thinking. Then, as they join the 60km/h carriageway I see it. He’s holding upright, a full pane of glass, without a frame, about the size of a patio door.

Tell us a funny story from the last three months of travel.

We were eating crabs in Kep. After watching our crabs go from kicking to cooked in the space of 10 minutes, we’re just tucking in when a passing Chinese looking man told us to be careful. He prodded at one of our crabs and said they would probably be OK, but that they might not be fresh. Thankfully, he mistook our look of complete incomprehension for misunderstanding, whereupon he felt the need to explain he was French.

Who is the person you’ve met that you remember the most from the last three months?

That would be David from our day trip in Battambang. Not only was he great fun to be with because he was always joking, but his relaxed, unhurried demeanour put us at ease which meant we enjoyed the sights around Battambang more. He also arranged for his friend to meet us in Siem Reap, and when we got off the boat Mr Sokha was waiting for us with our name on a card and a big smile.

Finally, what have you found to be the greatest challenge so far?

Julie – Surprisingly, finding good accommodation. Because it’s so cheap, it’s very difficult to filter anything out. Whereas previously we have been able to look at the handful of options within our budget and then make a decision based on location and online reviews, in SE Asia we’ve found that restricting price really only excludes the 5-star resort places, and so it’s become much more about trawling reviews and deciding what level of comfort/local experience we want. On occasion this has worked well (we found an incredible deal on a hotel in Hue, and the family-run guesthouse where we stayed in Kampot was great) but it hasn’t always worked out so well.

Then when we arrived in Chiang Mai we’d thought it would be easy to find an apartment to rent for two months, but for various reasons it just seemed to be really difficult – we’d see an advert for a place and it would already be gone, or they wanted a six month minimum contract, or it was miles out of town, or there was no kitchen/swimming pool (OK, I know that sounds like a luxury, but after the place we stayed in Bangkok it was something we were both keen on). By the time we saw the apartment we eventually rented we didn’t care that it was 50% more than we’d hoped to spend or that the wifi was extra, we just wanted to move in.

Andrew – We were getting quite proficient in Russian, picked up enough Mongolian to be polite, and our good friends Isaac and Rebecca gave us a crash course in Mandarin, but I’ve found it really difficult to learn the south east Asian languages: Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai. On reflection I think there are two reasons: firstly, like Mandarin, they’re quite hard for western minds and mouths to pick up – they have tones or intonations (4 in Mandarin, 6 in Thai), and the written word is, at first glance, impenetrable.

Secondly, and quite possibly a consequence of the firstly, it is too easy not to speak the native language. Since hitting Vietnam, we’re on the well-travelled tourist circuit and as most people we would interact with speak enough English, so it’s too easy for us to be lazy. Indeed, most of the Thai wats have a regular thing called “Monk Chat” where we’re encouraged to help Monks improve their English!

Incredibly, it’s 3 months since we did our original quarterly summary. Here’s the next instalment…

In the Gobi desert, with the Chinggis Khaan statue in eastern Mongolia, on the Great Wall of China with Julie’s parents, taking the Harbour Ferry tour in Hong Kong

Countries visited in the last three months (1st July to 30th September)

Mongolia, China, Hong Kong

Have you managed to stay within your budget (£70 per day)? And what has been the expense breakdown?

Almost within budget, our average daily spend over the three months has been £70.29 although with a lot of variation in the quarter. August’s spend was high, partly because of the cost of our tour to eastern Mongolia at the start of the month and partly because we moved faster than usual when Julie’s parents came out to visit us in the second half of the month. We made up for this by living very frugally through our 3.5 weeks in Hong Kong in September.

Our daily spend to date since we left home has been £70.88.

• Accommodation is the biggest expense again at 28.5% – this is skewed slightly downwards as the cost of accommodation was included in the tour price for our two long trips in Mongolia – a total of 15 nights
• Coming in at a close second this quarter is Guides and tours which not only includes our Mongolian trips but also a couple of ones that we took in Xi’an
• Next is food at just over 15%, again skewed slightly downwards due to its inclusion in the tour prices. Kitchens have only been rarely available in our accommodation in China and Hong Kong so we have been eating out for almost every meal (the exception is breakfast – fruit and biscuits/crackers can be done without a kitchen!). Fortunately this has been relatively cheap.
• Intercity transportation is a much lower percentage than last quarter at 10.7%. This is basically just our trains around China as moving in Mongolia was very cheap on the local buses or included in the tour price and we never moved very far in Hong Kong
• Entertainment and entry fees – 5%. Entry to tourist sights in China is very expensive (around £15 each for many of them), however we found Hong Kong’s sights to be very cheap or even free!
• Alcohol – seems very low at just 3.5%. Be assured that our beer consumption has not dropped, it’s just the price per pint which is cheaper! An honourable mention should be made for the Chinese brand Yanjing which we agree is the nicest lager we’ve tasted.
• Our visa costs this quarter were much lower than in our first three months. The Mongolian visa process was pretty straightforward and although the Chinese visa application was relatively complicated it was cheap. As UK passport holders we can stay for up to 6 months in Hong Kong without a visa.
• Other stuff – the remaining 7.5% covers local transportation (generally incredibly cheap), laundry, toiletries, haircuts, etc as well as a new pair of jeans for Julie and new walking shoes for Andrew (thanks to Mum and Dad for the courier service!)

