Facts and FAQs About Our Trip: South East Asia Edition!

We're home! We made it back home after the most amazing three month adventure! We are quite sad that it is over as we really enjoyed all the places we got to explore. We're very grateful to have had such a wonderful opportunity to travel the world again! We've started sorting through our pictures and will have some more posts of places we went, once we get settled back in at work again. But first, a short facts and faq post about our trip! If there's any questions you have that we didn't answer, feel free to comment or email us and we'll be happy to. Thanks for coming along for the ride with us! 

Where did we visit?

We visited 7 countries: Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Maldives, Cambodia and Hong Kong. 

We stayed in 22 places: Legazpi, Donsol, Banaue, Batad, Coron, El Nido, Sabang, Kota Kinabalu, Mt Kinabalu, Sandakan, Kinabatangan, Ubud, Amed, Labuan Bajo, Kanawa Island, Yogyakarta, Singapore, Male, Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, Siem Reap, Hong Kong.

What was your favourite place?
For our favourite place, we both really liked the Philippines. We were there for a month and saw everything from whale sharks to rice terraces to ship wrecks under the ocean. It was beautiful everywhere and the people were so happy and extremely nice. It was great, we'd highly recommend it as a place to visit sometime, and it has something for everyone!

We both agree that our favourite activity was the scuba diving. We took to it like ducks to water! We ended up doing quite alot, but I think we'd have been happy to do even more if we could have! We dove in 5 of the 7 countries we visited, and I think we both enjoyed the Maldives the most (it was strictly a diving visit), and Coron in the Philippines second best which was the first place we dove and where we got to see all the wrecks.

How long were we gone? 
We left Sunday March 30th, and returned home Thursday July 3rd. For a total of 96 days!

Where did we stay?
In total we had 95 nights:
69 nights in hotels or guesthouses
8 nights on boats
4 nights on island camps with Tao
1 nights in unheated dorms on Mt Kinabalu
3 nights in an AirBnb room
3 nights in a hut on Kanawa Island - 1 with cockroaches
2 nights in a shared hut in the jungle of Borneo
2 nights in a freezing cold bus
2 nights on planes crossing the Pacific Ocean
1 night in a traditional Ifugao hut in the Philippines

10 nights were spent sleeping outside with only a roof and a mosquito net
25 nights were spent with no air conditioning

How many currencies did we use? 
We used 8 currencies during our trip. Philippine Peso, Malaysian Ringgit, Indonesian Rupiah, Singapore Dollar, Maldivian Ruffiyaa, Cambodian Riel and US dollars were used in Cambodia also. The most fun one was the Indonesian Rupiah which has an exchange rate of about 10 000 to 1, so you get to carry millions with you!

Some other fun facts:

18 - Number of flights we took
8 - Unesco World Heritage Sites we visited
3 - Days stranded in Labjuan Bajo by the eruption of the Sangiang Api in Indonesia

35 - Number of days we spent at least an hour swimming in an ocean
69 - Number of Dives we did
61 hours - Number of hours we spent underwater scuba diving
10 - Shipwrecks we dove in and around
3 - Bodies of water we dove in - South China Sea, Indian Ocean, Gulf of Thailand

20 - Number of different islands we visited
8 hours -  How long we were stranded on a deserted island

32lbs - How much weight we lost in total on the trip!
21 lbs - How much heavier our bags got by the end of the trip

7 - Types of sharks we dove with!
4 - Number of Komodo Dragons we saw
2 - Number of whale sharks we got to swim with

17.5 hours - Time spent actually climbing and descending Mt. Kinabalu
8454 ft - How high we climbed at Mt. Kinabalu

3 - Number of holes in one Laura got at Angkor Wat Mini Putt! (Jerome won overall though)
14 - Number of paper and audiobooks we finished
115 - Cryptograms Laura solved on the trip

Packing List

We've had quite a lot of requests for more information about what we packed. I'll go through everything that made our final list, and add some notes to things we didn't use, or would've changed.

We packed everything into two 60L bags. They were a bit overkill for the amount of stuff we had, but we already had them, and didn't really think it was justifiable to get another set of packs. We didn't ever really find them too big to carry around, and it meant we had room to spare for souvenirs etc. As Jerome mentioned in an earlier post, we used packing cubes which made living out of backpacks very easy. We had two sets, one yellow, one orange, so that we could easily tell what was in each one, and it was simple to just pull out what we needed even if we were at a train station.

