With the semester coming to a close, my friends and I have started to plan our travels for post semester trips once we are finished with exams before heading home for the holidays. With more time on our hands, we have begun to look at some other locations outside of Australia this time.
For our post semester trip, we are going to New Zealand, Vietnam, and Thailand, however other common locations students choose to visit are Bali, Fiji, Laos, Cambodia, and sometimes even Hawaii. Unfortunately, with our timing, Bali wasn’t an option due, to the impending volcano. We originally had a flight booked to Denpasar for mid-December, but with the recent eruptions on the island, our airline rerouted our flight to Vietnam. Over the course of four weeks, we will be exploring these countries, some in more details than others.
Our basic itinerary is the South Island of New Zealand for a little over two weeks, Vietnam for three nights, then ending with Thailand for six nights. These three different countries, currencies, languages, and cultures will be exciting to witness, I’m really looking forward to the trip!
New Zealand
In New Zealand, we are booked onto a Kiwi Experience bus tour. This bus company is for travelers, averaging 18-25 year of age to travel throughout New Zealand on a connecting bus system. They have multiple different packages, some including both the north and south islands, some for only the north, and some for only the south. We opted for the shorter, cheaper Southern roundup as we are short on time with a December 24th deadline return date to get back in time for the holidays. On this journey, we will stop at Christchurch, Nelson, Abel Tasman, Westport, Lake Mahinapua, Franz Josef, Wanaka, Queenstown, Lake Tekapo, and finally ending back at Christchurch. This pass is flexible and can be used as much as one desires within an annual year of the first travel. For the most part, we will be spending the minimal amount of time in each of these stops in order to maximize our time, however we read online that some travelers will take advantage of these passes and travel for weeks or months at a time (which sounds incredible!).
Vietnam
As our Vietnam destination came as a bit of a surprise, we have not had much time to plan what we were going to do there. We will be flying into Ho Chi Minh city and spending three nights there before flying to Thailand. Because the US dollar can go so far in Southeast Asia, we are hoping to be able to stay at nicer hotels and get a break from hostels. We have also heard that food will be a lot cheaper here than what we have been used to in Australia. After doing some research, I am really excited to try some authentic Pho, spring rolls, bahn mi, and various noodle dishes. We have looked into doing the Cu Chi tunnels, Saigon Notre Dame Basilica, and the Ben Thanh Markets.
The Cu Chi tunnels are a network of underground tunnels connecting to a much larger network of tunnels that lay underneath much of the country. They were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War for soldiers to take shelter, communicate with suppliers and hospitals, and connect with various living quarters. They are now preserved by the government of Vietnam as a war memorial park for tourists to enter and crawl around in. The Saigon Notre Dame Basilica is a cathedral built in the late 1800s that is reminiscent of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. As I have seen the Paris original, I am interested in seeing what this later version built by the French looks like in a popular Asian city. The Ben Thanh Market is the biggest and most authentic market in Ho Chi Minh. Many people recommended checking it out when we mentioned we were visiting Vietnam. I am hoping to find some cool spices and clothing items to bring back to the states for holiday presents.
Thailand
We will be visiting two different cities within Thailand. First we are flying to Phuket, a mountainous island off of the coast of Thailand. From there, we plan to take a boat to one of the neighboring islands, Phi Phi, for a night’s stay and to experience some island life. Lastly, we will fly to Chiang Mai, in the northwestern part of Thailand. My cousin is currently teaching English in Chiang Mai for the next six months. I am really looking forward to visiting her there! As she has been living in Thailand for a little over two months now, she has discovered a lot of great day trips and activities and has mastered her way around the city, so my friend and I will be able to benefit from a more local perspective. While there, we are hoping to visit an elephant nature park to feed and wash some elephants, take a day trip out to the white temple, Wat Rong Khun, and check out some of the many temples located in Chiang Mai, such as the beautifully ornate, golden Doi Suthep, Wat Chedi Luang, and Wiang Kum Kam.
After a crazy four weeks of travel, I will be finally flying back home to Boston to start my co-op in January 2018! With a flight from Thailand on December 23rd, I will be landing in Boston early morning on the 24th, just in the nick of time for Christmas with the family. I will greatly miss Australia but am so excited to get out and see what else the south Pacific has to offer.
