SOUTH EAST ASIA
IN (ONLY) 3 MONTHS...
South East Asia in only 3 months…Yes, you can do it!
Is it enough? Well… if I’m going, to be honest with you, once you’ve started solo traveling, one, two three months it will never be enough!
traveling is an absolute addiction!
You will always want to stay longer and longer in every place you go.
Meeting new people, and exploring every corner of the world, and every culture, it will feel like you’ve discovered your new hobby. It’s absolutely an addiction!
But a healthy one, that you can keep doing as long as the money and your will to devour vast amounts of experiences remains.
The hard part is the first step. Leaving everything behind and exploring the world, leaving your comfort bubble at home for sure isn’t easy.
Especially if you live in a cozy environment where all your friends and family are, where you make your monthly income, have your hobbies and weekend night outs especially if you go to places where comfort, hygiene, and language among other things, are somehow a different reality.
For a Portuguese guy like me, an immigrant in Switzerland, an example of such a type of place was for sure South East Asia!
How to start planing your trip
How can you plan a trip to South East Asia? Where should you go? How do you go from one place to another? How will it be doing all that by yourself?
So many questions pass through your mind when you decide to take the step. I will tell you my version of the stories, of course, you will plan your own trip and go to places I didn’t go, yet, and I hope you do it.
Following someone’s stories is fun but it’s way funnier to have your own experiences! You will figure that out as soon as your adventure starts, don’t worry. It’s way easier than it seems.
My itinerary after some research on where the cheapest flights connections were was the following: Zürich, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Zürich.
Tips & Tricks
Small tip for beginners, main airport hubs in South East Asia, like Hong Kong and Singapore offer way cheaper flights if you fly to and from the same Airport. The flight to and from Hong Kong was around 400USD. While If I’d flown to Macau (where my trip was supposed to start since I had a great friend there that I was going to visit) and from Manila, Philippines, was going to cost me at least double.
Also, if you buy long-distance flights sometimes you will find out that the connection you made to go to that amazing island was much more expensive than it should be. I advise you to buy the main flights and then go directly to the countries low-cost companies website and find you’re flight there for half the price.
What happens is sometimes, sites like Momondo or Skyscanner don’t list the smaller companies cause they want you to go on the same airline on both flights… Yes, interesting. So, double check your prices because you can always find a cheaper price in South East Asia.
how to choose your path in loco
You probably have noticed a country or two I skipped on my trip. Well as I told you 3 months is not enough to visit all the countries in South East Asia.
Even if you manage to visit all the countries, from experience I tell you that you will always be packing up and on the go, you won’t enjoy it as much as if you would skip one or two places you wanted to see.
It’s hard… I know, I wanted to see a lot of places like amazing waterfalls in Laos, unreal beaches in Malaysia, Komodo island and diving in Flores in Indonesia, liveaboard experience in Coron, the Philippines to dive and watch Manta Rays, Whale Sharks, Tiger head sharks, and many other underwater creatures…
Your mindset must be the following… you can always come back!
coming soon...
So, talking about what I did see, on the following posts I will dedicate an entire post for each country best of, and an extra post for my adventures, dangerous experiences and amazing times I had in those countries. Soon I will also start writing about the South America trip that has just begun!
I’m currently chilling in Plaza de San Martín, writing this post, in Buenos Aires with 24°C on my 6th day here and I can tell you it’s an absolutely unbelievable city that you MUST visit!
So, get ready to hear about the amazing city of Hong Kong, with all of its interlaced Asian and Western cultures, the Chinese-Portuguese city of Macau, with all of its Portuguese influences and an absolutely outstanding Casinos collection, Vietnam, that survived an horrendous war and was by far one, if not the best, country I’ve visited, at least in an adventurous way, Cambodia and the beautiful temples of Angkor Watt, islands and also its recent sad events, from Khmer Rouge dictatorship, the mystic city of Bagan in Myanmar and its more than 2000 (once 4000), almost unexplored temples, that makes you feel like you are in an Indiana Jones movie, the story of a 55kms trek to reach a sacred monastery on top of a faraway mountain, where little monks played football and I got my future read from my palms by a Burmese monk, after a meditation session.
Thailand touristic but unbelievable vibes and my Diving Course that completely changed my perspective about the world and made me change my destinations to „where is the best place to dive in Indonesia and Philippines and where can I find Whale Sharks, Turtles, and Manta Rays?“.
The pristine clean city of Singapore and its flying infinite pool on Marina Sans Bay hotel and the night light show in Gardens of the Bay, Volcano climbing in Bali at 3am to see the sunrise over the dormant waters of its lakes, Yoga in Ubud, Surfing in Canggu, Diving with 23 turtles and 2 black tip riff sharks in one day in Gili Trawangan island and finally playing Boula „roulette“ Filipino game, Diving with unbelievable colored corals and seeing tones of Nemos in El Nido, Philipines, and coming back home to civilization just to reset batteries for the South America trip.
I can’t wait to tell you all about my past three months, and hope you enjoy the next posts!
Hasta pronto,
The Portuguese Traveler
