[The following post is from the archives of my In Search Of Incredible blog, originally published on 27 May 2012. Only minor edits have since been made from the original post.]

WELCOME!
Welcome to my blog! I first thought of starting this blog as a record of my recent 30-day backpacking trip in Asia (in 2012). I also wanted it to be a “resource” for fellow backpackers and others who are about to embark on a journey to these beautiful places in Asia. Hopefully it will be useful and entertaining. Do feel free to leave any comments and questions, and I’ll try to answer them as much as I can, even though I dare not claim to be an expert at all.

THE IDEA
It was in December 2011 when I seriously started doing my research for this trip. I was inspired to go on a long backpacking trip by a couple of friends who took a few months off work to go explore the world.

The first friend of mine, JJ, went to the US to visit his girlfriend (who was there for work), and together they went travelling for a few weeks in Canada and the US. He later travelled solo to South America, visiting Mexico, Guatemala and Berlize before heading back to the US. Next, he flew across the Atlantic to Europe, traversing across France, England, Holland, Germany and Belgium. His last stop was India. In all, he took five months of unpaid leave and backpacked all the way, most of it alone. Very inspiring indeed.

The second friend is an ex-colleague, WL, who took three months of unpaid leave to travel with her hubby. They focused their trip on Europe, and visited many countries: England, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Czech Republic, Iceland, Sweden, Svalbard – for 105 days altogether. The pictures her hubby took are really stunning, like those found on National Geographic magazine covers. You can visit his blog and see his beautiful pictures here. I must do a trip like that in future and witness all those marvellous sights with my own eyes.

Their trips were truly epic and I knew I couldn’t afford to do something like that yet. I had financial constrains (earlier in October 2011, I had just gone on an expensive trip to USA West coast – Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco), and also I couldn’t take so much time off work. But I wanted the trip to coincide with my 30th birthday, so hey, why not do a 30-day trip then? One month sounded like a good duration for backpacking – not too long and not too short.

I initially planned for it to be a solo trip. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and go on a no-frills backpacking trip – no shopping, no luxury hotels, no companions. I was planning for a budget of S$3,000 altogether – S$100 per day.

THE DESTINATIONS
With the duration decided, I next had to decide on the destinations. With my limited finances, I ruled out the US, Europe and Australia/New Zealand immediately. That practically left me with Asia. I also wanted to explore new places that I’ve never been before, so China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia were eliminated.

I looked at the world map and began shortlisting the countries. I was quite ambitious at first. My initial list of countries were: Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Philippines. But as I began doing my research, I realised that one month was too short a time to cover all these places and to do them justice.

So I thought about the sights that I really wanted to see – Taj Mahal, the Himalayan mountains, Angkor Wat, Halong Bay – these were the must-visit places for me because I’ve always dreamed about going there.

Maldives is also a place I want to visit before I die, but from what I read, it’s not a country that is suitable for independent travellers because most of the nice beaches are owned by the private resorts and you won’t have access to them unless you sign up a package stay with a resort, and it’s not cheap. I’ll save that for the honeymoon.

Bhutan is also not backpacker-friendly because there is a minimum tariff of US$200 per person per day. Find out more about the travel requirements to Bhutan here.

For Tibet and Myanmar, I didn’t really have any essential sights to conquer, so I decided to drop them. I want to visit a nice beach resort in the Philippines, like Boracay or Cebu or some of the more isolated ones like El Nido, but when I looked at the routing, Philippines was a little out of the way, so I decided to drop it as well.

So I had my “final” destinations – Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Vietnam and Cambodia, travelling in a somewhat circular fashion. But as I researched a little more, I realised that I couldn’t get a cheap flight from Nepal to Vietnam or Cambodia. Thus, I decided to slot in a short stopover at Bangkok, since there was a cheap flight from Kathmandu to Bangkok. And Bangkok is the transport hub of Southeast Asia, so there were plenty of cheap flights to Vietnam and Cambodia, making it ideal for a stopover.

So my final destinations were: Singapore – Sri Lanka – India – Nepal – Thailand (Bangkok) – Vietnam – Cambodia – Singapore. Bangkok is the only destination I’ve visited before.