What has surprised you most in the last three months of travel?

How cheap and plentiful public transportation is in other countries. I don’t know if it’s subsidised by the government but it seems incredible that the subway system in Beijing costs just ¥2 (about £0.20) per trip anywhere within the city considering the cost of a similar ticket in London (I just looked it up, the cheapest single ticket without an Oyster card is £4.50). The trains are very new, air conditioned and clean (a no eating and drinking rule means that rubbish doesn’t get left behind so much). Beijing’s buses are even cheaper – ¥1 (£0.10) to go anywhere and similarly comfortable. It costs over £2 for the 10 minute trip from our home in Gateshead to the centre of Newcastle… And it’s not just Beijing, the local transport networks in the rest of China and Hong Kong was just as impressive.

Apart from family and friends, what are you missing most about life in the UK?

Julie – Since we left Russia I’ve had very little access to kitchens and much as I’m loving the food everywhere we go I’m really missing cooking for ourselves, especially more complicated meals and baking.

Andrew – Finishing the Trans-Siberian railway, this big adventure that we’d planned the start of our journey around and which, I admit, was about as far as I’d researched into our two year trip, is a monumental undertaking in and of itself which left me contemplating “what now?”. I do wonder if those of us who have incorporated it into longer travel plans all feel a similar way. Yes, I felt a little homesick after Beijing, the knowing how everything works (where to go to buy, say, rawlplugs, or just instinctively knowing how much, relatively, everything should cost, or being able to have more than a basic conversation with strangers rather than just “hello, how are you?, good thanks, and you?”. I started to wonder if I’d had enough of travelling and wanted a “work” break – the line from Henry IV sprang to mind – “If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work”. And then the universe read my thoughts and offered me some software programming and web development in Hong Kong – I have to say I was sorely tempted (in fact, I still think about it). The reassurance that I can find interesting, challenging work was enough to put that part of my mind at ease. For the time being, at least :)

What’s the most memorable sight that you’ve seen in the last three months?

Julie – For me it has to be the Great Wall. We were so lucky with the weather to have a day of clear blue skies and the scale of it just took my breath away. It also reminds me of Mum and Dad’s visit – I’m so impressed that they managed to climb all of the steps up to the wall.

Andrew – The Great plains and expansive steppe of Mongolia’s nothingness is what I choose to remember the most from the last three months. It is so humbling and yet so inspirational an experience to see nothing but wilderness in every direction.

Tell us a funny story from the last three months of travel.

Julie – When we arrived at Pingyao station to take the train to Xi’an our tickets were checked and we were directed to the correct platform. On the platform a lady employee of the station was directing people to the correct area depending on which carriage they were in. Andrew, Dad, Mum and I were the only people getting into carriage 10 but she made us queue up in single file… As we waited for the train, Andrew decided that he would take a picture of the platform and stepped forwards to get the angle he wanted. Cue the platform lady shouting at him through her loudspeaker! He moved back into place and none of us dared move again until the train arrived.

Andrew – Our driver, guide and shepherd for our eastern Mongolia trip had a fondness for a certain expletive. As you’ll hear at the end of the video in the afore-linked post, Bacha says after we crossed a river that had we taken a 22km diversion further upstream, resulting in an extra 44km, that, in Bacha’s words, “that is bullshit” (I cut the video just before he was about to say it – we knew it was coming :o)

Who is the person you’ve met that you remember the most from the last three months?

Our 9 day tour to the Gobi desert has been one of the highlights of our trip so far – for the great people we spent the time with as much as the scenery – many of whom we’ve subsequently met up with again

[photo credit: Wasut (Khun) Pornpatcharapong]

Finally, what have you found to be the greatest challenge so far?

Curiously, we’d say again that time has been our greatest challenge. Julie’s parents landed slap bang in the middle of our Chinese visa which meant we weren’t in one place long enough to apply for an extension, so we made a Plan B and headed for Hong Kong. We’ve since decided that one-month visas are too short.
But it’s not just visa restrictions, our days seem short and after 6 months on the road we’re wondering where all the time goes! We’re usually up and out by 8:30 – 9:00am, but without 8 or so hours of a full time job to account for we still feel like we’re behind on our reading, research, blogging and photograph tagging.

