Thursday, October 20, 2011

Indochina Backpacking Preparations

vietnam, cambodia and laos 11th solo backpacking tour
august 24 - september 1, 2011 wednesday to thursday


objective: to visit the best tourist spot that fits to my budget at limited amount of time.
additional tasks: lost half of my pocket-money in day 1... show must go on for the planned itinerary no matter how it takes

here were the things i did weeks, days and hours before my travel.

(1) itinerary - most important of them all. since 7 days outside philippines especially on countries with very, very minimal english-speakers, planning ahead the best and cheapest route is highly advisable. as much as possible, if you want to make a real budget trip, make a detailed itinerary as far as you can. i.e., every day of your plan has as much as 80% actual time and amount to spend. most of the transpo to be use is a tourist bus, please see below table for possible alternative routes that i made.

plan c on final decision

printed final detailed itinerary with indochina maps

(2) budget - knowing the currency conversions makes the trip more encouraging to acknowledge. since i'm keen into detailed budget itinerary, i've come up to estimated budget of php20,000. but i've been an avid fan of souvenir items and something adventure especially on international trip, i've put an allowance which totals to php23,000. converting it to usd and vnd to my trusted money changer in our area, php23,000 equates to 451usd and 660,000vnd. please see table below for the approximate conversions of vietnam dong, cambodia riel and lao kips to us dollars and our local currency philippine peso.

local money conversion

my actual budget

(3) map - print available maps found in the internet to know somehow where are the locations, your whereabouts info and specifically on the city or province where your interest is. this helps to truly understand the adventure of backpacking.

indochina map

(4) what to bring - best advise ever on backpacking especially on solo, pack light. of course don't forget your passport, 2 pieces of print-out e-ticket and  itinerary (the other print-out must be properly kept inside bag just in case the 1st one is unpresentable. in regards to my backpack, i used 35L capacity that contains the following;
- shirts/short pants/underwears
- camera and tripod
- universal plug adapter
- ballpen/paper

my backpack

(5) emergency stuffs - bring also the following, this are a must especially if traveling alone. remember that your health is on utmost guard at all times.
- pack snacks (chocolates, 500ml water, menthol candy)
- alcohol/hand sanitizer
- medical plastic strips
- mouthwash/toothbrush/toothpaste
- paracetamol/any basic medicines

(6) be mentally and psychologically prepared at all times - who knows how the challenge will gonna be and how are you prepared when it happens.

my new travel buddy


indochina guesthouse i checked-in
go back to main post


4 comments:

  1. looks like high sierra ang backpack mo sir.
    isang bag lang dala mo?

    will do a thailand-cambodia-malaysia naman in november.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was giggling when I found a writeup "The Inconvenient Bag". As far as expelling my reusable shopping bags, I every now and again giggle. cheap sleeping bag for backpacking

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