Southeast Asia forum

"I also wouldn't mind chilling out a bit every now and then so I don't tire myself."

With a schedule like that there's not much room for chilling. You will get a lot of comments on your schedule and while I'm usually more sympathetic towards people with a tight schedule, I don't see what you could possibly get out of this trip apart from collecting stamps in your passport and a few snapshots for the photoalbum.

What is the point of your trip? 3-4 days Malaysia for instance. What could you possibly do in that period apart from having a short peek at Kuala Lumpur ? Same goes for Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Just enough to see the highlights of each country (Luang Prabang, Angkor, Hanoi + Halong, Bangkok + island).

And it will cost you dearly because you will have to fly each leg. Don't even try to think of doing things overland.

If you still insist I'd say to start in Kuala Lumpur because Airasia does cheap flights to KL and from there you can get connecting flights to other destinations.

Happy travels.

Hang on - you forgot Burma. If you trim back each country by 1/2 day, you could fit that in too!

Seriously, I understand the concept of just wanting to get a taster of everything and limited time, etc but:

- your travelling costs are going to be much higher as a result (flights, buses, visas, taxis)
- you will never get a full appreciation of ANY of the places that you are visiting
- there will be no chill-out time
- each day you move between destinations, you effectively lose 1/2 - 1 day by the time you allow for getting to/from hotels, airports, waiting time (and there is LOTS of that!) and travel time. Knock off those days out of your itinerary and see what you are left with.
- after you are back at home for a month, things will start to be a blur. You will have little recall of the places that you have been; you will look at photos and not actually remember being there.

I would suggest that in a 2-2.5 month period that you limit yourself to 3-4 countries, 5 max if you are allowing a quick stop in Singapore. Slow down and enjoy the trip.

Add in Mongolia, Indonesia and Australia...

Fully agree with all the other posters. China alone probably deserves two months (I spent 5 weeks there and saw alot but not as much as I didn't see). I can understand wanting to see as much as possible but, seriously, your plan is too much.

A sensible 2-month loop where you see a lot but still have time to settle and fully embrace a country would be Vietnam-Cambodia-Laos or Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand-Cambodia etc. The options are endless but I agree with busylizzie - you should not see more than 3 to 4 countries (5 if Singapore is one of those as it can be comfortably done in 3-4 days).

I would leave China and East Asia for this trip and I would never recommend 7 days in HK as part of a trip.

Or you could just do what Rasheeed says!!

Hey,
With this schedual the only thing you'll get a feel for are airports. Try 3 countries max! Try going from Thailand south to Singapore. Easy travel, great food...a bit of everything. Don't rush. Take your time.
Trust everyone here when they say you are thinking about doing way too much! And if you don't want to...India and Nepal are close by as well!

I hope not, swag. Yes, there's been a bit of windup, but there's also some valuable info in there for dunnyman if he's still interested. Dunnyman, you just need to think it through a bit - and come back with some more questions. We're a friendly bunch, really!

Hi everyone, the OP is in fact not scared or feeling intimidated

In fact, thanks for all your kind advice. Really needed a whole community to tell me this otherwise I may have planned the worst trip of my life.

I've read everything and have taken everything in, and I wasn't planning to post something until I got my flights booked first and then I planned to work things out in between.

Right now I'm looking for some cheap tickets first.

I aim to start my trip in China (maybe Beijing). And then leave either KL or SG back to Australia for the end trip.

I got quoted $13xx from Singapore Airlines for:

Melbourne > Singapore > Beijing (28 November 2011)
KL > Singapore > Melbourne (7 February 2012)

And so far I'm told that's a pretty good deal.

So that will give me a decent 2+ months and I may even look to make it a tad longer as well and maybe get back mid February.

I'm told I should look for about 3 weeks in China so I may start of with that. The slight issue is that we're planning to meet with friends in mid January (I think) and they want to cover Indochina in 1 month. I think so far they want Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos as well as Malaysia/Singapore. Now I'm thinking that may be a bit hard for 1 month (from what you guys are telling me) - so I'm sorta in the process of liaising with them as well to figure that out.

