I planned most of this trip using the Lonely Planet Book on Southeast Asia, but I’ve also received many handy tips from Craig, Lesley, Randy, and my friends in Singapore. The planning is actually very exciting, but there is a lot of information to digest. The Internet has been great at providing information. The most significant difference in this trip from all our previous ones is the open endings. Other than one ticket from St. Louis to Shanghai, I haven’t purchased any other tickets or made any hotel reservations. I have an idea of where we will be going and approximately when we will be there, but we’ll decide much of the itinerary once we are in the area. This is going to be adventurous and interesting. Stay tuned!
My itinerary is almost complete, but when I showed it to two travel agents (one in Taiwan and one in Singapore), both said it was too difficult (for us old folks) and that we’d better join a tour. It will be cheaper (I don’t think so), and easier (maybe). What they don’t know is that is not how Ray and I travel. We like to get close to the local scene and get to know the people (and the food. Anyway, with the Internet, I can do as well (maybe better) at getting tickets and booking tours than any travel agent. This is a pretty ambitious trip,but I think we will have fun!
You are getting my blog as testers! If you don’t want to follow our trip, just let me know and I won’t send you my entries.It is interesting how you don’t really know much about a country until you read these strange names like Yogyakarta or Banjarmasin in the Lonely Planet guidebook. After 3 weeks online trying to book flights from one place to another, I started to recognize these unfamiliar names. I have made some major changes in our itinerary – the biggest one is skipping the Philippines (my sincere apologies to Randy and Yollie). It’s a little hard to book flights in and out of Bacolod, and the threat of a strike against Philippine Airlines pushed me over the edge. I want to have a nice, leisurely visit with our good friends who live more or less permanently on Negros Island, but doing it on this trip is just too rushed and too much hassle. I promise them that we will return to the Philippines when we have more time. Now we will have a few more days in Taiwan and will travel to Indonesia a few days earlier than planned. On Craig’s suggestion, I added Yogyakarta as a stop – a great cultural site and a good place to get batik. Maybe I will buy some to make a quilt. On second thought, I am only allowed 10 to 15 kg on some regional flights, so I’d better not buy too much.
I am getting excited about the wildlife and plants we will see on this trip – orangutans (Indonesia), fireflies (Malaysia), and orchids (Laos). Still, we will also enjoy the luxurious life and snorkeling in Bali. One tip for anyone planning serious trips: get yourself a Capital One no-hassle travel card. You earn miles on regular purchases, and it’s easy to earn credits to help pay for airline tickets (no blackout dates). It saved me over $800. It is also the only card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees when you buy outside the USA. Another tip is to check out CheapOair for airline tickets – I got better deals for Asia travel than all the usual travel sites like Kayak, Expedia, etc.