Top 10 personal tips & advice on backpacking in SE Asia
The purpose of this slightly more practical post is to give those of you, who we hope we have helped to inspire in the way of travel, a personal helping hand in your preparations before you take the big leap. This seemingly basic list is not revolutionary in it’s contents, but is born out of a wholesome and current experience in SE Asia. We hope that these words of advice will nurture you in your steps towards, and continual journey across, Asia or indeed any third world country.
- Do not treat your Lonely Planets as a bible. They were 70% incorrect most of the time when it came to timetables for buses, ferries and prices of food and accommodation. In fact, they barely update anything in there. They were however, mildly helpful with the geographics of large cities/provinces and the names of towns. Is sacrificing 5lbs of packweight worth it?
- Take out as much money as you can at ATMs and carry it on your person somewhere safe at all times, you never know when you might fall in love with a $50 tribal machete .
- Don’t book just go. Plan your general route before you fly out, know what you definately want to see and the rest will literally fall into place two days before you get on the next bus. The locals will tell you where best to go and if you can actually make it there or not (espcially around monsoon season).
- You never know where you’re going to end your jouney, only that it will be from either Bangkok, Manila, Hanoi or Jakarta or other major cities so dont worry about booking your return ticket just yet. Just ride the wave. We had no plans to go to Indonesia or the Philippines…but guess what, our money never ran out!!!
- If you want to see it all get a 90 day ‘Mulitple Entry Tourist Visa’. If you want to hit Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia the visa should give you 3 months to dip in and out of each country as many times as you like, and the price should be about the same as all your single entry visas. The problem we had in buying a visa for each country separately is that if we wanted to go back into a country we would have to buy a new visa each time.
- Teamwork is key. If your traveling with a partner then come up with a routine for each new town or city you visit. When a hoard of taxi drivers and hostel owners swarm around you the minute you step off a bus, the trick is to divide and conquer. One enquires about prices while the other finds an information office with maps and a ‘local price’ quote for everything.
- Learn some words. I know this sounds incredibly obvious, but learning the basic conversational language of the country will make a world of difference to your ‘luck’. We discovered that learning the local language while in Indonesia, we were able to a) actually get accommodation at the local price b) welcomed at street eateries with smiles and calm c) Charged local prices for the food d) Invited to teach a little English to the children who ran up to us in hearing we could speak Indonesian e) Filled the entire experience with mutual magnanimity and kindness.
- Stay away from tour buses. The rowdy, hungover, stench of a transport will take you to towns swarming with Aussies and Brits where the locals are bitter and the prices higher. The buses themselves will be your worst nightmare realised. Don’t do it, go off the beaten track.
- Ladies, have loo roll on the ready. I cannot begin to count the many times I needed to pee when there was no toilet in sight on this trip. That’s not too much bother if there’s a bountiful bush nearby, but in general, not having loo roll all the live long day becomes unpleasant. Save yourself the added uncomfortability and buy bog roll whenever and wherever you can.
- Take a journal. This will be one of the rarest times in your life when rich and beautiful words will spill onto paper from out of nowhere. The fascinating, idiosyncratic, unexpected or profound moments and experiences that make your travels more meaningful deserve to be documented and read by your loved ones, friends and other wishful nomads of the world.
Unexplored Passages 