It hardly seems possible, but it is now more than 3 months since we embarked on our trip. We thought that we would do a little summary of the story so far.

Clockwise from top left: The frozen sea at Jurmala in Latvia, our first Russian train from St Petersburg to Petrozavodsk, waiting for the ferry to Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal, in front of St Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow

Countries visited in the last three and a half months (19th March to 30th June)

Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Russia

Have you managed to stay within your budget (£70 per day)? And what has been the expense breakdown?

Almost within budget, our average daily spend over the three months has been £71.41

• Accommodation takes up just over a third of our budget – a basic room in a hostel is generally about £30 but we’ve managed to save money by staying with locals using airBnB.com, and travelling on sleeper trains
• Our next biggest expense has been intercity transportation at 17%. This includes our initial flight from London to Latvia, but is mostly the money we’ve spent on trains in Russia. Still, the trains are great value for money – one journey took 37 hours over 2 nights and 1 day and cost just £57 each – you wouldn’t get far in the UK for that much!
• Close behind is food at about 16.5%. Usually we cook for ourselves, but every so often we get sick of pasta and have a mini splurge on a meal out – finding accommodation with a kitchen is a big way that we save money.
• Entertainment and entry fees – 11% includes a few guided tours.
• Alcohol – just over 7%. Usually we buy beers at the supermarket and drink in our hostel – drinking in bars can eat through the daily budget very quickly, as we found out in Helsinki!
• Our Russian visas took up quite a chunk of our budget across the three months at 5.4%. They were more expensive as we wanted a 3 month visa and also because we had to pay to register twice (in St Petersburg and in Moscow where we spent 2 weeks each).
• Other stuff – the remaining 6.5% covers local transportation (generally incredibly cheap in Russia), laundry, toiletries, haircuts, etc

What has surprised you most in the last three months of travel?

How friendly and generous Russian people are.

Apart from family and friends, what are you missing most about life in the UK?

Julie – Nice wine drunk from wine glasses – compared to beer (or vodka), wine is pretty expensive in Russia and there isn’t too much choice. On the occasions when we’ve treated ourselves to a bottle, it’s been rare for the kitchen in our accommodation to have wine glasses so mostly we’ve been drinking from tumblers.

Andrew – Definitely my bed. I love roughing it as I was brought up hiking the hills of the Lake District, but there’s nothing like a good night’s sleep at home.

What’s the most memorable sight that you’ve seen in the last three months?

Julie – Church on Spilled Blood in St Petersburg. It was stunning from the outside, but then the interior was just breathtaking as well.

Andrew – It’s so hard to choose just one from the so many wonderful things we’ve seen and done so far, but I’m going to choose something that surprised me.. I’m sure you’ve seen images of St Basils Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow, but to my eyes it looked, well, gaudy. However, my mind was changed the moment I saw it in real life, and I now think it’s spectacular.

Tell us a funny story from the last three months of travel.

It may have been the couple of beers (and the vodka chasers) at our local in St. Petersburg, but on the walk home we passed a girl on a horse who said in perfect English “Would you like a ride on a horse?” we said “no thanks”, to which she replied “horse money please?” – we turned to each other and immediately burst into laughter, while she turned away on her horse, doubting that what she’d said had made sense. Since then it’s been a running joke between us that upon seeing a horse, we say “horse money please!”

Who is the person you’ve met that you remember the most from the last three months?

Julie – On our first day in St Petersburg we met a lady who is now fondly named Mrs Pickle. We went to the market, partly because they’re always an interesting place to look around and partly because we needed some provisions for the next few days. We noticed the line of stalls covered in pickled vegetables and initially hurried past, slightly afraid of the ladies calling out from behind them. But we ventured back and our chosen vendor plied us with samples of practically everything she sold while we made appreciative noises (we hadn’t yet learned one of our favourite Russian words, ‘harosho’ which means good). Eventually we bought a couple of things from her and cheekily asked if we could take her picture, she puffed herself up and posed like a pro!

Andrew – For me, it’s Vlad in Vladimir. We’ve been so fortunate to meet so many generous people, and Vlad was really the first. He tried so hard with so little English (which was still much more than our Russian), and we had such a great time with him and his wife Tonya that we’ll remember fondly forever.

Finally, what have you found to be the greatest challenge so far?

Time, surprisingly! Before we set off, we thought we’d have plenty of time as we weren’t working anymore – time to do a little yoga in the morning, see the odd sunrise and sunset, and spend the day visiting sights, museums, culture and nature. Instead we’ve discovered it takes longer to do things when we don’t know where to look, and when we get there and we don’t speak the language. For example, imagine you’re you’ve just arrived in a foreign city – where’s the supermarket? The bus station? How do you get there from where you’re staying? Researching the sights and activities, and how to actually get there and back is taking longer than we thought it would.