South East Asia

Danny and I talked about travelling around South East Asia for a few weeks, a part of the world neither of us had explored. I had a mandatory six week break from my job over the school holidays, and Danny had enough leave built up to take four weeks off. We looked into countries, cities, towns that were the "must-see" places in the region and started making a plan. 

That plan was extended by 11 months. We had no house, no debts to pay and a decent amount of savings. Our money was supposed to be going towards the purchase of a house, but with a sharp increase in property prices we bailed on that idea. Instead we decided to splurge on a massive holiday. I was granted 12 months' leave by my employer, Danny quit his job and we dumped all of our possessions on our families. There was no turning back - for the next year we were going to be nomads.

The aim was to travel through South East Asia for five weeks, then jump over to Europe to see as much of the continent as we could for the remainder of the year (click here to see our Europe adventure). We left Australia at the end of 2010 and headed straight for Thailand, a country at the top of my wishlist. After spending time in Bangkok and on the Thailand islands, we hopped over to Cambodia, cruised along the Mekong Delta into Vietnam, made our way north then landed in Laos. Following a three day jungle ziplining trek we re-entered Thailand, returning to Bangkok via Chiang Mai. From here we flew out to London.

(On our way home a year later we stopped in Singapore to break up the flight, and our short adventure in this country is included in the South East Asia section.)