I've also gone to the Travel Agents and picked up some good tour guides booklets and random brochures so I will have a read. I will update everyone when I make my next step.

Quick question though: Are tour guides worth it? Or should I just follow what they do and book along the way?

I'm not sure if this is cheap but a Gecko 25-day China tour costs $2.5k. Not quite sure if that's expensive or not .... anyone care to shed some light?

Thanks everyone


P.S. I think I do want to spend more time in Indochina. But I still probably want to spend quite a bit of time in HK as well because I have quite a few friends there and I'm told shopping is good there (so that explains why I budgeted 7 days or so in HK/Macau).

Hi everyone,

Thought I'd give a little update

We managed to finally book our flights for (apparently) a cheap price with Singapore Air.

We travel:

Melbourne > Singapore > Beijing

Singapore > Melbourne

And got it for $1330

Anyway, so now we're leaving 30 November and coming back 13 February which means we now have 2.5 months to travel.

We also had the flight booking lady help us organise our trip. Unfortunately, it has racked up a $11,000 AUD bill because all the tours/accomm/some food have been included. We were definitely not looking to spend that much so I thought maybe we'll just do most of it ourselves.

So far, my plan is: (and please let me know if it sounds reasonable)

28 days --> Beijing, Shanghai, Xian, Chengdu, Nanjing and some others I think

7 days --> Hong Kong / Macau (I know this is a bit long but we are visiting a lot of friends)

[Note, we have to do about 35 days in those places because friends are meeting us around 7th January for the 2nd part of the trip)

35 days --> Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia

5 days --> Malaysia (probably fixed amount because visiting relatives)

2 days --> Singapore just before we depart


So does this look more feasible now?

For most places, we probably just plan to do the attractions, go to markets, and eat. We don't really plan to do any country to thoroughly - but just want to seem all the 'main' stuff.

Thanks for the tip. Yeah probably will just be main attractions so hopefully I'll be okay.

I've got a few questions that will help me plan this trip a bit better:

MONEY
I've recently just signed up with a 28 Degrees Mastercard which I think has zero transaction/currency conversion fees. As far as I know, I can go to ATMs in all of the countries I'm visiting and withdraw at the spot rate at the time? Does this sound right to anyone? I'm wondering if I also need an additional online foreign currency account for whatever reason? A friend also recommended me to sign up to Travellex and convert HKD now because the rate is good? Not sure if I should wait or not..?

PRE-BOOKING?
After some though, I'm thinking it would be beneficial if we could essentially 'wing' the trip. As in, we'd plot the itinerary and look for places to say - but just not book anything. This way, say if we wanted to spend 1 week less in China because we were bored, then we can just continue on with the trip as nothing has been locked in. I'm just wondering how easy it is for us to find available accommodation as we go along? We plan to stay in the AUD $25-35 hotels for twin shares. The only place I was thinking of booking is maybe HK accommodation since we're going around new years time.

But yeah, would it be okay if I don't book any other accommodation and no flights as well? Or better to book now?

Thanks

Thanks for the replies everyone

Anyway, I'm about to sit down and do a whole night's worth of research for my whole trip. I will attempt to plan which cities I want to go to and therefore how long I will stay at each place.

However, I do have a question about tour guides.

Initially, I wanted to stay away from them to save money. But after friends mentioned that tour guides can give you a wealth of information, I'm wondering if I should look into it? And if I do, how does one go about it? I hear it is cheaper to book at the place than in advance. But I'm not sure how it works.

For example, we will arrive at Beijing first. And right now, the things I want to do in Beijing are:

Forbidden City
Great Wall
Temple of Heaven
Tiananmen Square
Summer Palace
Lama Temple
Great Wall (Mutianyu)
Hu Tongs / Drum Towers
Wangfujing Street
Ming Tombs
Acrobats Show

I guess it would be good if we had a tour guide for the places where there is history / rich culture. But can you just book tour guides for certain places? Or do you generally have to stick with their plan? I may actually prefer flexibility and just do a lot of research before hand and print out a cheat sheet for places we go to

Any thoughts?