10 Tips You NEED When Traveling to the Southeast

We just spent the last three months traveling all over Southeast Asia in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines, and these are the 10 things that surprised us and we think you should know before traveling to Southeast Asia. But before we go into it, make sure you go back and watch all of our videos as we traveled all over Asia. We had an absolute incredible time traveling all through those four countries, and make sure you hit that subscribe button. One of our biggest worries when traveling to this part of the world was how we were going to be able to communicate, especially in countries like Thailand and Cambodia where they use a completely different alphabet than ours. But what we quickly came to realize is that so many people speak English there, especially in the touristy areas. Most everybody speaks English, and a lot of the menus are actually in English as well. Out of all the countries that we visited, actually the Philippines we felt was probably the strongest with English, and even a lot of their signs were in English as well, which was super helpful, and it was so easy to get around there. In the cases where we did have to communicate across languages, Google Translate is your best friend. Not only can you download languages to be able to use offline, but it also has the feature where you can take a picture of a sign that's in a different language, and it will translate the entire thing for you. So it was super helpful, especially when we did not know what a sign was saying. Although English is widely spoken, it is still a good idea to learn a couple key phrases in each of the languages of the places that you're going to. So learning simple things like hello and thank you are a great way to show some respect. Also, in this part of the world, bowing with your hands held like this is also another way to show some respect, especially common when you say thank you. One of the reasons why English is so common is because of all of the tourism. Compared to our travels in South America and South Africa, we definitely noticed there were a lot more tourists in Southeast Asia. But with all of those extra tourists, be prepared for crowds, because in certain parts of Southeast Asia, there are a lot of people. Additionally, we did also notice that the backpacking crowd is a little bit younger in Southeast Asia compared to South America, and we think a lot of that had to do with the cheaper prices in these countries. But that being said, it is extremely affordable to travel in this part of the world. We'll get into more detail on that in our next video, so please make sure to subscribe for that. We're going to break down everything that we spent in our entire seven-month backpacking trip across South America, Southeast Asia, and South Africa, so make sure you subscribe for that. But when it comes to paying for things, even though credit cards are accepted in most places, they do tack on about a 3% credit card charge, which obviously adds up after a while. So having cash and paying with that is still widely preferred. With that being said, it was so easy to get cash. There were ATMs everywhere, and we had absolutely no problems. But going along with that, one thing we wanted to mention is that the Vietnamese Dong we found to be extremely confusing when we went to pay for things, and that is because they are in the thousands. They only use bills, they don't use any coins, so if you're adding on zeros on top of all of that, you just have to be careful when you're paying for things because you don't want to accidentally give somebody a 100,000 Dong instead of 10,000 or something like that. We were also surprised to learn when we got to Cambodia that in addition to having their own currency, which is the Cambodian Real, they also widely accept U.S. dollars. When you did pay U.S. dollars, they would often give you Real back as change. So just something to note when you're traveling to Cambodia. Like we've mentioned a few times already, it is extremely affordable to travel in these countries, and that especially applies to the food. And if you are going out for local food, you can pay as little as $2 for a full meal, and the food is absolutely incredible. It is some of the most delicious food we have ever tried. And if you are craving some of that Western food, we found Western food to be pretty readily available all throughout all of the cities that we traveled in, but expect to pay a little more, usually around $8 or $9 for a meal. It is a little more expensive, but compared to prices back in the U.S., it was still extremely affordable. And not only was the food in restaurants absolutely amazing, but the street food might've been even better. And some people sometimes are a little weary about eating street food, but we found if you just go to the stalls where all the locals are going to, that probably means the food quality is really good. So we didn't really have any issues eating any of the street food. And like I've said, it was absolutely incredible. But there was one time where me and Christine did get a really bad case of food poisoning. I think I got it a little worse. It hit us the next day. And of course it was a travel day. So we had to keep going to the bathroom. We had to ask our bus driver to stop one time. And of course we were going from Pai to Chiang Mai, and the drive between those two cities is extremely treacherous through the mountains. So that was definitely a fun day. And we never did figure out if it came from