• Which is the country that I´ve liked the most?
• Is it easy to travel by your own in these countries?
• How did you manage to spend two months of vacation abroad?
• How did you make yourself understand?
• Which countries would I recommend?

I couldn´t answer the first question by just naming one. I can say that now that some time has passed by, I realized that there is one that I am always talking about: Myanmar… maybe it´s because of its political situation, because its wonderful people, because the massive tourism hasn´t arrived yet or because it´s the most exotic country that I´ve been to but I can´t say that Myanmar is the one that I´ve liked the most. My trip consisted in visiting Southeast Asia but limiting it to one country would take away credit from the other ones.

Backpacking in Southeast Asia is easy and quite cheap. Keep in mind that everything that you find in travel guides can be done and information and transportation are available to get to the recommended sites. Maybe Myanmar is the most difficult one to get around because the government must know where you are at all times. Youth hostels or hotels can give you the information you need to get around.

The trip was relatively cheap. Normally, when you think of booking an organized trip, like 15 days in China, Thailand or another “exotic” country, you are probably looking at quite a budget. However, if you are travelling on your own without any travel agencies involved, the prices radically change. In this kind of countries prices are very low, so much that you can practically get depressed when you arrive at home knowing that instead of paying 10 cents for a bottle of water, you pay 1 Euro…

The airplane ticket is probably the most expensive part of your trip there but you can find very good bargains traveling to Hong Kong for the same price that you would pay for a trip from Spain to Germany. In our case, we paid 350 EUR for a round trip ticket from Frankfurt to Hong Kong… and once you are there you can save a lot of money by spending it wisely and bargaining with the locals… In the end you can probably live and travel even for less than you would spend the same time being home…

Different to other Asian countries like China, in Southeast Asia most people speak some English so there is no problem of making yourself understood. Even in a country like Myanmar everyone understands basic English. The government knows very well that tourism is one of the biggest income sources that the country has so it invests in teaching English in public schools.

Finally, I would say that I would recommend every country that I´ve been to. Each one (Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong) has different things to offer.

In Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore I´ve seen the cities of the future, the complete opposite of the ancient temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia or in Bangan, Myanmar.

I´ve laughed bargaining in Cambodia and I´ve suffered from doing the same thing in Vietnam where people were trying to rip me off wherever they could.

I´ve been amazed by Halong Bay (Vietnam) but at the same time I wanted to get out of there and go to the land of smiles, Thailand.

Running away from mass tourism I wanted to get to Myanmar and two weeks later I was already dying to get back to Bangkok, the most touristic city in all Southeast Asia.

Maybe I´ve skipped some details of each country or maybe I haven´t seen all the highlights that I should have seen, but I have definitely seen spectacular places and I had marvelous experiences that enable me to understand and respect other cultures that are very different to my own. I learned to value our comfortable life in Western Europe and the opportunities that we have only by living in what they call “The West”.

Read the rest of Palmira's trip diary: back home on I Wanna Go There.

The cheapest choice to stay in Phuket was Phuket town. We were told that this part of Thailand was extremely touristic and that we should be prepared to see many drunk and sunburnt people. Coming from a non touristic place like Myanmar, we thought that a little tourism around wouldn’t hurt. And there we were in Phuket town and without any tourists. Apparently they were all in another part of the island called Patong beach where all the fancy places and obviously Mc Donald’s were.

We rented a motorbike the following day (5US$) and went around the island stopping at every beach. Unluckily, the weather wasn’t very good so I personally didn’t really like Phuket although Rasmus did.

We didn’t want to spend more than two days in Phuket because we wanted to find the perfect beach in the Golf of Thailand where to spend a week or so just to relax from our trip. So we booked a boat trip to Ko Phi Phi and it turned out that we weren’t the only ones that thought about doing this. Several boats full of hundreds of people were leaving the Phuket pier at the same time so you can imagine how touristic Ko Phi Phi was, nothing like the image that you have in mind thinking of the movie “The Beach”.

