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Published: February 7th 2006
I leave on my trip in a little more than three weeks, and while I'm whittling away at my to-do list, I still have many things to do. The past six months have flown by and I have not been as active in my planning as I should have been. For example, I am still looking for a way to get the bulk of my possessions from Korea to the U.S. in an inexpensive manner. I think I'll have it figured out by today because Jackie, my girlfriend, is calling movers today and if their quotes are good, I'll use one of them. Otherwise, I will end up leaving quite a few possessions in my apartment for the next occupant to use, throw out a bunch of old clothes (which I should do anyway) and shipping five or six boxes through the KoreaPost.
The following is a bit about the trip and I hope that, should you be travelling in the areas where I'll be over the next 10 months, you'll contact me.
The Trip
My trip starts in China, specifically Shanghai. This will be my second trip to China, so I know what to expect and the difficulties I will face, especially since I have only a few words of Mandarin and no Cantonese. I managed last time with my phrase book and the help of English-speaking Chinese who seemed to appear anytime I was have true difficulty.
The first month will take me from Shanghai to Hangzhou; north to Suzhou and Zhouzhuang; and then to Nanjing. From Nanjing, I'll head to Xian and HuaShan, to see some people I met and relax a little and then to climb HuaShan, which I missed on my last trip. From Xian, I'll move south to Chongqing to take a boat down the Yangtze and through the Three Gorges. This is an important part of the trip because from what I've heard, the Gorges are slowly being filled behind the new dams and in a little more than a year, they will effectively be gone.
The boat will take me to Yichang from where I'll head to Wuhan; then south to Changsha; before ending the first month in Guangzhou. I'll then head into Hong Kong for five days to a week. The length of that stay will depend upon how long it takes to get a 60-day tourist visa.
Originally, I had scheduled 60 days total in China, but that would have left me very little time to go to Tibet and would have resulted in meeting Jackie in Saigon with only a week for her to see southern Vietnam. By extending my stay in China to about 75 days, I will have plenty of time to see Tibet, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in a relatively leisurely fashion. Then, I'll meet Jackie in Hanoi and we'll have about 18-20 days to see Vietnam together before my visa is up.
So, from Hong Kong, I'll head to Guangxi province and Guilin, which from everything I've heard is an incredible part of China. I probably won't spend much time in Guilin, which I've heard is over-run with tourists, but head south a little ways to Yangshuo. After three or four days exploring around Yangshuo, I'll head into the rice terraces north of Guilin where a variety of minority tribes live. I think this will be the first really challenging moment of my trip. Before this point, I am firmly placed on the tourist trail of China, where I will be able to find hostels and English speakers relatively easy. But north of Guilin, as I spend about a week traveling to Kaili through back country, I imagine that I will have to prepare for quite a few interesting encounters and difficulties in making my way around. Hopefully I will have picked up some minor language skills and my miming techniques should be well honed. And then there is the trusty phrase book that is useful for pointing at Chinese characters to try to make my point.
From this area, I'll head back into Chongqing province from Guizhou province to a town called Gongtan which is supposed to have some very interesting stilt-houses located on the side of a gorge that rivals the Three Gorges.
I will then make my way to Chengdu. This will be the hub of my trip for the next few weeks including seeing the surrounding area and heading to Tibet. I plan to spend about 10 days in Tibet, mostly in Lhasa but probably heading towards Nepal and maybe even to Everest base camp on the Tibetan side of the border.
After Tibet, I'll fly back to Chengdu, then head west through Sichuan province before heading south, just before hitting the Tibet border, and moving down into Yunnan province near Zhongdian. I will travel and perhaps trek a little through the Tiger Leaping Gorge, before heading to Dali and Kunming.
At that point my trip gets a little vague and will depend upon how much time I have before I need to get to Hanoi, but I would like to explore southern Yunnan before heading into Vietnam. I plan to spend my first week in Vietnam in and around Sapa and then head to Hanoi for a few days before Jackie joins me.
That is when my trip really changes from an independent journey to a traveller's marriage on about June 1st. That is when to traveller's hook up for a long period of time. One of the benefits is that lodging and food are cheaper and it is often easier to negotiate with two people. However, like any couple, we are prone to fight and so add to the stress of travel that is always there.
