Travel planning

I have recently booked (and by recently booked, I mean, have been in the works of planning this bad boy for a while and have finally made concrete the first step by buying flights in and out of Australia) my flights to South East Asia! Yay!

This blog was initially conceived as a personal diary for my travel expeditions overseas, but then when I realised I was too lazy (read: actually still finishing up essays overseas that were meant to be completed and deposited to uni before I left the country), it didn’t happen. So I am really excited to share with you my preparations and all that stressful but amazing stuff that goes along with planning my next big trip. Whilst I have only been on a few travel jaunts, I’m still quite young and have covered countries ranging from India, to Israel, to Ireland, all independently. Whilst I am a bit of a country collector, I love getting to really explore a country in depth and end up staying quite a long time doing one country well, instead of lots of places, for one or two days. That said, I still have a goal of getting 100 countries before I’m 30 years old. So I need to get a hopping!

Since everyone has been asking, this time around: I’ll be headed off to Indonesia, meeting a few friends and practising lots of yoga! Then I’ll head over to Kuala Lumpur, and hopefully down to Malacca, for a little bit. Then shooting up to Burma (sorry, sorry Myanmar) and visiting Yangon and Bagan, then over to Thailand, going up north and doing a Hill tribe trek, and then going down south for NYE, then back up to Laos, going through Luang Prabang and Vientiane, and crossing into Vietnam. I’ll be staying up in the north for a little bit, then snaking through the country side and stopping off at all the cute little towns that I can find (time permitted) then hitting Ho Chi Minh City and floating up the Mekong into Cambodia. In Cambodia, depending on time restrictions, I’m going to visit the capital, then the Angkor complex and hopefully a few little islands off the south west coast. Afterward, I’ll be hitting up the Philippines and going to Palawan and kayaking under the UNESCO world heritage underground caves and then home time.

All in all, my South East Asian odyssey is going to take 3 months and even then from the rudimentary planning thus far,  IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE ENOUGH TIME! But that’s the plan. I love travelling and reckon that it’s the only way to really learn about the big wide world around you. From all the places I have been, the biggest thing I have learnt, is that people aren’t going to hurt you. Rather people (and we can call them ‘the locals’ if you so desire), really are amazing, and will go out of their way to help you. Independent travel really becomes a bit of a philosophical exploration, because the things you learn on the road, you definitely take back home with you. And for me, one of my greatest lessons is to trust others more.

But yeah- check out these photos. You jealous? I’m jealous already and it’s my trip! But yeah obviously not my photos guys. Just saying.