(Alternatively watch here)

Already when we were studying Philipp and me wanted to do a “world-trip”. After graduating we finally managed to visit at least Asia. We realized while we were traveling that we were not at all interested in making “as many countries as possible” our goal. Very slowly and more extremely spontaneous I had imagined I could ever be, we traveled and never planned anything long-term on this trip. In every country and guesthouse we got new tips and information about places to go. And so we went…

Our trip started the 8th December 2012. That we would start in India and booked the flights accordingly we decided exactly one month before. We had done well with the marathon of vaccinations (about 12 in 4 weeks). But the China visa had struck us. The first idea was to start in Beijing but the regulations from the embassy weren’t very compartible with our spontaniousity (that we hadn’t even booked a flight yet not to mention presenting a precise route of places we wanted to visit). Plus as the time passed by suddenly the climate wasn’t too welcoming anymore. So we decided to start with India because we wanted to visit it anyway and already got our visa.

We started in India (3 months) and flew with a weeks stop in Banggkok to Myanmar (1 month), flew back to Bangkok and spent 1 month in Thailand. From there we flew to Hong Kong and stayed 3 weeks plus 1 week in Macau and then went by train into China mainland. There we traveled 2,5 months plus 3 weeks in Uyghur country (which politically belongs still to China). In Kashgar we bought bicycles and rode them into Kyrgyzstan where we cycled for 2 month. In Bishkek we finished this journey and Philipp flew to Perth, Australia to start working and I flew back to Germany to see everyone.

Surprisingly, for some people, we “didn’t do” Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. One of the main reasons therefore lies in exactly the sentence itself. First of all, the German translation of “to do a country” is not very cherishing at all. It sounds you do it like you do your washing or your run in the morning. And the combination of those words and that meaning is what we have heard from too many travelers all around us. “Did Laos for two weeks, then Cambodia for three weeks and Vietnam for another two.” (Uuhu.. And? What is the story?) We didn’t want to be rushing from country to country with only grabbing the highlights without getting to know the special things that need time to appear and evolve. Plus we didn’t want to be some more people visiting the same countrys like all the others. Not because we wanted to be special. But we thought there are already existing so many pictures, stories and information about traveling in those countries we could get and we wanted to get to know something really alien and new. Something we could explore and almost noone knows about. So we also bring some new information home, not only from a nice holiday but from a great adventure!