Itinerary
Several hours after my last exam at NUS, I boarded a plane to Macau to begin a 4 weeks of travel. While in Phuket, I learned that I passed all of my courses and would be graduating with my masters of law degree. This was in no way guaranteed because studying foreign law in a foreign country is harder than it sounds...
On the globe below you can see the major stops we made on our trip. Christine was with me for most of the trip, and my college friends, Adam and Noah, joined me for the Thai segment.
Forgive the haphazard recounting herein. Maybe it would have been better to write as I traveled. Keep in mind that all of this, even the flights, was very cheap. Except in Macau and Hong Kong, lodging was usually around US$10+ every night. That’s actually less than a day of rent in Singapore. Food and beer are very cheap too – except in Phuket, where each plate of food is about US$4 and each large bottle of beer is about US$2.50. Sometimes we splurged, on accident or by force (like at the scam restaurant in Hanoi, or at every restaurant in Hong Kong, which is just an expensive city; damn bankers). We stayed in hostels and cheap hotels -- everywhere was pretty cheap except, again, for Hong Kong.
May 7 – Christine, and I left Singapore by plane bound for Macau, China; spent no money on gambling in Macau.
May 9 – took a ferry from Macau to Hong Kong
May 11 – took an overnight bus from Hong Kong to Xiamen, China; this was not a nice experience, and we saw Chinese people at their rudest; crossing the border by land from Hong Kong into Shenzhen is not something I recommend to anyone, except for the spectacle of it.
May 12 – arrived in Xiamen and took a ferry to the island village of Gulangyu, where we stayed
May 13 – took a day trip into the hills to see the villages of the Hakka people; Christine is Hakka on her father’s side; Lee Kuan Yew is also Hakka on his father’s side.
May 14 – flew from Xiamen to Kunming, China; stayed the night in Kunming
May 15 – rode a bus from Kunming to Lijiang; Lijiang is somewhat of a charming, ancient mountain town; it’s so charming that it has literally become a tourist magnet; I would guess that 90% of the people in the town at any given time are tourists. I ate some “local” food that I think was covered in yak lard. It didn’t make me feel very good after I ate it.
May 17 – rode an overnight bus back to Kunming
May 18 – arrived in Kunming in the morning and boarded a new bus for Yuanyang, China
May 19 – saw the sunrise over the deep and wide valleys with their sides carved into terraces for growing rice (these photos would have been very beautiful for you all to see)
May 20 – rode the bus to Hekou, China; crossed the border into Vietnam and boarded an overnight train for Hanoi
May 21 – arrived in Hanoi, super early in the morning; so early that no one was at the hotel yet
May 22 – I departed Hanoi in the evening by plane, leaving Christine behind, and I met Noah and Adam in Bangkok.
May 23 – took the bus from Bangkok to the Cambodian border, took a taxi the rest of the way to Siem Reap, Cambodia
May 24 – visited the temples of Angkor Wat; Noah bought many souvenirs; because Noah and Adam were suffering from jet lag, and because we started drinking beer at 2pm, Noah and Adam passed out by 6pm.
May 25 – woke up around 3am and thought it would be fun to start drinking at 5am; took a taxi to the Cambodian border town, gambled at the Cambodian casino (gambling is apparently illegal in Thailand, so Thais can cross into Cambodia to gamble), drank free beer at the casino, crossed the border into Thailand, reported the visa scammers to the tourist police who could not speak English, got a ride in a cop car to the bus station, the cops put us on the wrong bus, we ended up in some unknown town in Thailand, but by 9pm we had arrived in Bangkok
May 27 – flew from Bangkok to Phuket, Thailand
May 28 – Christine met us in Phuket
May 29 – rented mopeds that actually went fast, bypassed the taxi cartel by driving mopeds around the hilly island of Phuket; Noah thought he lost his passport and had a good freak out, but he found it the next morning
May 30 – Noah kissed his passport when he found it, and he and Adam went home
June 1 – camera and wallet are stolen
June 2 – fly back to Singapore
On the globe below you can see the major stops we made on our trip. Christine was with me for most of the trip, and my college friends, Adam and Noah, joined me for the Thai segment.
Forgive the haphazard recounting herein. Maybe it would have been better to write as I traveled. Keep in mind that all of this, even the flights, was very cheap. Except in Macau and Hong Kong, lodging was usually around US$10+ every night. That’s actually less than a day of rent in Singapore. Food and beer are very cheap too – except in Phuket, where each plate of food is about US$4 and each large bottle of beer is about US$2.50. Sometimes we splurged, on accident or by force (like at the scam restaurant in Hanoi, or at every restaurant in Hong Kong, which is just an expensive city; damn bankers). We stayed in hostels and cheap hotels -- everywhere was pretty cheap except, again, for Hong Kong.
May 7 – Christine, and I left Singapore by plane bound for Macau, China; spent no money on gambling in Macau.
May 9 – took a ferry from Macau to Hong Kong
May 11 – took an overnight bus from Hong Kong to Xiamen, China; this was not a nice experience, and we saw Chinese people at their rudest; crossing the border by land from Hong Kong into Shenzhen is not something I recommend to anyone, except for the spectacle of it.
May 12 – arrived in Xiamen and took a ferry to the island village of Gulangyu, where we stayed
May 13 – took a day trip into the hills to see the villages of the Hakka people; Christine is Hakka on her father’s side; Lee Kuan Yew is also Hakka on his father’s side.
May 14 – flew from Xiamen to Kunming, China; stayed the night in Kunming
May 15 – rode a bus from Kunming to Lijiang; Lijiang is somewhat of a charming, ancient mountain town; it’s so charming that it has literally become a tourist magnet; I would guess that 90% of the people in the town at any given time are tourists. I ate some “local” food that I think was covered in yak lard. It didn’t make me feel very good after I ate it.
May 17 – rode an overnight bus back to Kunming
May 18 – arrived in Kunming in the morning and boarded a new bus for Yuanyang, China
May 19 – saw the sunrise over the deep and wide valleys with their sides carved into terraces for growing rice (these photos would have been very beautiful for you all to see)
May 20 – rode the bus to Hekou, China; crossed the border into Vietnam and boarded an overnight train for Hanoi
May 21 – arrived in Hanoi, super early in the morning; so early that no one was at the hotel yet
May 22 – I departed Hanoi in the evening by plane, leaving Christine behind, and I met Noah and Adam in Bangkok.
May 23 – took the bus from Bangkok to the Cambodian border, took a taxi the rest of the way to Siem Reap, Cambodia
May 24 – visited the temples of Angkor Wat; Noah bought many souvenirs; because Noah and Adam were suffering from jet lag, and because we started drinking beer at 2pm, Noah and Adam passed out by 6pm.
May 25 – woke up around 3am and thought it would be fun to start drinking at 5am; took a taxi to the Cambodian border town, gambled at the Cambodian casino (gambling is apparently illegal in Thailand, so Thais can cross into Cambodia to gamble), drank free beer at the casino, crossed the border into Thailand, reported the visa scammers to the tourist police who could not speak English, got a ride in a cop car to the bus station, the cops put us on the wrong bus, we ended up in some unknown town in Thailand, but by 9pm we had arrived in Bangkok
May 27 – flew from Bangkok to Phuket, Thailand
May 28 – Christine met us in Phuket
May 29 – rented mopeds that actually went fast, bypassed the taxi cartel by driving mopeds around the hilly island of Phuket; Noah thought he lost his passport and had a good freak out, but he found it the next morning
May 30 – Noah kissed his passport when he found it, and he and Adam went home
June 1 – camera and wallet are stolen
June 2 – fly back to Singapore
Comments