10 countries, 50 cities,7 months, $24,430, 340,000 airline miles and 137,000 hotel points (17 nights) later: Our Final Budget Update

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Couple RTW budget, round the world budget, South America Budget for a couple, Southeast Asia budget for a couple

By Rachel

I would definitely encourage everyone to travel for an extended period of time – it was a once in a lifetime experience, not only because we got to see some amazing places and met some amazing people, but also because we travelled in a completely different way then we normally would – on a pretty tight budget! And travelling as a couple was a great experience – we were both worried that it would be really difficult and may drive a wedge between us, especially since we were always long distance, but it definitely brought us together and it was amazing sharing all these new experiences with my best friend.

One of the main reasons people don’t do extended travel is because they think it would cost way too much – but if you watch your budget and go to some budget friendly areas, it is completely doable if you save!

When we were planning our trip, it was hard to find a lot of info on couples that travelled together – there were plenty of single backpacker budgets for the areas we were going to, but we knew that we wouldn’t be doing single dorm beds and because we were a few years older than the ‘typical’ backpacker, we knew we would want to do things just above what a backpacker would do. We would probably be considered ‘flashpackers’ a term that I think denotes people that have a slightly bigger budget (not much though) than a normal backpacker and probably a little older than the college backpacker crowd. It also meant that we went to places that weren’t on many of the typical backpacker trails because they were either a little more expensive or harder to get to (like Borneo, Indonesia or Uruguay).

We wrote a previous post on how we travelled in Thailand and what our spending preferences and styles were and for the most part, those habits and lessons remained true throughout our trip, so I won’t repeat it – the link to that post is here:

https://samirandrachel.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/travelling-on-a-budget/

All in all, here were our final numbers for two people travelling in India, Southeast Asia and South America for 206 days or about 7 months (not including our three weeks in the US). Important note – we used airline miles for travel from the United States to India and back as well as from the United States to South America and back – all other flights are included in this budget.  Also, we used hotel points for about 17 nights, but even though we saved on lodging, we found that especially in Asia, it turned out to be a wash in terms of expenses because the hotels had more expensive food, sometimes charged for internet and cost a lot more to get to and away from!

Here is a further breakdown:

That’s all folks! Can’t wait to do it again some day!

Final Observations on Cambodia

By Samir

It’s an interesting situation – Cambodians want to remember the glory of the Khmer kings from whenever time started until 1970, forget the next ten years, and then start remembering again. Angkor Wat is so prominently featured everywhere you go in Cambodia that you’d be inclined to think it was the only part of their history/past that even mattered. And once you visit the magnificent Angkor complex, every other temple seems … like every other temple.

And yet, the country struggles with commercialization and tourism. English is commonly spoken, though broken and limited. The Cambodian riel currency is used, but the US Dollar is strongly preferred, so much so that signs by all manner of businesses advertise prices in US Dollars. Locally brewed, Cambodia Beer, Angkor Beer and Anchor Beer are heavily advertised (they all taste like generic lite beer and were usually sold as 50 cent drafts). Everywhere you go, in the entire country – wherever you look, you will see at least twenty lighted signs advertising beer.

And … people here smile more than people in any other country we’ve visited. I can’t tell if it’s to hide some sorrow from their past or if they are just a genuinely happy people.

I enjoyed some of our time here, mostly in Kep and Phnom Penh. I think the country has great things to offer, but they’re still working through their history, and with the consequences of tourism.

By Rachel

Cambodia was definitely a different experience from Thailand and Laos. We learned a lot more about the culture and especially the history of Cambodia. Siem Reap is basically a tourist town centered around Angkor Wat and the temple complex. There’s even a “Pub Street” where you’ll find all kinds of bars, pubs and restaurants, all filled with tourists. Which is fine because Angkor Wat is an amazing sight to see, but it just didn’t feel much like Cambodia. I was also amused at the kids in Siem Reap – they would sell stuff at the Angkor Wat complex, but spoke English very well! Probably better than many of the adults do!

