Saben and Lin » Wrap-up

Vietnam Wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 16:00:47 +0000

We are very happy that Vietnam is the last stop on our adventure. Not because we want it to be over but because it is the perfect place to transition us into our lives back home. While we wouldn’t consider Vietnam a spectacular place it has a charm and beauty that we have thoroughly enjoyed. The centuries old culture still thriving in an increasingly western country. This is truly one of the few places that gets the mixture right. A little old with a little new.

Sure the air is polluted, the beaches aren’t great, the traffic is horrible and the people can be rude and self centered but you quickly forget all of that while wandering down an old ally that looks like it hasn’t changed in the past 60 years. It has that foreign feel that everyone craves when they travel but balances that with western amenities and modern ideals. We love it here and we hope to return some day.

(Check out the Vietnam photo gallery here)

Favorite moments:

Cheap beer
Beautiful countryside
Surprisingly cheap (except Saigon)
Decent food
Ease of travel

Not so great:

Traffic and noise
All the trash
All the cockroaches

Total Money Spent Per Person: $483.90

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $4.64
Food: $7.41
Transportation: $3.10
Misc: $2.34 (Beer, going out, entrance fees, etc.)

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $17.49

Number of Days: 28

Lao wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:47:51 +0000

We actually enjoyed Lao. Sure, there isn’t much to do and the transportation is expensive and horribly uncomfortable. But the ease of life and the nice pace of things makes it a great place to be for a while. There isn’t much to say good or bad about Lao; we had a good relaxing time. Not much more to it…

(To see the Lao photo gallery click here)

Favorite moments:

Moped-ing around the country side
Exploring the Plain of Jars all by ourselves
Moon bears and waterfalls in the park
Fantastic western food at Joma Cafe

Not so great:

Lao food
Lao buses
Lao music/videos

Total Money Spent Per Person: $329.28

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $4.52
Food: $7.31
Transportation: $6.44
Misc: $2.31 (Beer, going out, guides, park entrance, etc.)

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $20.58

Number of Days: 16

Thailand Wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:59:35 +0000

Thailand, sweet bastion of sanity in a world of chaos. We came to Thailand after a very trying 3 months in India. We were sick and tired of traveling and needed a place that would reinvigorate our lust for wonderment. Thailand was this and more. We strolled some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, dove with sharks, stuffed ourselves on glorious Asian cuisine, explored endless market stalls, and were visited by a comrade from the west.

We have very little to say about Thailand that is negative; if anything, it is subject to its own beauty. Everywhere is flooded with tourists and not just regular tourists but loads of loud, drunken, and culturally rude tourists. We are not just talking about Khao San road either. The economy is now largely funded by the tourist trade but is the slow prostitution of a people and culture destroying the very thing that has drawn people to the beautiful land for thousands of years? We are already looking forward to returning to Thailand and implore others to visit as well; we just ask that you be mindful of yourself and your actions.

(Click here to see the Thailand Photo Gallery)

Favorite moments:

Fantastic food
Amazing people
Most beautiful beaches we have stood on
Diving with Sharks
Pink taxis
Beautiful parks and ruins
It wasn’t India
Ease of life
Street food

Not so great:

Saben getting bitten by a stupid rabid dog
Loud, drunken tourists on Khao San and off
Hyper inflated tourist prices

Total Money Spent Per Person: $1123.78

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $5.39
Food: $6.58
Transportation: $3.63
Misc: $8.83 (Beer, going out, guides, park entrance, etc.)

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $24.43

Number of Days: 46

Cambodia wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:56:28 +0000

On a scale of 1 to 10 we would place Cambodia at a firm …. eh. Its ok but didn’t really live up to the hype. Angkor was amazing and Kep was a little slice of paradise but inbetween that is very little besides flat plains that extend forever with only the occational dusty town along the path.

Granted we saw very little of this country and we hear that the north east is beautiful but we just were not feeling it. Its not that we disliked Cambodia it is more that it was rather bland and uninteresting. We really have no idea where all of this praise is coming from when we talk to people who “love” Phnom Pehn or S’ville. It just didnt’t work for us.

(Check out the Cambodia Photo Gallery here)

Favorite moments:

Angkor at sunrise/moonset
Crabs in Kampot pepper sauce
Hammock time
Shopping the in Russian Market

Not so great:

Food (besides that awesome crab in Kep)
S’ville
Phnom Penh at night

Total Money Spent Per Person: $291.28

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $3.73
Food: $8.54
Transportation: $5.89
Misc: $8.32 (Beer, going out, guides, park entrance, etc.)

