It’s
inevitable, the end of school year signals our annual summer backpacking trip.
This time, it will all be familiar; no new countries to explore, no new
currencies to figure out and no new backpacks to tug along. But as they say, in
those backpacking districts in Southeast Asia, it is Same Same But Different. So after ten
school months, lemme say hello to summer with our Same Same Summer Trip 2017.
So
it’s the season again wherein my life will be contained inside my 40-liter
backpack for two months. My forced summer leave has already brought me to
places I’ve never thought I would (yes, a public school teacher might be at the
bottom of the economic ladder but I have the luxury of spending two months for leisure). Work hard, travel harder.
The
annual summer thing started when me and my buddy embarked on a backpacking trip
to Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in 2014 - Nepal/Southeast Asia Backpacking Trip 2014. We didn’t think of a theme at
that time but we were totally blown away by the experience that it made us
yearn for another summer getaway the year after. Asean Summer Loop 2015 was a trip
around six Southeast Asian countries that started in the Philippines, then to
Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. It was a different experience
as we got to immerse ourselves on the similarities and differences of these
neighboring countries in terms of food, culture and whatnots. Last year was
all about beaches (my happy element) that brought us to hop around the islands of Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Singapore and called it Beach Hop Asia 2016.
I
don’t play favorites on our trips and I really don’t mind about going back to
the same country again and again, same case with my buddy. But I hate making
itineraries so I leave everything to him. I just give him my yearly school
calendar then he takes care of the nitty gritty part of plotting the routes and
securing the flights needed. As always, this year’s trip is purely dictated by
seat sales and promos. As much as we want to go to Morocco and Egypt, we
couldn’t do so (rather our bank accounts wouldn’t allow us).
Moving on, my buddy scored a great deal on six flights for only, hold on to your seats now, P8,294.53 (US$165.08) each. Oh yeah, I know, he’s good at it. So, after he got the flights, he plotted the rough itinerary;
Manila
> (Malaysia) Melaka > Kuala Lumpur > Penang > (Cambodia) Siem Reap
> Phnom Penh > Sihanoukville > Koh Rong > (Thailand) Trat > Koh
Chang > Bangkok > (Vietnam) Ho Chi Minh > Da Lat > Mui Ne > Hue
> Ninh Binh > Sapa > Halong > Hanoi > Manila
That
one looks exhausting because of the land transfers and I don’t even know what
to expect in those destinations but hey, we gotta do it now when our bodies still can. Plus, we’re tagging our moms along on the Malaysia leg of the trip So that would be cool eh? Backpacking with our moms?
I
don’t really understand why some consider traveling as a sort of competition and
in the process, overdo it and get tired early on. I know it’s better to travel
while you’re on your prime years but it gets stressful too.
Well,
to each his own, I’m just happy that I have a travel buddy who has the same
crazy ideas as me and don’t mind if we do the same thing, over and over again.
As long as we have some loose change to spare on our travel, then we’ll go, if
we have none, then we’ll just stay at home and watch Game of Thrones starting from
the first season. I digress.
Mee goreng in Malaysia, lok lek in Cambodia, pad thai in Thailand and banh mi in Vietnam.
I’m so gonna miss adobo and sinigang na baboy for two months. Will
binge eat later.
Fifty-four
days. Four countries. Nineteen key destinations. One heart.
#SameSameSummerTrip2017
Join
us on our journey to blissfulness and check out real-time updates on our
social media accounts - @blissfulguro | @lakadpilipinas
No
strange advice or warning from my mom this year as I will be with her for the
first eleven days. I’m sure she’ll expect longer days next year. Haha.
I hold my breath as i see your airfare at 8 k plus, how did u avail of those seat sales being too curious to do the same
ReplyDeleteHaha. Seat sales! :)
Delete