103 days on the road!

Wow, 103 days on the road already! Still alive and kicking, and enjoying our new life. It hasn't been all sunshine, but mostly yes :) We are so happy we had the courage to take the step and start this adventure.

During these 103 days we have visited 10 cities in 6 countries. Rome in Italy, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Koh Samui, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in Thailand, Singapore (in Singapore), Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville (Otres beach) in Cambodia and  Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. And we did spend about 1,5 hours in Burma for our visa run, but wouldn’t count it as a visited country just for that.

Our time here in South-East Asia (and not to forget the three days in Rome) has been filled with...

 ...street food,  tuk-tuk’s, hot and steamy weather, long bus rides watching downloaded Coursera videos on the tablet...

...communication without common language, difficulties in getting an egg fried on both sides, or both coffee and juice for breakfast…

...waiting at  airports, colorful clothes, tourists from all over the world,  fruit smoothies, air-condition forcing you to wear a scarf…

...boat rides between islands, reading e-books, full moon party and dancing the night away, learning to cross busy roads, scooters, hectic traffic…

...shopping malls, 7-11’s everywhere, continuous packing and unpacking, washing clothes by hand, or having someone else to wash our clothes…

...hammocks, the same tourist clothes on sale everywhere, buying some of those tourist clothes...

...markets, fruit carts on streets, massages, swimming in the sea…

Beach Otres

Otres Beach was our own slice of beach heaven. The incredible sunsets with cold beer, barefoot morning walks and evening runs on the beach, relaxed atmosphere, our own beach hut with great Italian food. Need we say more?

Scooter Thailand

Riding scooters, though mostly as passengers and not drivers, has been an Experience. It’s a convenient way of moving, fast even with plenty of traffic and a way of getting much closer to the local life, the sounds, smells and crowds than you get inside a car. The first experience on driving on our own was the road trip in Koh Samui, starting off quite nervous with all the warnings on mind. But it was fun at the end, when gotten used to the traffic. We also drove the fabulous Samoeng loop in Chiang Mai.

Malaysian food

There has been so much mouth-watering food we have had the joy to taste.  Just some of the highlights for us were the Cambodian Lok Lak beef, Pho soup in Vietnam, Kung Po chicken from street stalls in Malaysia, fresh fruits with muesli & yogurt for breakfast, soda with lemon and sugar, fruit smoothies, beer with ice, Vietnamese coffee (strong!! actually reminds us of the Finnish salty candy salmiakki), the pasta’s at Papa Pippo (Otres) and the pizzas at 4P’s (Ho Chi Minh). Getting hungry just by listing these…

Cafe HCMC

Oh, the cafés of Ho Chi Minh City, how did we love you. A truly vibrant café scene can be found in the city, with plenty of thoughtfully decorated joints, offering free wifi, electricity outlets, comfy chairs and good coffee. We used this great article by James from Nomadic Notes as our inspiration and visited 10 different café’s during our stay. We especially enjoyed Magonn for its atmosphere and the branch of Highland coffee on Pham Ngu Lao had really comfy working spots upstairs.

Choeung Ek

The Choeung Ek killing fields in Phnom Penh brought tears in to our eyes. Walking around the grounds, listening to the stories and music from the audio guide, otherwise in silence. It was definitely the most touching site for us so far. The violent and shocking events happened only few decades ago and this reminded us about how unstable life and societies can be.

Sandfly bites

We have been quite lucky on our travels and nothing really bad has happened, no thefts, no accidents, no serious illnesses. Our biggest challenges has been our nearly missed flight in Rome and witnessing a fire in Sihanoukville. Leaving Otres and approaching the town we saw a dark cloud of smoke. When getting closer, we saw buildings in flames. Just across where we were supposed to be picked up for our bus to Phnom Penh. We joined the crowds watching for a moment, fighting between curiosity and an urge to flee. At some point it got a bit chaotic when someone started yelling some warnings (about explosion, we think?) and people started rushing away. There were lots of wooden housed built right next to each other, so it didn’t look too good. We saw people carry stuff from nearby houses to safety.

We tried to figure what to do and made couple of phone calls, not reaching answers. So we decided to take a tuktuk to bus station to catch some other bus to Phnom Penh, but saw a bus from our company on the way, stopped and got directions to their bus stop, and caught our bus at the end. Later we found out they got the fire out with relatively few losses and nobody got hurt. (We have no pics of the fire, or even of Sihanoukville town. So here’s pic of Antti’s legs after sandfly attack in Sihanoukville. They did feel itchy, almost like on fire… Close enough?)

Ban Lom Jen at Chiang Rai

Ban Lom Jen homestay in Chiang Rai has been the overall best stay so far.  The place was quiet without being too remote (20 mins to Chiang Rai center). The views of the rice fields were so calming and the overall setting was beautiful. And the food served in their small restaurant was very good. The owner couple, dutch Jan and thai Son, really wanted their guests to enjoy their time and treated us like we were friends visiting. They invited us to join a BBQ they were having for some other guests and relatives. Son offered us a ride to town to visit the night market. And our last day, Jan drove us to see the Wat Rong Khun (white temple) before we needed to catch our bus. He recommended us to visit it, and we are happy we listened to him, since it was something very different from other temples we saw.

Angkor sunset

We had high expectations for Angkor. At first we were overwhelmed by the hordes of tourist and the heat, and were wondering if one day would be enough for us. Luckily we decided for another visit and got to understand better the lure of Angkor temples. With a bottle of cold water and no need to “accomplish”, Angkor really is an enchanting experience. It just takes some time to dive in the magic, to start just experiencing it instead of just watching as outsider. Our guide did a good job on helping us to understand Angkor better. - Despite of his constant complaining of the heat. Hey, it is us who come from a freezing cold country…

Since we know you are interested, here’s also some info about our financial situation… We have used all income we have gotten from working, but on the other hand we haven’t had to dig into our savings.  We have spent on average 77€ per day between the two of us. And this is not counting flights between countries, for which we have used 1.925€ so far. (Helsinki > Rome > Kuala Lumpur > Koh Samui // Chiang Mai > Kuala Lumpur > Singapore > Kuala Lumpur > Siem Reap).

From the daily usage, 21,5€ has been going to accommodation and 29,5€ to eating and drinking. And the rest 26€ for miscellaneous things like local travel, internet, activities etc. Our daily budget was set to 80€ so we have come just slightly under it. Could have survived with much less, but sometimes we are just too lazy or comfort-seeking...

Antti and Mirje

We are Mirje and Antti, a 30+ digital nomad couple, entrepreneurs with restless feet and passion for experiencing the world. more »