Like Samir, I enjoyed Kampot and Kep as well. Phnom Penh was a different kind of enjoyment. I was really fascinated (and saddened) by the history of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and the madness that went on for those three and a half years. But, aside from that, Phnom Penh was fun to walk around in by the river – in the evenings, they have dance classes in the pedestrian walkway by the river that you can hop in on – we didn’t get a chance to do so, but drove by and it looked like fun!

Overall, I’m glad we went to Cambodia, though it’s a different type of sightseeing than we like to do. We both like to ‘do’ stuff rather than ‘see’ stuff – but Cambodia is definitely a place where you soak up the culture by seeing it to understand it, if that makes sense!

War, Death & Life

By Samir

Cambodia, as close as it is to Vietnam, was caught up in the Vietnam War and suffered many casualties in that conflict. Shortly thereafter, Cambodia underwent a brutal war on itself when the Khmer Rouge came to power, led by Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge was in power just less than four years (officially) when Vietnam showed up, though the United Nations negotiated with Pol Pot until his death in the late 1990’s. It was weird to realize that Vietnam was the saving grace for the Cambodian people, not long after their own terrible war. Not America. Not the Western allies. And yet, in the 3+ years of rule over Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge wiped out between 1 and 2 million people. Pol Pot wanted to create a utopian society – so he promptly killed people that were white-collar professionals, knew more than one language, or even wore eyeglasses – and then forced whoever was left, to work in the agriculture industry under poor working conditions.

Imagine – every grade school teacher in the entire country has been killed by Pol Pot (who was a teacher himself for 10+ years before becoming a politician). How do you educate the next generation of kids? How do you rebuild your society when the war is over?

As should probably be expected, there was a massive rise in birthrates after the war ended, so now the average age of the populace is only 22.

The government did a fairly good job of keeping the records of the Khmer Rouge and memorializing the instruments and facilities of the war. The day after arriving in Phnom Penh, we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (also called S-21), and later, the Killing Fields. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum was a high school built by the French that was turned into a prison / detention center under the Khmer Rouge. It is said that those who were imprisoned at this particular prison were military and civilian members of the Khmer Rouge itself who were turned in by other members of the Khmer Rouge (often falsely). One of the first signs we saw when we entered, lists 10 security rules, some of which were:

• Don’t be fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
• While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
• If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

Then we went to a series of pull-up bars, presumably used by former high school students in gym class. The Khmer Rouge would tie you up, hang you upside down until you fainted, then try to drown you by forcing your head underwater – then just as soon as you regained consciousness, they’d ask you a bunch of questions designed to make you incriminate yourself.

The Khmer Rouge kept pictures of everyone who entered S-21.

In lower left of picture – your ankle went into the loop, so you made noise as you dragged your feet. The chain kept you tied to the bed. The ammunitions box once housed live bugs meant to scare you.

The size of a cell (varied between 18-30” wide)

Barbed wires over the balcony so you couldn’t commit suicide after your daily torture

After being interned at S-21 for a while, if you survived the torture, you were sent to the Killing Fields about 30 minutes outside of Phnom Penh. There, you were shot in the head within 24 hours of arrival and buried in one of over 100 mass graves. A memorial has been built in the center of the area, housing skulls recovered from the excavation.

Insert by Rachel:

We went on an audio guided tour of the Killing Fields, which not only explained what different parts of the fields were (mass graves, a tree for hitting the heads of infants to kill them before putting them in their mass grave, the place where trucks filled with people would come in, etc.) but also gave testimonials from people who either lived around the time or those who actually worked in the Killing Fields as part of the Khmer Rouge. The audio guided tour was probably one of the best ones I’ve ever been on since it was so detailed and really did a good job of explaining what happened at the Killing Fields from different perspectives. And the memorial building itself was beautiful with both Hindu and Buddhist artifacts decorating it. Sadly, however, it also displays the skulls and other large bones that had been discovered and catalogued at the Killing Fields.