It was a sunny day when we arrived in Ko Phi Phi Long and the water was amazingly blue and clear. After weeks of having a cloudy skies we decided not to take any risk and booked a longtail boat to take us to Maya Bay where the movie “The Beach” was shot. I don’t have any digital photos of it because we had to swim and climb to get there. I have to wait like in former times to develop the film…

The following day we took off to Krabi and from there to Railay beach which turned out to be the beach I was looking foward to seeing just from the beginning. We only spent two days there and right now I think that we should have stayed longer…

From Rayleih we went directly to Ko Pha ngan where we stayed for five days or so. I will remember this place as the place where I recdeived the sadest news, my grandfather had died. I felt horrible and very sad to not have the chance to say goodbye to my grandfather as I was very far away from home

Ko Pha ngan had some wonderful beaches and places right at the beach where to stay at with affordable prices. Five days later we took a boat to Ko Samui where we stayed another five days. We hired a motorbike and went around the island like in Ko Pha ngan and we found out that “Crystal Bay” was the most beautiful one.

We practically spent our time in Ko Samui going shopping and lying on the beach just preparing ourselves to go back home. After Ko Samui, we took a flight to Hong Kong and from there back home.

Would you like to join us? Calling all seasoned backpackers!

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Read the rest of Palmira’s trip diary: Thailand beaches on I Wanna Go There.

Palmira is going on a 2 months trip to Sout East Asia. She is sharing her experiences and adventures with us

Our last destination in Myanmar was Bagan, the ancient capital of several ancient kingdoms in Burma.  It took us 11 hours by slow boat along the Ayeyarwady River to get to Bagan but the journey was extremely worth it. It was amazing seeing all the stupas along the way and the country life in the several stops.

We spent just two days in Bagan. The first day we hired a horse cart which took us to all the beautiful temples where we didn´t meet any tourists at all but a lot of sellers who would follow us until we leave the temple itself.

The following day we hired a car which took us to the mount Popa (50 km southeast of Bagan), best known for the nearby stunningly picturesque Popa Taungkalat monastery atop an outcrop. It was recommended by the lonely planet and the rough guide but we personally didn’t enjoy it that much. Maybe it was because we had already seen a lot in our one month and half trip or maybe because I didn´t feel like enjoying it after having been bitten by a monkey on my way up to the monastery.

At noon we were already back in Bagan. After having lunch and a little nap we decided to find another horse cart to take us to one of the temples (which right now I don´t remember the name) from where we would see a stunning sunset, just the perfect way to say goodbye to Myanmar.

Would you like to join us? Calling all seasoned backpackers!

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Read the rest of Palmira's trip diary: Myanmar IV on I Wanna Go There.

Palmira is going on a 2 months trip to Sout East Asia. She is sharing her experiences and adventures with us

After Inle lak e, we went to Mandalay, one of the former capitals of Burma. When we arrived we were a little disappointed because we expected it to be more like a capital instead of a city full of dust, dirt and poverty.

In total, we spent two days there. On the first day, we visited Mahamuni Paya where Rasmus made his contribution to Buddhism by sticking gold onto the Buddha, the main attraction of the temple. Although I would have liked to do the same, I couldn´t do so because women are not allowed to approach the Buddha.

We didn´t have much time to visit the temple because we had to be in Amarapura (twenty minutes away) at eleven o´clock at Maha Ganayon Kyaung in order to see all the monks who study the teachings of Buddha there would gather to have lunch. It was amazing to see at least 500 monks having lunch at the same time and getting in line for their food.

The rest of the day we spent visiting temples and we enjoyed the sunset on Amarapura´s famous bridge, the U Bein´s bridge.

After five days of non-stop visits, we took the next day off and didn´t do anything. We actually felt bad for not doing anything all day long… but we thought that our “appointment” with the so called “Moustache brothers” would be so enlightening that we could afford spending a day like that. But instead of an amazing appointment it was a huge disappointment.

You can read their story on this website. We even thought that instead of a comedian making us laugh, these comedians were actually laughing at us. We had to pay US$ 8 even though the guide said that there was a voluntary donation of US$ 4. They didn´t talk about the government and the situation of the country, which was the reason why we actually went there. Instead, it was a show filled with typical Burmese dance which was interesting but not what we expected.

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Read the rest of Palmira's trip diary: Myanmar III on I Wanna Go There.

Palmira is going on a 2 months trip to Sout East Asia. She is sharing her experiences and adventures with us

Bago

Our first stop during our trip around Myanmar by taxi was Bago, concretely Kyaik Pun Paya. Right at the temple, where you had to take off your shoes to enter, there were already four people waiting to meet probably the first tourists of the day or even the week: one girl was selling postcards in every language you can imagine, another man was asking for the camera fee and another two were ready to collect the ten dollar fee (money that goes directly to the government) to enter this temple and another four more including Shwemawdaw y Shwethalyaung Paya.

