may-july - SE Asia
 

OK!! my ticket to get to KL got booked yesterday. when i recieve the ticket (my dads posting it from KL) it will all become real again!! so heres my plans,

20 may - fly to KL

28-2 may/june- tiomen for my dads birthday

3 june - back in KL

6-8 June - meeting up with my mate in singapore (he works on the planes, and since he moved to brighton i dont seee him in the uk so imma catch up with him in asia :)

9-14 june - Back in KL.

14 june - 17 july - not sure yet. might do a quick visit to thailand vietnam and china, gotta look about a bit more.

18 july - back in kl

20th july - fly back home :'(

so, anyone thats been to SE Asia, help me out! im well experienced with it, but i think im so comfortable with the place i just cant think of where to go. inspiration people!!

That sounds awesome, and so funny that you have to go all the way to asia to meet up with your friend rather than back home!
Well, I have no information for you but I'm sure other people will be along sometime who are much more useful :whistle:
Haha have you noticed that we are semi-stalking each other on here, we keep posting at the same time. Ahh the wonders of timezones and prevalence of americans/australians rather than europeans on these boards. And are you also procrastinating all day during a boring job? Well that is my excuse.
:cheers:

Did you see my reply to your earlier thread about new places to go in SEA? I wrote about my Cambodia/Vietnam/Bangkok experience, so maybe there's something helpful there. :)

yeah thats something ive been considering. have always wanted to do cambodia and vietnam and the timeframe i have is enough time to do both comfortably. and it would be great to go back to bangkok to see my thai freinds :)

only thing is, ive been reading up on it, and it seems a bit shady when it comes to border crossings - how did you travel from place to place? as a lone female traveller id rather avoid dodgy crossings where i could be confronted. :cheers:

and louse, i wish i had a job :( i am actually trying to pass time as i live no where near my freinds and dont have money to get on the bus to see them. :) so now i have internet freinds! wooo

I personally had no issues whatsoever with border crossings between Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam (traveling as a Malaysian). I did all my crossings by land - assorted vehicles involving buses, vans and tuk tuks, and would have no hesitation about doing them again...I thought it was fairly hassle-free apart from the decently long waits! I don't think it'll be too hard to go solo, although it's worth sharing a taxi from Siem Reap to the Thai border.

The most issue I had was coming in from China to Vietnam (I switched passports in between) and flying out of BKK, immigration took forever with my passport although I don't know why.

Oh that sucks. Though I live about 17000km away from my (australian) friends at the moment. Well, I have some "friends" in other towns in holland. They are other aupairs and actually, I met them over the internet too!
Ah the wonders of travel. I classify people as being my friends very quickly now. Life is funny.

Don't forget that traveling on an UK Passport you will need to sort a Vietnam visa in advance. This will be MUCH cheaper done in either Malaysia or Thailand as I have heard from other USA/UK packers here. I got mine done for about 2000 baht here in Thailand thru my hotel. Took 2 days to get done.

Foo

:cheers:

yeah thanks for that. my dad told me that visas are easy fast and cheap to obtain in malaysia, if not in thailand, so i think i will get them when i am out there. i can pop in to kl on the bus to get it :) plus it means i can keep my options open - im still divided as to what to do.

right well here is my plans that have been revised. i have decided i want to do vietnam-cambodia-thailand! freespritz, your blog and photography has inspired me :)

advice most welcome on this...

around the 16th june, i am flying from KL to Hanoi, Vietnam.

gonna stay there for a few days, relax. any advice on what to do and see there also welcome1

then i am going to get the posh train down vietnam to saigon - possibly stopping off at places between (need to look more into the places in betwen and what to do there.

once i reach saigon, gonna chill there for a bit also, then cross the border into cambodia hopefully on a boat river - someone online in a blog said they had done it for $55 but i can only find this route offered online as a posh tour for rich people around the price of $400!! so not sure about that yet. will take the coach if not :(

once in cambodia, chill out again, then train across cambodia into siem reip (i think) from there it gets a bit weird cos you have to get coaches and taxis and tuk tuks to thailand. once in thailand (poipet) its one train to bangkok. then chill there for a bit and go from BK-KL by air. then back home :(

the only thing is air asia start flights to hanoi on june 19th - cheap but id like the extra few days. other flights are a bit more costly though. might do it the other way - thailand-cambodia-vietnam but woudl much rather come from vietnam and head down (in case it takes way longer than i thought it would, theres cheap flights from cambodia to KL but not vietnam-KL)

any advice would be wicked!

Glad to be of inspiration! ;)

Good job on not going to Vietnam during the rainy season. You'll have a blast. There's a ton of stuff to do as you work your way down south, so don't just go straight to Saigon! We started in Hanoi, took a trip to Halong Bay and also stopped at Hue, Hoi An and Nha Trang before going to HCMC.

There are tons of tourist/travel places in 'Nam so you don't have to worry about figuring out transport from one place to the next - it's generally very simple and there are buses and trains in between most cities. I ended up doing buses on most routes in Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand.

I think AirAsia does fly KL to Hanoi, btw.

Sorry I can't write much now! Hope the little bit helps. If you want anything else (I have a crazy detailed budget listing for 'Nam), let me know. :)

yeah definatley. air asia first flight to hanoi is on the 19th june - a week after i wanted to leave so i am considering doing it the other way to get the extra time. i guess the thingi wanna know about the most is what to do between hanoi and HCMC. i am going to get the train up (or down) and can get get meltiplue tickets to stop off at certain places. i am going to book when i am in vietnam as the prices to book through a western agency online and fucking stupid. what sort of food do they do (vegetarian!!) and general prices. also any temples you think i should visit - i intend to spend most of my time gandering at temples and the like, they are so pretty <3

Well,I'm study in BeiJing,BeiJing have Imperial Palace and the great wall,Well,Don't forget WangFuJing street.It is famous and nearby the BeiJing Hotel.And have a nice travel:p

I had that sort of thing with meeting my friend abroad. When we both went to uni, we saw each other maybe 3 times in 3 years, so when we went travelling (separately), we decided we should meet up in Australia, which was wicked.

Anyway, I'm immensely jealous of you right now!

yeah im well excited but might have to call my trip short by a month or so as theres a lot of shit going down in my life, if it does all happen ill need to come back to the UK and save my money :( am leaving on tuesday, well excited though...