The S-21 Museum was also really good but incredibly haunting to see the faces of those imprisoned there and transcripts of people’s “confessions”. One of the things that struck me most is why the leaders of the Khmer Rouge still haven’t been formally tried – I think only one has been tried and sentenced – over 30 years later! He’s the only one that has actually taken responsibility and admitted what was done during the Khmer Rouge regime. He was the leader of the S-21 prison and basically accepted all fault and said that everyone under him was just following his orders and should not be blamed as much as he himself. The other leaders of the Khmer Rouge claim that they had no idea of the atrocities that were going on in the prisons or any knowledge of the Killing Fields or even that all of it actually occurred.  It’s like people doubting the Holocaust happened – eesh.

Back to Samir:

Memorial at Killing Fields

Inside the Killing Fields Memorial

After seeing so much death and history, we stayed in the remainder of the day, though we decided to go out at night. On a tip from a hotel manager, we went to a packed nightclub (on what happened to be a Saturday night), which had a lively vibe. We managed to get greasy burgers at 3am before heading back. The following day, we went to the National Museum in Phnom Penh. Many artifacts were destroyed in the war, but some survived.

stone statue of the Hindu god Vishnu that was largely intact and was from the 6th century!

They had Longhorns back in the 10th century!

And what trip wouldn’t be complete without some current culture? I went to a Cambodian boxing match in a covered arena owned by a news station. The boxers came on stage, bowed before the audience and the judges, stretched and warmed-up. When the fight began, music would play and the boxers would tap their feet to the beat of the music, and use that rhythm to pace their punches. We saw 4-5 matches. It was pretty cool.

bowing to the audience

the arena, which was plastered with ads for the Ford Ranger pickup truck (sadly no longer sold in the USA) and Cambodia brand beer

Kampot and Kep

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By Rachel

After Angkor Wat, we decided to get some R&R in and headed to the little riverside town of Kampot, home of Bokor National Park, in the Southwest of Cambodia. After a quick night in Phnom Penh we headed out by bus. Even before we got to Kampot, we passed the seaside town of Kep. As we drove by the coastline looking at the gorgeous sea, I noticed tons of little huts with hammocks inside to lay on and got super excited that we came to the area. We originally planned on taking a trip to Bokor National Park but after reading reviews on it online, it sounded like more of a tourist trap then an enjoyable experience. So instead, we just walked up and down the riverside one day and hired a tuk tuk driver to take us to Kep for a day trip and relaxation by the sea.

Kampot is famous for its yummy durian (which we weren’t able to try – no funsy food stalls in little Kampot) and its black pepper. I had the fresh black pepper, whole and still on the stem instead of grounded – pretty tasty! They also had tours of some pepper plantations and caves around Kampot, but we decided to spend the day in Kep instead.

Kep is where many Cambodians go for a quick wknd trip to the beach, especially those from Phnom Penh. The beach is just okay but the seaside is gorgeous and we spent a few hours walking down it and relaxing in hammocks. Perfection!

Kep is well known for it’s fresh crab. So fresh that they literally take the crab out of the traps, stick them in little baggies and start hawking them on the street! Our tuk tuk driver recommended a restaurant and we enjoyed some fresh grilled crab with veggies. They didn’t have a claw cracker though so it was interesting trying to pick out the crab meat! Delicious though!

We invited our tuk tuk driver to join us.  He said it was too early for him to eat but he joined us at our table. He talked about the local culture a bit… the Muslims were fishermen, the Buddhists and Christians were farmers. Unlike other cultures, in Cambodia, the male has to raise money to get married and give a dowry to his wife’s family – around $4,000! That’s a LOT for a tuk tuk driver!

National Pride, Part 2

By Samir

After seeing part of Angkor, we decided to see an Apsara dance show in the evening. We went to a restaurant in town, which had an impressive array of foods for the dinner buffet, followed by a one-hour show comprising multiple dances to traditional songs. Apsaras, meaning “heavenly nymphs”, are shown on many of the carvings of Angkor, and in paintings all over the country.

