It's difficult to believe, but 5 months have already passed since we started our adventure! It is being an amazing experience going beyond anything we had imagined before hand!
The most rewarding part of this trip is, without any doubt, meeting new people! Seeing new places is always nice but the people really give context to everything you see and give you a local overview of each country´s habits and traditions!
We are really blessed we met so many wonderful people!! Our Cisco colleagues and Vlerick Alumnis have received us with open arms! We met wonderful fellow travelers such as Shanna and Richard, who we got together with in Yangshuo (China) and after in Hanoi and Saigon!
By now our passports are pretty full with exciting experiences, new friends and memories that will endure forever!
These five months have been mainly in Asia! and we have to say we are so impressed! The cultures are so rich and complex! the food is incredible! These countries are growing so fast and there are so many oportunities to be explored.
On the logistic side of this trip, a great help without any doubt is wikitravel. It gives us an overview of the countries as well as possible scams and things to watch out for! We strongly recommend using it if you are planning an upcoming trip.
Another big part of logistics is our backpacks! If we had to pack again for this trip what would we do differently ?
Things we wouldn't buy again:
-Mosquito Net: Not really needed, get a good anti mosquito and you are good to go! Plus many places have already a mosquito net.
-Take even Less clothes: We started the trip with two pairs of pants and 5 t-shirts. We could have just brought even less! Because everything is sooo cheap in Asia compared with Europe. Plus you can find really good sports clothes in China, Vietnam, Thailand!
-Less Medicines: You can find paracetamol and stomach pills everywhere.. no need to pack a lot!
-Mosquito products: The ones sold in the country you are visiting are normally better and cheaper!
-Travel guides: just print out wikitravel when you arrive to a new country/city.
Things we are glad we packed:
-A lot of underwear, since here in Asia they are quite tiny :P
-Rain covers for the backpacks, it really protects them on the bus rides.
-Duffel bag for when we check in the luggage. It's useful, in order to be able to lock the backpacks.
-Compression bags! essential for organizing clothes and saving space.
-Plastic zipper bags, in order to keep all the small items organized.
-Our two universal power adapters!
-Money Belts, we cannot emphasize enough how important these are!!
-Our 40 litres backpacks. It's without any doubt the perfect size! You can easily take them as hand luggage in the plane and just check-in the liquid products. As well they keep you limited, meaning you will think twice if you want to buy something! What we are doing is recycling clothes. When they are already very beaten down we give them away and buy new ones.
Currently we have already renovated almost all of our clothes! Laundry services are quite cheap in the majority of the Asian countries (ex, 1 dollar per kilo or even per washing machine!!)
On shopping for new clothes, sometimes it's better to give a little more and have a more lasting piece of clothes rater than the 1 euro t shirt that after one wash is good for throwing away! A great affordable Japonese brand that you can find in any major Asian city is Uniqlo.
On being a tourist! In Asia there is no way to hide it, it's written in your face! :P
As rule of thumb, if you are in a highly touristic area and someone approaches you trying to help you get accommodation or transport... Say No and keep on moving! Because if it is a good service it woudn't need someone on the street approaching tourists. It's almost always some kind of scam in which you end up paying a lot and having pour service! You will see this tip many times repeated in Wikitravel :)
It is now a good time to announce we made some changes to our itinerary!!! We will be visiting USA! specifically California! :) and flying back home from Washington DC!!!
We might as well pass by Brasil :) but we cannot confirm yet!
