We’re back!

This story was posted under the categories: Big Asia Trip, Cycling South-East Asia

We’re waiting for our connection from Vienna to Brussels. Sipping a coffee from Starbucks. 4 EUR for a coffee??? That’s like 160 Baht or 80.000 Dong. Are you crazy? I’ll give you 2 EUR for it! And then we notice that Europe is not the same as Asia. No more bargaining, no more cheap food and with temperatures at about freezing point, no more sun…

So what did we learn from our 6 months trip to Asia? Here are some interesting thoughts for those considering to do the same.

6 = 6 x 1?

If you have 6 months, don’t just turn it into 6 holidays of 1 month. That’s what we did for the first 3 months, spending 1 month in China, Indonesia and Myanmar each. Not that we regret visiting those countries, but what we did there could have been done in a regular holiday too. You want to look for something that you really couldn’t do if you only had one month… like cycling across Indochina

Far, further, furthest…

Asia sure is a nice continent and it offers both easy and cheap travel options. However, we’ll be heading into a whole other direction for our next trip. South-America? Australia? New Zealand? Nope, none of those. We’ll stick to Europe! We’ve mostly learned from our visits that our own continent really has a lot to offer, history, nature, culture, food… I could easily name 10 places that are known for those and that i haven’t visited yet. So think twice about your destination. Maybe far far away isn’t always the best.

The most useful things we packed (or forgot to pack):

A sarong: a sort of square clothing. Can be used as a towel, blanket, sunshield, camping sheet, scarf, etc… and it weighs close to nothing!

A blanket: for those very cold nights or very cold air-conditioned busses.

Pot-pourri: we received pot-pourri in a little silk bag as a gift (thank you Nele!) and it proofed indispensable for keeping the contents of our backpacks fresh. Even after 6 months!

Organizing bags: a big backpack is a hard thing to keep organized and repack every day. Get some smaller bags in which you can group items that go together and you’ll (un)pack a whole lot faster.

Less is sometimes more

We have this idea that people in Cambodia, Myanmar and so on have less than we do and should be helped. True, they have less material wealth, but i can assure you that they can be just as happy – or even happier – than we are. They aren’t rushing and stressing the whole day, meeting deadlines and hurrying to get everything done. They live at a lower pace and it would be a pity to force our way of life upon these people. Let them grow up their own way, they don’t need to be like us…

PS/ yes this post has been sitting idly for almost a month now, while we were thinking about what to do with our blog… do you have any ideas? Let us know in the comments!