Disappointed of having to pay just for being tourists, we decided to buy just one ticket per couple. In the end, it turned out that paying this money wasn´t even worth it because the temples weren´t so beautiful, you would leave Bago happy just seeing its temples from the outside.

In Myanmar, it´s not only annoying to have to pay just for arriving in the main cities, visiting monuments or leaving the country, but also the US Dollar bills are checked with a magnifying glass. The slightest scratch or pencil mark will result in the rejection of that money.

Actually, we ended up enjoying the game of waiting to know if they were going to keep our money or not. It was quite funny to give out money that had been rejected before and then seeing that another seller would accept it. So, you keep this little tip in mind if you decide to go to Burma: bring crisp dollar bills.

Inle Lake

It took us two days to get to Inle lake, famous for its fishermen rowing with their legs. The long way was full of photographic opportunities and the road full of holes and bumps and dogs sleeping in the middle of the road or street workers at work. In general, we didn´t have any problems with the people when we took pictures of them but it may happen to you that a man can threaten you with a big stone in his hand if he doesn´t like to be photographed…

We arrived at Inle Lake just in time to have dinner and go to sleep. The following day we hired a private boat to take us to the most interesting things to see around the lake.

Among others, we saw a floating market, more Buddhist temples, the giraffe women and little shops where they were making cigars, silk clothes and umbrellas.

We also saw the famous fishermen rowing with their legs, boats which transported seaweed for the floating gardens and the floating gardens themselves.

I would have enjoyed them more if I hadn´t had problems with my stomach.

It wasn´t difficult to find out the reason why I was feeling so awful… the day before we stopped to have lunch in some bar along the way and I ordered a “sparkling lemon”, a Burmese lemonade.

A few minutes later the waitress brought me a bottle and she opened it in front of me. I was quite surprised to find out that there was only water in that bottle when I drank from it.

The problem was that this was tap water which my stomach rejected in an impressive way that very morning at Inle lake.

Read the rest of Palmira’s trip diary: Myanmar II on I Wanna Go There.

Palmira is going on a 2 months trip to Sout East Asia. She is sharing her experiences and adventures with us

Would you like to join us? Calling all seasoned backpackers!

Willing to share your hidden gems with your fellow backpacker enthusiasts?
If so, we’re willing to share our love in the form of some well-deserved cash!
Email us at backpackreporter@iwannagothere.com to learn more.

Read the rest of Palmira’s trip diary: Myanmar I on I Wanna Go There.

Palmira is going on a 2 months trip to Sout East Asia. She is sharing her experiences and adventures with us

We arrived in Bangkok at 23.30 excited about leaving Vietnam behind.

We took a luxurious taxi that took us to our hostel.

The following day we headed to The Grand Palace where we realized that even in Thailand they also try to trick you. We tried to enter through one of the main doors of the palace and the guard told us that we couldn´t go through that gate.

A very nice man started to talk to us and told us that it was the praying hour and that the Grand Palace would be closed for two hours. He told us that the best thing we could do is take a tuktuk to go around other interesting places while it was closed. A few minutes later, while Rasmus and I were still thinking that how the most touristic place in Bangkok could be closed at 12.00 am on a Sunday, a tuk-tuk driver came to us offering a route for a really good price.

We almost fell for that but in the end I suggested to go around the walls of the Grand Palace and see if that information was true. And thank God we did it because it was open and they would close at 4. Later we found out that if we had agreed to do the route, the tuk-tuk driver would have taken us to other places that normally are tourist traps.

Just when we got to the Grand Palace there was a supervisor checking if the outfit that we were wearing was appropriate to enter the site.

Neither one of us was dressed properly so we had to borrow some clothes to fix that. I had already read about that so I had brought a long sleeve shirt just in case but Rasmus had to borrow some long trousers. After visiting the Grand Palace we stopped for a quick lunch and we headed to our place. Hardly having rested we went back out to meet two of Rasmus´ Thai friends who live in Bangkok. Thanks to them we discovered places that we wouldn´t have found just being regular tourists in that city. We had dinner with views of the river and the Wat Arun and after that we took the car to downtown to have cocktails at a bar in a skyscraper over viewing all of Bangkok.

