For me, the best and the worst part of travel is moving on. On the one hand, the promise of a fresh adventure and the possibility that I might fall in love with a new corner of the world is what keeps me travelling. On the other, saying goodbye to the places I do love, the people in them and the experiences I’ve had there can be really tough. As we boarded a plane back to Asia after our summer visit to the UK I was wracked with homesickness and nostalgia but I also felt a glimmer of excitement and possibility at the thought of our new lives in Vietnam.
I couldn’t conceive of going to Scotland without visiting Loch Ness, the largest and perhaps most famous lake in the UK. So we set out on a two-hour journey from our cottage in the Highlands to cruise the loch and investigate the myths that surround this atmospheric piece of Scotland.
We spent an incredible 15 months backpacking through Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia, but how much did this trip cost us? We’ve tallied up the figures to reveal how much we spent including pre-trip costs, flights and visas; we’ve also broken down how much money we spent in each country we visited.
While we only visited Burma for a short three weeks we still managed to pack a lot into our trip. We saw thousands of temples, from the famous, glittering Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon to the many crumbling, ancient stupas of Bagan. We skimmed over the incredibly vast Lake Inle, explored the historical Mandalay, saw some of the most beautiful sunsets and sunrises and best of all, we met some of the most friendly people on our travels so far - here are our Burma video highlights.
In February and March 2014 we flew out of our beloved Thailand to the unknown land of Burma. Although Burma was one country where we needed a lot of preparation, with Amy as planner extraordinaire, it was a cinch! We flew into Yangon from Bangkok and we organised our Burma visas and US$ during the two weeks before we entered. We spent our time visiting the main tourist sights of Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan, Kalaw and Lake Inle. We booked most of our accommodation in advance and we arranged all of our domestic transport through our hotels and left the country by flying back to Bangkok from Yangon. Here’s how much it cost to visit Burma for 20 days.
The last stop on our whirlwind tour of  Burma was the famous Lake Inle, where we planned on doing some serious relaxing after a hectic and sometimes trying journey through the country. After paying over the odds for some pretty dodgy accommodation in Burma we splurged on a stay at the Princess Garden hotel at £21 per night, which was just what we needed. There was a pool to cool off in from the fierce Burmese heat, free breakfasts of eggs, fruit and pancakes, a lovely one-eyed brown dog to play with and refreshing afternoon shakes on offer.
Back in 2013 I shed many tears when we said goodbye to our lives in London. Although we were leaving by choice to fulfil our dreams of travelling the world, it was still painful to dismantle the lives we had spent almost four years building in a city we absolutely loved. Back then I had no idea when we’d return to London and I was worried that travel would spoil the city for me; that my love for it would fade. Now we’re back after over 15 months of travel and I’m relieved to say that my fears dissolved the moment I stepped off the train at Waterloo station - I felt like I’d finally arrived home.
Since Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) recommended that the tourism boycott of Burma be lifted in 2010, the number of people travelling to the country has steadily increased. However, the NLD urges tourists to boycott package tours and cruises as they benefit the ruling government rather than the local Burmese people; with that in mind, here are some tips on how to get around Burma independently.