Hindsight -- itinerary, flights, money, etc.

Trip Start Nov 11, 2008
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Trip End Dec 11, 2008


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(Guadalajara hotels)

Flag of Mexico  , Central Mexico and Gulf Coast,
Friday, December 26, 2008

The major lesson we learned, was to go with our gut.  When we wrote the first entry, a month prior to going to Thailand, we had decided not to go to Ankhor Wat, but to go to Laos instead.  But then we started talking with folks who thought that if we were in Asia, we should see the best of the best.  But for ourselves we know that we prefer things on a smaller scale, and should have stuck with the original plan.

The next lesson was that there's no point doing too much planning because real life will get in the way.  I spent HOURS trying to come up with a very specific itinerary, and within a few days the whole thing had been totally changed because of the typhoon in Vietnam.

We had read mixed reports about whether to book flights from over here or not.  The fact is that it depends on the airline.  For flights within Vietnam you do much better to wait till you're there, it's far less expensive.  The planes are gigantic, bigger than some of the planes American companies fly to Europe, so although they're pretty full, you can pretty much always get on a flight the next day if not the same day.  But for flights within Thailand it was the same to book online or to book with an agent.  As for the airlines, you get what you pay for -- Air Asia are rude, give you nothing, but they're cheap.  Thai Air and Bangkok Airways were much better quality, and much more helpful.

Finances -- even though daily expenses were minimal, moving from country to country is expensive.  To get to and from Luang Prabang in Laos would have cost over $300 in airfare each, plus another $100 for visas.  If you're only going to spend 2 or 3 days somewhere, then it's better to find a similar place in the same country than try to go to a different one.  As for the money itself, we took a small supply of US dollars for use in Cambodia, and other than that we simply got local money out of the ATM, of which there were plenty throughout Vietnam and Thailand.  However, have ATM cards from more than one bank -- at one point halfway through our trip our bank suddenly put a stop on our card and we had to contact them in order to get it taken off.

Phones -- we didn't have a cellphone with us, and though we didn't miss it at the beginning, once our friends loaned us one we found it was really good to have.  But buy a local one with a local card, far cheaper than using one from a foreign country.
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