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $26.48

Number of Days: 11

India wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:03:48 +0000

Hmm, what to say about India? Did we like it? Yes. Did we hate it? Yes. Sometimes both in the same day. Did we love it? No. We can both honestly say that, while we may not have thoroughly enjoyed all of our time in India, we are both glad to have gone and experienced it. We both agree that there is no desire to ever return either.

India is a crazy place, like a whole planet wholly unto itself, completely separate from any other place in the world. The food, the people, the sites can all be good or bad depending on the how many times you blink within a moment. It’s beautiful, it’s wretchedly hideous, it’s humane, it’s the cruelest place on Earth. It’s a thousand things all at one: confounding, irritating, exciting, amazing, terrible, hypocritical, sensitive and so much more. It is quite possibly the most complicated place in the world.

(Check out the huge India photo gallery here)

Favorite moments:

South indian food
The pace of life in Goa
Jaisalmer
Riding camels
Camping beneath the stars in the desert
Seeing the mouth of the Ganges
Celebrating Diwali
Not dying
Kerala’s backwaters in a quiet canoe

Not so great:

The people (there are exceptions of course, but we’re talking generally here)
Being pointed at, stared at, laughed at, photographed against our will, being groped, being shouted at by random people in the street
Getting deathly ill
Delhi
Massive amounts of shit (literally) and trash that seem to cover every square meter of the country

Total Money Spent Per Person: $865.72

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $2.66
Food: $3.12
Transportation: $1.80
Misc: $2.49 (Beer, going out, guides, park entrance, etc.)

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $10.07

Number of Days:86

Nepal wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:29:47 +0000

We never planned on Nepal really being a destination, it was always more of a quick break between China and India. But we actually had a fun time here. We decided from the beginning not to do much and to just chill out for a little bit before the onslaught of India and Nepal gave us that and more. We Delved into the chaos of Kathmandu, enjoyed the serene views in Phokara, met some of the nicest people, stalked wild rhinos in the jungles of chitwan and ate more dal bhat than is probably healthy.

But Nepal is not without its rough spots. They are poor, not just poor but dirt poor, the roads are an unpaved mess rivaling Bolivia, traffic is obscene, and touts, hawkers and scam artists await you at every corner. But if you are up for the challenge, Nepal has so much to offer that you can’t help but fall for it in the end.

(Don’t forget to check out the Nepal photo gallery here)

Favorite moments:

Spotting animals in the jungle
The people
Dal Bhat
Super cheap everything
Slow days in phokara
being out of China

Not so great:

Traffic
None stop horns in 5 ear bleeding notes
Bus crashes
Saben losing his shoes

Total Money Spent Per Person: $196.09

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $3.10
Food: $4.57
Transportation: $2.03
Misc: $4.31 (Beer, going out, guides, park entrance, etc.)

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $14.01

Number of Days: 14

Tibet Wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:00:01 +0000

Despite all the garbage Tibetans put up with from China, the people of Tibet are amazingly warm and friendly to outsiders. They will stare at you but just out of curiosity and when you look back at them, they will give you a big genuine smile. They are very poor but also very happy and very religious and seem to take all the unfairness of life in stride. How could you not be happy when you live in such an astonishingly beautiful country!

But being a poor country under the rule of China has also somewhat negatively impacted our Tibet experience. They freely trash the stunning environment because of a lack of sanitation infrastructure, the Chinese make getting into Tibet a huge mess and obscenely costly, and lastly because of the mess created by expensive permits and tours, the companies (several are owned by the Chinese government) take full advantage of the tourist putting a damper on the whole experience.

Special thanks to Ram and Inbar for being awesome travel mates and for sharing their coffee!

(Don’t forget to check out the Tibet Photo Gallery here)

Favorite moments:

Seeing all of Mount Everest in front of a beautiful sunrise
Beautiful brilliant blue skies
The landscape of the entire country!
Noodles
Herds of yaks and Tibetan antelope running beside our jeep
Company of our travel mates

Not so great:

Restricted travel
Cost
Old Tingri
Driver and guide
Yak meat

Total Money Spent Per Person: $601.58

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $3.63
Food: $4.27
Transportation: $15.50 (including train ticket to Lhasa)
Misc: (entrance fees, tour package, beer, Everest Base Camp, postcards etc.) $62.54

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $85.94

Number of Days: 7

China Wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:00:07 +0000

Three questions for China (or the Chinese):

What do you do with all the photos you take of us, is there a “photo a gringo” contest we are unaware of?

