Well, here it is. More unending information about our trip to Asia. This is the second, and possibly more entertaining, of two lengthy wrap-up posts on our trip. Here we take that information and put it into hard and dirty facts. Remember how we spent more time waiting in airports than on airplanes? Or how we got ice cream 47% of our days? Or how we saw four dead people on the trip? Well, here are more such facts. (Yes, many, many more.)
Trust me, you might find these amusing...
Please keep in mind that some of these are subjective and relevant to our experience only. (I don't know why I felt that I had to say that.) Miscellaneous is perhaps the most interesting category, so keep scrolling!
Places| 12 | Number of “countries” visited (Macau and Hong Kong separately b/c separate visas- we realize the real answer is 11) |
| 13 | Number of countries planned to visit (no Indonesia and Maldives) |
| 18 | Number of borders crossed |
| | Favorite border crossing: Bangladesh to India at Burimari |
| | Most hellish border crossing: Thailand to Cambodia at Poipet |
| . | |
| 4 | Shortest number of days spent in a country (Singapore) |
| 35 | Longest number of days spent in a country (India) |
| . | |
| $40 | Most expensive entrance fee (3-day pass for Angkor Wat) |
| $20 | Most expensive fee barely worth it (Taj Mahal- ok, it's worth it, but that's a lot of money for a building) |
| 16 | World Heritage Sites visited |
| Nepal | Country where we visited the most World Heritage Sites |
| Bagan | Favorite ruins (in Bagan, Myanmar) |
| . | |
| Nepal | Poorest country we visited (according to the UN) |
| Bangladesh | Most corrupt country we visited (according to the UN) |
| Myanmar | Most oppressive country we visited (hands down) |
Visas| 4 | Number of visas acquired in advance |
| $647 | Total amount spent on visas |
| $100 | Most expensive visa per person (Bangladesh) |
| free | Cheapest visa (Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau) |
Expenses| $6.06 | Smallest amount spent in one day (July 20- our flight to Dhaka was cancelled and the Bangkok airport took care of us!) |
| $119.70 | Highest amount spent in one “normal” day with no flights/visas (June 13- travelling from Koh Tao, Thailand to Penang Malaysia by ferry and train. Next? Singapore Zoo day) |
| . | |
| $45 | Most expensive single souvenir (a blanket from Jaisalmer, India) |
| $230 | Most expensive single item (the flight from Bangkok to Dhaka) |
| $3000 | Biggest savings (getting our flights to Asia with NWA miles) |
Accomodation
Transportation| 90 | Hours spent waiting at the airport |
| 88 | Hours spent on airplanes |
| . | |
| 24 | Hours of longest contiguous ride on mass transportation (train from Ajanta Caves to Bangalore, India) |
| 20 | Hours of longest bus ride (Inle Lake to Yangon, Myanmar) |
| 15 | Hours of most exhausting bus ride (Indian border to Kathmandu) |
| . | |
| Thailand | Best train (night train from Chomporn, Thailand to Malaysia) |
| Nepal | Worst buses |
| Bangladesh | Worst driving (India and Cambodia close seconds) |
| Myanmar | Strangest driving (because of the sudden switch to right hand side driving even though most of the vehicles were made for the left!) |
Food| $.13 | Cheapest glass of beer (Vietnam) |
| $.50 | Cheapest full meal (Angkor Wat, Cambodia) |
| $50 | Most expensive meal (Sunday brunch in Bangalore, India) |
| . | |
| 47 | Percentage of days with ice cream |
| 65 | Number of ice creams purchased |
| 6 | Number of ice creams purchased that shouldn’t have been (due to undisclosed electricity outages… turning anything frozen soggy) |
| . | |
| Singapore | Best country for food (India is up there, too) |
| Bangladesh | Worst country for food (But Myanmar was close) |
| Bangladesh | Best cup of tea |
| Vietnam | Best cup of coffee (see next item) |
| Sweetened condensed milk | Favorite new food item (who knew this was so tasty in coffee?) |
| Vietnam | Country with most "interesting" meal |
| Cambodia | Country with favourite meal (But really, how to choose? Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Pnom Penh, Cambodia, create-your-own spring rolls in Hoi An, Vietnam, The Strand in Yangon, Myanmar, or street food in Thailand) |
Miscellaneous| 1 | Number of near-charging rhinos encountered |
| 2 | Pairs of underwear Josh took along |
| 3 | Number of t-shirts Josh took along |
| 4 | Number of dead people seen (pulled out of the river in Pnom Penh, in the river in Singapore, on the street in Delhi, and Ho Chi Minh himself in HaNoi) |
| 5 | Feenstras met (Mom, Dad, Jennie, and 2 Dutch folk in Myanmar!) |
| 6 | Number of locals who asked us to take pictures of themselves and then mail them the photos |
| 7 | Number of people who asked for our contact information in Bangladesh (mind you, contact information does not mean email address. Most people didn’t seem to have one.) |
| 15:40 | Hours spent underwater |
| 16 | Number of books read by Megan on the trip |
| 25 | Number of books read by Josh on the trip |
| 26 | Number of Bird photographs taken |
| 27 | Number of photographs taken of ourselves, by ourselves |
| 3,668 | Number of photos taken altogether |
| 4.46 | Gigabytes that absurd number of photographs now takes up on our computer |
| . | |
| 12 | Shots (vaccines) received before leaving |
| 382 | Prescription pills bought in the USA |
| 69 | Number of times offered drugs in Asia |
| . | |
| Myanmar | Place of most awkward moment (or the man who kept asking about my sister in Dhaka) |
| Laos | Place of best happenstance experience (a business party we got in on…) |
| Malaysia | Place with weirdest Pinocchio-Rudolph-esque bug ever seen |
| Endless | Number of statistics Megan & Josh could keep coming up with |
9 comments:
I like the map with the USA beneath southeast Asia. It really gives perspective on size.
Ah, you can thank that really expensive columbia education for that one... it's called scale... especially my final semester studio prof- she was nuts about scale figures, scale objects, you name it. A diagram or drawing wasn't worthy of review without something to give it scale!
(For example, who cares how many hours you've waited in airports until you know how much time you've spent on airplanes?)
I'm glad you guys figured out the soggy ice cream issue before we got some in Dhaka!
Was the awkward moment in Dhaka the one with the guy who wanted to know where my husband was? I almost forgot about that.
That's amazing, guys. What was your best meal--the one in Cambodia?
Jennie,
yeah I forgot about him as well. Except that he lives in Edinburugh and we are going there next weekend... he was a weird man, too eager to meet you.
And Jessie about food... well I think it's a little hard to choose a best there but... I think the FCC in Cambodia wins. Though we at at the bar in the Strand Hotel in Yangoon (a five star hotel) and that was great, refined food as well. There are many others but if I had to choose, I think the FCC
Since we both liked the FCC in Cambodia, I put that down as the best, but my very favorite-est was actually the create-your-own spring rolls in Vietnam.
We had no idea that was what we were going to get when we stopped at this back-alley place until they just started bringing plates and plates of food to our table. It ended up being the only thing they served and you just paid per person. We must have looked confused because someone came over and silently (with some vietnamese) showed us how to put them together... a mildly complicated process. Next to us, three older women squatted julienne slicing veggies into huge bowls of water (nice and safe for our american stomachs) while the grill behind them held the pork skewers...
They were SOOO good!
Mmmm... now I am thinking of our favorite foods on the trip. I over-filled a journal page listing all of those. That's why we just stuck with "favorite single meal" instead!
Wow! Make your own spring rolls sounds great.
I'm getting hungry...
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