The next day we got up early to go to the Myanmar embassy where I applied for my visa after having tried two times before in Hong Kong and Hanoi. Feeling relieved that this time everything seemed to have worked out; we took the subway to the train station in order to buy train tickets to Chiang Mai for the following day. After that we went to the river to take the boat up to Wat Pho.
This night we had dinner in Rambutri Street at a food stand on the street. For only two Euros we had some authentic Thai food even though Rasmus suffered badly for the first time because his food was too spicy even though he asked for very little spice…

Monday morning we checked out our hostel and went to the train station to leave our bags. Originally our idea was to pick up our bags the same night to catch that train to Chiang Mai but in the end we radically changed our plans. After picking up my passport with the visa stick for Myanmar, we decided to skip Chiang Mai and go directly to Yangon the next day so we went and bought the plane ticket after returning the train ticket to Chiang Mai. We spent the rest of the evening planning our remaining time in Myanmar and Thailand.

At first we planned to spend the night in the airport but knowing where we were going to we decided to spend another night in a hotel although the flight out of Bangkok left at seven o´clock in the morning making it a very short night. The funny thing was that once in bed turning on the TV we saw part of a Rambo movie which actually dealt with the government problems in Myanmar, former Burma.

Would you like to join us? Calling all seasoned backpackers!

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Read the rest of Palmira’s trip diary: Bangkok on I Wanna Go There.

Palmira is going on a 2 months trip to Sout East Asia. She is sharing her experiences and adventures with us

You can avoid booking a tour from Hanoi to Halong Bay and spend your time in Cat Ba island but if you really want to see the Bay you have to hire a boat that takes you there. Rasmus and I were determined to spend a night on the boat sleeping between the mountains. We were looking for the most independent tour in Cat Ba Island, without many tourists on the boat and avoiding the most common places where the tours take you. And in the end, we found it although with some complications in the last minute as we were used to in Vietnam.

We started the two days tour with other five tourists who only had booked the one day tour so that meant that we were going to be the only ones on the boat during the night. There were some activities during the day: we visited the most famous caves (not very impressive if you´ve seen the ones in Spain), we did kayaking, we swam in different places in the bay and of course, we enjoyed the stunning landscapes that were surrounding us during the whole trip.

The problem came when we were going to be separated from the rest of the Group. Another boat appeared to take the others back to Cat Ba Island. When we found out that we were going to sleep on the boat that had taken us around all day, probably the oldest one cruising around the bay, we got really angry. The owner of the tour company had promised us that we were going to sleep in a sailing boat and this one was far away of being one. After a long and heated conversation between Rasmus and Mr. Tuan (the owner) we got the sailing boat as promised. It was amazing being on the boat just the two of us and the crew who were very kind to us. They prepared us a great meal on the roof of the boat and they helped us to put the mattresses in the best place of the boat, where we could sleep under the clear sky.

You couldn´t ask for a more romantic night although we couldn´t sleep very well at last:

1) we could hear the noise coming from the karaoke of another boat in another part of the bay.

2) I was all the time afraid that Rasmus could fall off the boat if he rolled over the ground.

3) sunrise is at five o´clock in Vietnam.

The rest of the second day of the tour was curious. We went to an area where you can access a lake inside the cliffs at low tide and they took us with a small boat to enter through a narrow channel.

The lake itself wasn´t as stunning as we expected to be but we took a little tour around until we got back to the part where we entered. Getting inside was pretty easy because of the current taking us in. But now, we would have to go against the current to get out of there. It was almost impossible and the guy in charge had to get out of the boat to pull us, walking on the pointy shell covered rocks, cutting his foot…  but in the end with a joint effort of everybody on the boat, we made it.

After that we had lunch and took us to the closest place in the bay to Halong city and transferred us to another boat filled of Vietnamese people singing karaoke where we met a few nice girls.

When we arrived at the port we looked for a taxi which could take us to the bus station but he was asking too much money for that as always.

The family that we had met on the boat heard it and offered to take us there by car. In the end, they got lost on the way and they left us in the middle of the highway with a group of people who were waiting for the bus to come that would take us to Hanoi.  And instead of the comfortable and air conditioned bus that had taken us to Haiphong three days ago we ended up in a dirty minibus that stopped constantly to take passengers in and with a suicide driver. Four hours of hell that really made me being worried about my life.

Luckily we arrived in Hanoi in the end but, as usual in Vietnam, people tried to trick us again. All of a sudden, the  bus stopped in the suburbs of Hanoi, everybody getting off rapidly. So we did the same to see that the people got on another bigger bus. When we tried to get on it, the staff of our bus told us that this was Hanoi and the trip ended here. Of course we knew that this was a lie and we insisted to get on the bus. After some resistance they agreed to take us and we made it to the city.