a restaurant or from a street food vendor, but we only got sick one time, so we can't complain. Another thing that you can get sick from while traveling in Southeast Asia is the water. In most of the places that we visited, it is actually unsafe to drink the tap water because of harmful bacteria and viruses. But what we found is that actually a lot of our hotels did have filtered water for guests to drink. Sometimes it was a little bit hidden in the back. So just ask your hotel to see if they provide it. And if they do, then you get free filtered drinking water. And because it is so hot in Southeast Asia, it is so important to stay hydrated. So outside of water, there is actually a lot of other fun drinks that they have in Southeast Asia. And this was probably one of my favorite things about traveling in Southeast Asia was all of the delicious fruity smoothies and juices. They were also fresh, and I probably ordered one at least once a day. I'm not going to lie. So it is no secret that Southeast Asia is hot, and we both knew that, but I think that we were still severely underprepared for exactly how hot it truly is in Southeast Asia. We arrived in Vietnam in March, and it was pretty doable. It wasn't too hot that month, but once it hit April, the heat came. It was so hot. It was so miserable that month. It was over 100 degrees almost every single day. When we would check our phones, it would say the temperature feels like 115. There's 80% humidity. We just didn't want to be outside at all. And after talking with some locals, we found out that April is the hottest time of the year in most parts of Southeast Asia. And we are definitely not used to that type of temperature. It doesn't get nearly that hot where we're from. So that humidity and that heat, it was just a little too much for us. So if you do plan on traveling to Southeast Asia, try to plan your trip around the month of April, because I'm telling you, it's too hot to travel. In Southeast Asia, there are two seasons. There's the dry season and then the rainy season. Typically, rainy season is around mid-May to early June till about September, October. So if you want to try to avoid the rains, because they do get some pretty torrential rainfalls, you might want to avoid going to Southeast Asia during those months. And if you are planning a trip to Northern Vietnam or Thailand, one other thing you do need to pay attention to is burning season. We had never heard about burning season before traveling here, but it's essentially when farmers get their crops ready for the next year by burning the lands. It causes the sky to become extremely hazy and does affect air quality. We definitely had a little trouble breathing at certain times because of that air quality. So just bear that in mind. And the worst time for burning season is usually from mid-March to mid-April. So we would definitely recommend avoiding traveling to those parts during that time. Getting around Southeast Asia, there are so many options, and we did take a lot of them. If you're going between cities, we would highly recommend taking sleeper buses or sleeper trains. We booked almost all of our buses and trains through a website called 12Go, and they make it so easy to book them. You can just go on their website, type in where you're coming from, where you're wanting to go, and it'll show you all your different options. There's even pictures of the buses that you're going to be taking so you can decide which ones you want to take. There's pictures of even the place where you're going to be picked up so you know exactly where you need to go to be picked up and you're not worried about it at all. During our time in Southeast Asia, we took quite a few sleeper buses, and I have to say some are definitely better than others. Some of the best sleeper buses we took were in Vietnam. We actually took a couple VIP sleeper buses, and those are actually so nice because you get curtains to kind of have your own little pod space. There's also your own light. You have your own air conditioning vents that you can adjust. There's a USB charger. There's sometimes even Wi-Fi on those buses, so we actually got a pretty good night's sleep on those, which was super nice. But on the flip side of that, we also did take a couple more budget ones in Vietnam as well, and you do get the same amount of space when it comes to the two different kinds of buses, but on the budget option, you don't get kind of all the bells and whistles. You don't get the curtains that separate your space. You don't get the USB charger. You don't get the Wi-Fi. It's just kind of a more bare bones bus, but it's still comfortable enough, and we got a decent night's sleep on those as well. In Thailand, the buses are a little bit different. They're more like the coach style of buses that you see here in the U.S., except they give you a little bit more room and you can recline in your seat. You can't lie flat like in the ones in Vietnam, but they were still pretty comfortable as well. But I think our favorite type of overnight transportation was the sleeper chains in Thailand because they had the widest beds, and you could lie completely flat, and you had a lot more space than on the buses. But when it comes to traveling around within a city, your best option is probably Grab, and that is basically like Southeast Asia's version of Uber, and it's super convenient. You'll just call them like you do an Uber on your phone, and then they'll come and pick you up. But there are also so many other options for getting around when