GENERAL THINGS
Ziplock bags - Small, medium, and a few 2.5Gallon Ziploc bags, we used them alot! 
Silk sleeping bag liners - Didn't use these as often as we thought, but were handy to have. 
Swiss army knife - Used for many things!
Travel clothes line - Used this to dry our clothes in many places we stayed.
Quick Drying Towels
Day pack - We had one small day backpack that we used that fit into our big packs on travel days. 
Lock and lock wire - For securing our packs. We never used it - and probably wouldn't bring again.
Money Belt - Also never used it. 
Notebook and pens/pencil - Used to keep a daily log of all our adventures. 
Playing Cards - Didn't use until the last week, and then used alot! 
A watch
Wallets
Passports
Metal Travel Mug - Useful for water and tea when we were staying places with no dishes.
Package of Tea filters - So we could make our own tea anywhere.
Small Pocket Notebook - Had removable pages, really handy for notes and directions
Kit of useful things in an Altoid Tin - Included: Sewing Kit, binder clips, caribeanners, safety pins.
 - We didn't have very much use for them this time, but I'd bring it again. 

TOILETRIES - All contained in a toiletries bag that hangs up
Sunscreen
Toothpaste
Toothbrushes
spf lipbalm
Shampoo - We started w/ 2 travel bottles and added from hotels 
Nail clippers
Razor
Hairbrush
Hair elastics, band
Hand sanitizer
Dental Floss
Laundry soap - Liquid woolite which worked well until it exploded, we'll go powder next time. 
Deoderants
Advil
Bar soap in container - We bought more soap along the way as we ran out
Toothbrush holder(s)
Kleenex - Brought 6 small packages, stocked up as needed 
Electric Razor - So Jerome could shave easily with no shaving cream. 

ELECTRONICS

Power adapter - Multi adapter for all the plugs
Extension cord/splitter - A 3' cord that split 1 into 3 outlets 
Chargers for things - Phones and Camera
Cameras - We brought 2, it was really handy to be able to get both our points of view. 
Phones - After debate we each brought our phones, which was good as one broke. We were able to buy sim cards almost everywhere we went, to give us maps and information we needed. 
Small flashlight - Small windup one. Came in very handy on many occassions. 
Small tripod - Fit in Jerome's pocket, and helped us take some great night photos. 
Extra Camera batteries and cards - We brought 4 camera batteries (both camera's take the same ones) as well as 3 32GB cards and 1 4GB card. We bought another 32GB Card on the way. 
Earbuds -  A pair for each of us
Pouch for cords etc - Had a small pouch to hold all of this stuff
Extra phone batteries - We had second batteries for our phones. 

Before Trip

LAURA'S CLOTHES
Note: Everything but the golf shirt was quick dry. 
Rain Jacket
Flip flops
2 Smartwool next to skin T-shirts
4 pairs Ex Officio underwear
5 pairs socks
2 pairs long pants - including 1 pair of zip offs
Swimsuit
1 pair of Shorts
2 Button up T Shirts
1 Golf Shirt
2 bras, + 1 sports bra
1 Tank top
1 Zip up light fleece hoodie
1 Dressy jacket
Running Shoes

JEROME'S CLOTHES
Note: Everything was quick dry. 
Rain Jacket
Flip Flops
4 pairs Ex-officio boxers
5 pairs of socks
2 pairs pants - including 1 pair of 1 zip offs
1 pair Shorts/bathing trunks
1 Smartwool Next to Skin Long sleeved Shirt
2 Northface quickdry t-shirts
3 collared T-shirts
1 long sleeved shirt
Running Shoes

After Trip

THINGS WE ACQUIRED ALONG THE WAY

These teas we got in London and Switzerland at the start of our trip and we carried them with us and drank them throughout our whole trip. They migrated between our backpacks. 

Some delicious tea from Mariage Freres in Paris. We didn't open this on the trip. 

It was carried in Laura's backpack. 

Wooden dice to play backgammon with, and a tiny wooden turtle I got for my Birthday in Hallstatt. 

The dice were carried in Jerome's pocket and well used, and the tiny turtle was carried inside the Marriage Freres tea tin. 

Two tiny containers of salt from the Hallstatt salt mine - the oldest in the world! 

They came in handy in Italy when we both caught a cold and used the salt for gargling! 

 

A pair of small wine/liqueur glasses from Prague. 

Carried in Laura's backpack carefully wrapped up in socks.

A very well packed carpet from Morocco. Which was carried in Laura's backpack

A neat expanding chess set from Morocco that was carried in Jerome's Backpack

 A cool damascene plate from Morocco. Carried in Jerome's backpack wrapped in our desert scarves. 

 Cactus silk thread from Morocco. Carried in Laura's Backpack.

Shortbread from Marks & Spencers in London picked up on our way home. 

We stocked up on tea from Twinings in London before we came back too! 

 And some Harrod's Tea too.

And on the recommendation of Jerome's Aunt Kathleen, we picked up this amazing plum pudding which we brought home and ate at Christmas with our family!