WHEN TO GO
As the entire trip was planned around my birthday (10th March), I originally envisioned departing on the night of my birthday, which was a Saturday, and was therefore ideal because I could save on one or two days of leave.

As I researched more about the various destinations, I found out that weather-wise, March and April are good months to travel because it is Spring, so it’s not too cold and not too warm yet. And it’s also not the peak season so flights and accommodation are cheaper. Thus, everything seemed to be working out well in terms of timing.

CHANGE OF PLANS
Of course, not everything went as planned. As I shared the idea of my trip with some of my close friends, a few of them expressed interest to visit those countries with me. While I originally intended it to be a exploratory solo trip, it didn’t take long for me to accept their companionship because I decided it can be just as memorable to have someone else to share the experience with. I’m grateful for their companionship and I’m glad they came along.

So YS came with me to Sri Lanka, XY joined me halfway in India (Delhi, Agra) and Nepal, while mum and dad joined me in Vietnam (Hanoi). I ended up doing Bangkok and Cambodia alone, so I did have some solo time as well.

With YS onboard, I adjusted my departure date to the night of 8 March 2012 instead of 10 March 2012, two days earlier. So my final itinerary was:

Day 1 – 6 (9 – 14 March 2012): Sri Lanka
Day 7 – 9 (15 – 17 March 2012): India
Day 10 – 17 (18 – 25 March 2012): Nepal
Day 18 (26 March 2012): Thailand (Bangkok)
Day 19 – 24 (27 March – 1 April 2012): Vietnam (Hanoi)
Day 25 – 30 (2 – 7 April 2012): Cambodia

THE FLIGHTS
The most important thing to settle first was the flights, as the prices will rise the closer it is to the travel dates. I wanted to book them as early as possible, in order to get the cheapest flights. I began my research in December, and by January, I had pretty much decided on the routing and how many days I would spend in each country. So I booked my first flights on 25 January 2012, about one-and-a-half months before my departure date on 8 March 2012. By 4 February 2012, all my flights were booked.

I managed to save some money by redeeming my Krisflyer miles for the two outbound and inbound flights on Singapore Airlines (Singapore-Colombo and Phnom Penh-Singapore). However, the airport taxes and surcharges couldn’t be avoided so I still had to incur some costs, but it did help a little.
For the flights, I booked them all directly through the airlines’ websites, except for the Bangalore-Delhi flight, which I booked via Make My Trip.

Below were the flights I booked, and their respective costs. The prices are indicated in the local currency that I booked them, and the resulting prices in Singapore Dollars after the credit card conversion charges.

1) Singapore-Colombo (Sri Lanka): Singapore Airlines – S$173.90 (taxes & surcharges only)
2) Colombo-Bangalore (India): Sri Lankan Airlines – LKR14,900 / S$169.05
3) Bangalore-Delhi (India): JetLite – INR4,386 / S$114.92
4) Delhi-Kathmandu (Nepal): Jet Airways – INR3,191 / S$83.50
5) Kathmandu-Bangkok (Thailand): Jet Airways – NPR16,759 / S$274.09
6) Bangkok-Hanoi (Vietnam): AirAsia – THB2,515 / S$106.56
7) Hanoi-Siem Reap (Cambodia): Vietnam Airlines – VND5,534,000 / S$340.02
8) Phnom Penh (Cambodia)-Singapore: Singapore Airlines – S$81.50 (taxes & surcharges only)

In all, I spent S$1,343.54 for my eight flights, which is very decent I must say. With that amount, I can just about book a return economy flight to Europe. So travelling in Asia is definitely much cheaper than going to the US/Europe/Australia. You get so much more value for your money, with the plentiful budget airlines operating in the region.

Having spent almost S$1,350 on flights, I realised that it was going to be near impossible to stick with my original budget of S$3,000 for the entire trip, so I revised it to S$4,000.

With the flights booked, I entered my next stage of planning, which involved sussing out the specific places to visit, the modes of travelling, costs of attractions, accommodation options, as well as the things I needed to buy or do before my trip, which I’ll continue in the next post.