After now 77 days of travel and being currently stuck in Luang Prabang in Laos, I found some time to look back at our journey and I wanted to write down some of the thoughts and share them with you dear reader.
Equipment & Organisation
The fact, that we did not have to make big investments during our travel in any additional equipment, (besides replacing our phones because of water damage after Sonkran) shows pretty well, that we came well equipped. The only thing we are exchanging time to time are clothes because some of them start to shrink after a few washes by the locals.
I am also still really happy with my choice of backpack size (58 liters). My tech-setup is also working really well, happy with the choice of my camera lenses, power bank, ssd etc. I am still planning a detailed post about my equipment.
And if we talk about organisation we had to learn some lessons like getting your visa early enough so you dont have to stay at a place just to wait for your visa..
Overstaying in Thailand and having to pay 100 francs per person for that was also a hard learned lesson learned but nothing that really ruined the trip. Hotel and transfer bookings all went pretty smoothly and with apps like booking, 12goasia and offline maps on google maps you will always find what you need.
Taken route & visited places
I think I can speak for us both, when I say we are happy with the route we took so far and the choices we made were to stay and what to see. Especially in Thailand I think we saw a lot in 10 weeks and it still did not feel like rushing from one place to another.
Somehow we also managed to have a god mix between quiet places and big cities / touristic places. I never really got bored of one place but was still always looking forward what comes next.
Interactions with travellers and locals
Like after my 3 months stay in Dublin exactly one year in the past, also on this journey one of my biggest highlights is meeting new people. Even if it is just for one pint with and English dad and hear him ranting about his demoting team Sheffield, or if it is seeing an older German guy living in Koh Tao and listening to his whole life story for 3 evenings straight. These are the moments that use to stick better in my head than any breath taking view from which we also had plenty.
We met so many cool young travelers aswell, spent Sonkran with some in Chiang Mai, Explored Pai with some other lovely French people and we have been lucky to meet some young locals who took us to really nice spots in Thailand. Usually people here are really open for conversations, for interaction and I think the fact that both parties are somehow here for the same reason connects everybody at some level from beginning on. To share cultural differences, share travel stories and recommendations or even deeptalks about football, politics or discuss about individual worldviews is really interesting to me and keeps the motivation up to approach strangers day by day.
This sounds all really extroverted, which you also tend to be here because everybody here is usually in a good mood. But with me having an introvert burried somewhere deep down in me, I’m also fine with just taking a day or two for myself, going out for dinner and spend a chill day at the hotel. You are really in charge of the pace and intensity of your journey and I think that is what I love most about this way of travelling.
Group dynamic
Surely the group dynamic is somewhat different when travelling as a duo then as a trio. Both worked really well so far and there were little to no compromises we had to make as a group. With some time you start to know the other really well, what his mood might be and what’s a good plan for the day will be. If someone wants to do something else than the other we just split for some hours or even days and reunite later.
It is also a good feeling to travel together, to be able to enjoy moments with a longtime friend and not with a “stranger”. I tell this to a lot of solo travellers, that I prefer sharing a nice moment like this and in most cases they agree on that point. It’s also good to know you have somebody who is always looking after you. And for me the biggest plus, you don’t have to say goodbye after some really nice day with each other because your travel plans are not the same.
I hope that this dynamic will stay well in the future and I am also really looking forward to welcome Anna from Switzerland who will join our little travel group in Vietnam 🙂
Future goals on the journey
First of all I am really curious about the motorbike tour at the Ha Giang loop that we will do in Vietnam. In general I want to do some more nice motorbike rides when we find a place with nice roads and views.
Besides that I want to improve my photography and drone skills to make the best out of the nice views we get to see here. But the main goal is to just manage to keep travelling as long as we can without making it a struggle and just enjoy the fact that we don’t have to wake up to an alarm clock every morning and just do what we feel like on that day.
If we meet a nice group of people which are headed the same route than us I would also love to travel in a group like that for a couple days or weeks, would be interesting to observer the dynamic and how it develops.
Without any big context I want to drop some pictures of the temples in Chiang Rai. There is not much to add to Chiang Rai anyway. Was a decent place with little nightlife nor a beautiful city centre. But the temples were nice 🙂