you're in cities, and you'll see so many different types of transportation when you're in Southeast Asia. They have things like truck taxis in Thailand, they have cyclos in Vietnam, they have jeepneys in the Philippines, and tuk-tuks in basically all of them. And it's actually pretty funny because Grab in Cambodia are tuk-tuks, which is pretty cool. But one thing I will say with any of those types of transportation is to always negotiate a price before getting in. But one of our favorite ways to get around was renting scooters. But when it comes to renting scooters, we would definitely not recommend doing this in all of the cities, especially Ho Chi Minh City, because it is just way too hectic there. But in smaller cities, it can definitely be the best way to get around, and it's extremely affordable. We found that most places would rent you a scooter for about $5 a day, and then you could take that anywhere. We rented a scooter in Hoi An, Vietnam, and we were able to drive that to the My Son Sanctuary, which was about an hour north of the city. And it was so much more enjoyable to drive ourselves there, not have to worry about a tour. We were able to explore the sanctuary on our own time, and then drive back with no worries. And I had never driven a scooter before going to Southeast Asia. I was a little wobbly at first, but I picked up on it pretty quickly. And it was definitely our favorite way to travel throughout all of Asia. When using public restrooms, it's not going to be uncommon that you see squatty-potties, which is basically like a hole in the ground, and you kind of got to squat over them to use them. And coming from the United States, it can come as quite a bit of a shock. But with a little bit of practice and a little bit of balance, you'll definitely get used to them. Next to the squatties, you'll often see like a big bucket of water with like a cup in it. And that cup's actually used for a couple of things. So it's used to actually manually flush the toilet. You just grab a scoop of water, you dump it down the toilet, and it manually flushes it. And another thing that it's actually used for is for people to clean themselves after they use the restroom. It's like a makeshift bidet in a way, because they don't really use toilet paper. So there oftentimes isn't going to be toilet paper when you use a public restroom in Southeast Asia. So always make sure you have a stash on you for when you do have to go. One thing I also noticed is that the bathrooms always seem to be like soaking wet. It was just wet all over the floor like 95% of the time. And it wasn't until a couple weeks into our trip that I realized that they actually clean the bathrooms by basically hosing everything down. So the bathrooms are going to be wet on the floor a lot of times. So if you're wearing pants or like a dress or something like that, just always make sure you hike them up so it's not dragging on the floor. But not to worry, the toilets in your hotels and hostels will be a western toilet. One surprising thing that we noticed in the bathrooms in our hotels is that there is no separate shower space from the rest of the bathroom. So you're basically going to be taking a shower in the middle of the bathroom. There's not even like a curtain to kind of separate the shower area. And you're kind of just bathing in the middle of the bathroom so everything in the room gets soaking wet every time you take a shower. One other thing that we noticed when it comes to restrooms in like your hotel or hostel is there's actually quite a distinct smell that oftentimes comes from the drain inside of your bathroom. And we even stayed at some really nice places in Thailand like resorts and there was still this smell. It was like a pretty strong sewage smell and it was pretty off-putting, I'm not going to lie. So that's just something to be aware of and it's not uncommon. Most of the time we would just close the bathroom door and it wouldn't really bother us unless we were in the bathroom. And lastly, another thing that shocked us was just how often we had to take off our shoes before entering something. When entering temples, hotels, restaurants, and even the sleeper buses, a lot of times they would ask you to remove your shoes and either place them on the rack or like on the sleeper buses they would give you a plastic bag to put your shoes inside. And in a lot of the hotels they would provide a pair of sandals for you to wear so you didn't have to walk around barefoot. And in the restaurants where you had to remove your shoes, a lot of times they would have a pair of like community sandals outside the bathroom so you didn't have to go inside the bathroom without any shoes on. So if walking around public spaces or sharing sandals with a stranger is something that might scare you a little bit, I would definitely recommend bringing a pair of socks with you. And this was most common in Vietnam but we also experienced it in parts of Thailand and Cambodia as well. So that wraps up the 10 things you need to know before traveling to Southeast Asia. We really hope that this video helps you plan your trip and know exactly what to expect when traveling to this part of the world. We had such an incredible time despite the heat in our three months in Southeast Asia and we would highly recommend anybody to travel there. But make sure you subscribe because although we are sadly done with this backpacking trip and we are back home in Wisconsin, we do have some more exciting things coming up. But until then, we'll see you guys on the road!