The trip is not clearly planned at that point, although I know what I would like to see in Vietnam and Cambodia, including Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Dalat and Saigon in Vietnam and Phnom Pehn and Angkor in Cambodia. As I said before, we'll have about 20 days in Vietnam and then about 10-14 days in Cambodia.
We should arrive in Bangkok in early July and we'll immediately make our plans for India, including getting visas and probably our flight, since I've always been told that Bangkok is the cheapest place to get flights. If we have to wait a week or two to get a cheap flight, we'll head to northern Thailand and Changmai and then over to Laos, before making our way back to Bangkok. If we are able to quickly head to India, then the trip north will wait til we're back from India.
We plan to spend about 2 months in India, then about a month each in Thailand and Malaysia, before heading to Singapore in late October for about a week. We will then fly to Cairns, Australia in early November for a month in Australia before flying out of Melbourne for Aukland where we will spend most of the month of December and about half of January.
Then it's back to the States with maybe a stop-over in Tahiti. That is where our 7 or 8 months of summer comes to an end and we are thrust back into winter. After that...??? It is further away than I really care to think, but I think I am committed to living outside the U.S. for the forseeable future, so depending on the situation, perhaps a bit of time in the States, then maybe back to Asia (China, Japan, and Vietnam are appealling and I know I could always find something in Korea) or maybe Central or South America.
The Budget
I have tried to come up with a realistic budget for my trip, which means that I have researched lodging and transportation costs for all of the destinations of this trip. I have also budgeted a certain amount each day for food something that is particularly difficult because I never know what I will be eating or how much I might splurge. In the end though, I've allowed for going over budget some days because I know that I will be far under budget on other days. Now, my daily budget does not include flights like the one I have purchased from Seoul to Shanghai or the one I might soon buy from Singapore to Cairns...that is covered in a flight fund that I've mentally set up which comes out to US$2000. That leaves about US$10,000 for the bulk of my trip or about US$1000 per month, which I think will be more than enough for most places I will be.
So, for example, I have budget US$25 per day for China. Shanghai is my first stop and I've reserved a bed at Hiker's Backpacker's Hostel for about US$6 per day. I can eat very well in most places in China for about US$5 per day, but I'm sure that Shanghai is more expensive so I'll budget closer to US$10 per day there. That leaves me US$15 per day for other expenses including transportation in the city and entrance fees
I have budgeted US$30 per day for Hong Kong where I will spend 5 days to a week. Viet Nam: US$20/day; Cambodia: US$15/day; Thailand: US$20/day; India: US$25/day; Malaysia; US$20/day; Sinapore: US$25/day; Australia: US$50/day; New Zealand: US$50/day; and Tahiti: US$40/day.
I have also set aside a bit of money for learning to scuba dive in Thailand, a three-day dive trip in Thailand/Malaysia, and another 2-3 day dive trip in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef.
I have also purchased travel/health insurance and set aside a bit of money for visas, although I doubt I've set aside enough for visas, so money for that might come out of my daily budgets.
Another thing that will have to come out of my daily budget are miscellanious purchases. If I want to buy something, I'll have to do without something else either earlier or later in my trip. This isn't too bad because it will give me incentive to bargain and bargain hard, which is key almost everywhere I'll be traveling.
Helpful Websites
The following are some helpful websites I've used to make some of my plans for trip.
Lodging:
www.hostels.com
www.hostelworld.com
Trains:
www.seat61.com
(an incredibly handy site that helps you prepare for costs and timetables)
Flights:
www.zuji.com (cheap flights all over the world)
China travel:
www.chinabackpacker.com (some very interesting itineraries that I plan to use in Guangxi, Yunnan, and Sichuan provinces).
www.travelchinaguide.com (train schedules/prices in China, as well as guided tours and in-country airline tickets. Great for budgeting and planning).
General Travel
www.lonelyplanet.com (Check out the travel services section...has connections to www.worldnomads.com, which offers great value travel insurance and zuji.com for cheap flights.)
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Vicki Wilmarth
non-member comment
thanks
Joel, thanks for the update. The budget was particularly interesting. We can't wait for more! Love, Vicki, Rohn and Hart