But we were compensated for all this after that horrible minibus experience. We arrived at the hotel that we had booked in advance and we were told that they were going to transfer us to another more luxurious room because they didn´t have any room left.

The next day, we woke up enjoying the clean and cozy room and we went to visit the Ho Chi Minh museum to get to know better the recent past of the country and at six o´clock we headed to the airport to take our flight to Bangkok.

Would you like to join us? Calling all seasoned backpackers!

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Read the rest of Palmira’s trip diary: Halong Bay on I Wanna Go There.

Palmira is going on a 2 months trip to Sout East Asia. She is sharing her experiences and adventures with us

It took us time to find the best way to visit Halong Bay without too many tourists and without booking a tour but in the end we made it. we took a bus from Hanoi to Haiphong, one of the two cities where you can jump off to Halong Bay, and from there a boat to Cat Ba Island, the only island where there are actually hotels to stay in. we arrived there without anything booked for that night.

Sweating, with our big backpacks, hungry and in my case sick, we decided to stop for a quick lunch and think which way to go. we met a couple of Germans having lunch and they showed us later a wonderful place to stay at, a stunning location, a group of bungalows just a couple of steps from the beach surrounding by carstic mountains and clear water. if we wouldn’t have known that we were in Vietnam, we would have thought that this belonged to Thailand.

Without doubt, the best was the night that we spent on the beach after having dinner. we almost fell asleep in the hammock… amazed by the clear sky and looking at the stars.

Would you like to join us? Calling all seasoned backpackers!

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If so, we’re willing to share our love in the form of some well-deserved cash!
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Read the rest of Palmira’s trip diary: Cat Ba Island on I Wanna Go There.

Palmira is going on a 2 months trip to Sout East Asia. She is sharing her experiences and adventures with us

We were finally in Vietnam. We had decided to go from Phnom Penh (Cambodia) to Vietnam through the Mekong Delta instead of taking the direct and easy way to Ho Chi Min City and it was definitely worth it although looking back we spent too much time there. We booked a tour for three days that practically covered everything I had read from the lonely planet so we were quite satisfied as it only cost 37 dollars.

We woke up very excited the very first morning. They took us by boat to a floating fish farm and to visit a tribe village where they make silk clothes. After maybe two hours in the river, the woman who had sold us the tour the day before and also the guide in Chau Doc suddenly told us that there was a change of plans. Instead of a fancy tourist bus, we ended up travelling in a local one to Can Tho which only costs 1 dollar and you can imagine why… three hours in a minibus with a driver smoking every chance he had, spitting out of the window every time he could, stopping every once in a while to deliver some packs  and honking to everything that moved on the road plus not to mention the cockroaches that were going up the leg of the guy sitting next to Rasmus.

The next day, already in Can Tho, they took us to the floating markets, the highlight of the Mekong  Delta. We also visit a rice noodles and rice paper farm which I think it was just for filling time. After lunch the bus took us to My Tho where we separated from the rest of the tourists who were already going to Ho Chi Min City. Just four of us had made the mistake to stay a third day…

And there we were in Can tho, in a little town where there could be at maximum ten foreigners, staying in a dirty and uncomfortable hotel and wondering which would be the next surprise. The following day we woke up already thinking on our way back to Ho Chi Min City… as I said, three days is too much time to spend in the Delta. After all, you see kind of the same things in the different towns along the river. They joined us to another group of tourists and we did what proper ones do in a proper tour… visit different kind of places where they sell you products: a bee farm (I didn´t get to see any bee…) and a coconut candy factory (two guys working on that while the tourists where buying coconut candies in the stalls next to them). What I liked the most ít was me holding a two meters snake in my shoulders and the little trip we did by boat in a narrow river channel.

At six pm the four of us arrived in Ho Chi Min City. Pouring outside and tired of staying in very uncomfortable and dirty hotels we decided to spend our time in finding the hotel for us not what just the lonely planet recommends, hotels that back then when they wrote the guide were good quality but after its popularity thanks to being in that famous guide had lowered its quality. And we did really success! It definitely helped us to enjoy our stay in HCMC even though the city doesn´t have much to offer.

Would you like to join us? Calling all seasoned backpackers!

Willing to share your hidden gems with your fellow backpacker enthusiasts?
If so, we’re willing to share our love in the form of some well-deserved cash!
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Read the rest of Palmira's trip diary: Mekong Delta on I Wanna Go There.