After a day of rest, day 2 of our journey to the Angkor complex revolved around Angkor Thom, which is a square measuring 1.5 kilometers by 1.3 kilometers. History says that Angkor Thom was once a city housing one million people, which is especially interesting because the population of London, England at that point in history was less than 50,000.

We skipped many of the smaller village temples inside Angkor Thom, which dominated much of the complex. The one million people lived in wooden houses surrounding these smaller stone temples for their individual villages. The wooden structures have not survived the test of time, though many of the village temples were visible from a distance. We were determined to see the bigger structures within Angkor Thom in the afternoon. We had wanted to see the sunset, but after waiting an hour and still having been too early (we arrived at the time suggested by our tuk tuk driver), we gave up and went back into town.

First stop was the Baphuon Temple:

Notice the long entryway, without any handrails

Not built for 6 foot tall Americans

Restoration work has found that one wall along the back of the temple had been stacked to look like a reclining Buddha. Some of it has been re-set:

After the Phimeanakas Royal Palace (we didn’t feel like climbing up the steep stairs in the heat), we headed over to the Leper Terrace and the Elephant Terrace:

Apsara carvings at the Leper Terrace

I really like the elephant trunks that frame the stairs

And then we went to Bayon, which has over 200 faces on the towers of the temple, and is probably the pride of the Angkor Thom complex.

Conversation

restored heads alongside original heads at the South Gate to Angkor Thom

National Pride, Part 1

By Samir

We flew from Luang Prabang, Laos into Siem Reap, Cambodia. We’d heard stories of endless hassles and being ripped off at the land border. At the Siem Reap airport, we noted that there were about 10-12 employees at the Immigration desk, though to keep them all busy – every employee handed off your passport to the next, until all of them had touched the passport. Some employees glanced at it or made a notation somewhere, but some just passed it on. And yet, there were zero employees at the Customs desk…

Based on advice from other travelers, we decided to visit the Angkor complex, but split our visit up over two days, though we probably could have done it in one day if we really wanted. Angkor is actually a full complex of temples and other structures built over several hundred years – Angkor Wat is but one of many, though perhaps the most well-known.

We had decided to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat, so we left our guesthouse at 5:15am, arriving at the ticket window around 5:40am. I was surprised to see that the ticket office – in front of a nationally protected monument that is pictured on the national flag of the country, and is a source of fierce national pride – charged admission in US Dollars instead of in the Cambodian Riel. Our three day pass (to be used within a week) cost $40 each, and had to be shown in front of nearly every temple within the Angkor complex:

The day was overcast. We waited. The sky got brighter, but we never saw the ball rise up over the temple. Bummer. Still got a few pictures in:

We had booked a guide for the day who told us that he had to go through two years of education and pass a rigorous history test to qualify as a professional guide. He pointed out many things, including the bas-reliefs (carvings) on the walls inside of Angkor Wat. Unfortunately, the temple was made from sandstone, so natural erosion combined with some theft over the years (some reliefs had jewels in them, which became a target for thieves) has eroded the quality of them, though there are several restoration projects in the works, by foreign universities and foreign associations. The carvings are primarily stories of reincarnations of Vishnu, a Hindu god.

One thing that I found particularly interesting – the temple was built with volcanic rock, and then sandstone was laid around it as a façade:

Other pictures from Angkor Wat:

The ball in the distance is a hot air balloon

Restored embellishment on the balustrade of a seven headed cobra

Last, but not least, Angkor Wat was used as a military fort for a long time, even as recently as the 20^th century. One of the reasons this temple is so secure is that it is surrounded by a 200 meter wide moat, with only one bridge in:

After Angkor Wat, we visited Preah Khan, Ta Som, East Mebon (which was once inside a man-made lake that has since dried up), and finally, Ta Prohm (the jungle temple). We really liked Ta Prohm the best, but it started to rain shortly after we arrived, so we didnt get to stay very long.

Preah Khan:

notice the heads of the stone sentries have been stolen

Ta Som:

the “sleng” tree has a hollow trunk, which enables it to grow around objects

Restoration work continues, shown here at Ta Som:

Ta Prohm:

the “spung” tree