What is wrong with your respiratory system that requires you to hock, spit, and nearly vomit every 20 seconds?

What is up with the “coke nail” (one fingernail that is minimum 1 inch long) that nearly every man sports?

China was…. interesting. Or should I say the Chinese are interesting. The country itself is stunningly beautiful with an extremely diverse landscape. China also boasts some of the world’s most renowned historic sights and they are (for the most part) worth every penny. We swam in the Li river, climbed the Great Wall, scaled untold stairs on a Buddhist pilgrimage, roamed the Forbidden City, watched Giant Pandas eat their breakfast, and wandered through some of the most fantastic markets in the world.

While China (the country) is amazing, the Chinese….eh. We met some great people in China without a doubt but the average walk down the street does little to show this fact. The constant hocking/spitting/vomiting, uncountable girls (ages 3-11, definitely old enough to know better) waving and saying hello with their dress thrown over there heads taking a shit on the sidewalk baring all to the world, mass chaos and near stampeding any time you board public transportation (even if the train doesn’t leave for half an hour), and without a doubt some of the nastiest looking food I have ever laid my eyes on (deep fried squid arms and BBQ chicken feet come to mind).

We actually enjoyed China (and yes, even some of the Chinese) and are glad we were able to see quite a bit of the country. Will we be back? Maybe….but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

(Click here to check out the China Photo Gallery)

Favorite moments:

The country’s natural beauty
Picture menus
Climbing all over the Great Wall
The tobogan ride down from the Great Wall
Fantastic city parks
Climbing stairs for 11 hours up Emeishan
Seeing pandas!

Not so great:

Waking up to the endless sounds of hocking and spitting
Always being hungry because Chinese food is full of MSG
Expensive travel within China
Chinese tours
Bad charades
Shrink-wrapped meat that smells like roadkill but is a favorite snack here
People yelling all the time (damn those 4th tones)

Total Money Spent Per Person: $1249.92

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $ 5.15
Food: $6.67
Transportation: $13.08
Misc: (Entrance fees, supplies, laundry, souvenirs etc.) $4.86

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: 29.76

Number of Days: 42

Hong Kong Wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:00:04 +0000

Originally, we had only planned on Hong Kong being a visa stop, but it turned out to be a really lovely place to spend a couple of weeks. It was insanly useful for taking care of our Chinese visa (twice) and it was also a good “work” location giving us some time to give the website a face lift.

We really enjoyed Hong Kong and while it probably wasn’t very interesting to read about it, provided us with a nice rest before jumping head first into China.

(Hong Kong photos will be included in the China Photo Gallery)

Favorite moments:

Great food
Viewing the city from the Sky Terrace at Victoria Peak
No spitting, no littering, and no pigeons!
Air conditioning to our hearts’ content
The big city park in Kowloon
Midnight (and later) snack runs

Not so great:

The hard, short beds and flat, floppy pillows
Closet-sized apartments and phone booth sized bathrooms
Being offered “tailor shop, nice tailor” 32 times in one day (no joke, we really counted)
The crazy amount of signs which are all brightly lit and flashing

Total Money Spent Per Person: $285.36

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $9.63
Food: $8.44
Transportation: $0.63
Misc: (Internet, supplies, laundry, entrance, etc.) $5.08

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $23.78

Number of Days: 12

Eastern European Wrap-up

Saben and Lin — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:30:37 +0000

Ahh Eastern Europe you beautiful oasis between two foriegn lands. We had a great time in Eastern Europe even though it was shorter than we would have liked and probably longer than our budget can afford. We watched the waves roll in on the beach, climed castle walls, indulged in all things western, walked the streets of Sarajevo, and best of all we were able to spend time with Lindsey’s younger brother.

There really isn’t much that can be said against our time in the region, although I dont think anyone would complain if Croatia either instilled a diet/workout ethic or made some of the beaches a bit more “clothed”…

(Don’t forget to check out the Eastern Europe Photo Gallery here)

Favorite moments:

Sarajevo
Seeing Morgan
Pastries
Baltic Music
Movies in Budapest
Beautiful beaches & coastlines

Not so great:

Expensive lodging!
Cold sea water
Seeing naked people (not of our own free will)

Total Money Spent Per Person: $849.06

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

Lodging: $18.89
Food: $11.04
Transportation: $12.70
Misc: $4.54 (movies, wine, park entrance fees, supplies, etc.)

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $47.17

Number of Days: 18