Our escapade through SE Asia & India

(Summary of weeks 1-7)

Here is a quick summary of our travels during the first seven weeks of the trip.

Airports

We traveled through 15 different airports between initiating the trip from SFO on March 10th to landing in Amsterdam on April 28th. Here is the list in order: SFO – SIN – DAD – HUI – SGN – SAI – DMK – CNX – BKK – BOM – PNQ – JAI – DEL – DXB – AMS.

Cities & Stays

The planning and booking of everything (flights, accommodations, transportation, activities) has been done by the two of us. We have used Booking.com, the IHG app, the Hilton app, skyscanner, google flights, get your guide, and bookaway to name a few of the tools. Using these tools has helped us build the itinerary for visiting the 14 cities / towns and booking 13 different accommodations.

• Holiday Inn Express Singapore Orchard Road
• Hoi An Odyssey Hotel & Spa
• Hotel Del Luna (Da Nang)
• White Lotus Hue Hotel
• Garden View Court Suites (Ho Chi Minh City)
• Ohana Phnom Penh Palace Hotel
• Riversoul Boutique (Siem Reap)
• POR Singharat (Chiang Mai)
• DoubleTree Bangkok Ploenchit
• Intercontinental Marine Drive – Mumbai
• Pune (visited but did not stay)
• Holiday Inn – Jaipur City Centre
• Holiday Inn – Agra
• Radisson Blu Plaza Delhi Airport

Transportation

Besides air travel, we have used various means to get from point A to point B. This includes taxis, tuk-tuks, private chauffeured cars, buses, ferry’s, river boats, bikes, subways, trains, an elephant and a water buffalo.

Budget vs. Actual

This trip was not meant to be extravagant. Since we have both recently retired (meaning no more paychecks) we budgeted the trip see if we could do it cheaper than living at home. We have excluded some fixed costs from this equation, but our budget focused on the majority of our living expenses. With that context, the first two months of the trip are under budget.

• March
  • Budget $8,180
  • Actuals $6,997
  • Under $1,118
• April
  • Budget $10,240
  • Actuals $10,133
  • Under $107

We are happy to discuss trip details (the good, the, bad, the ugly and the amazing) with anyone who is interested.