We never thought that we would go to SE Asia, let alone spend 8 weeks in SE Asia. It was never on our radar, and the first country outside North America that we thought we would go to was Europe. Cue travel physical therapy and our good friends Joe and Sara. Here, we are going to walk you through how we spent 8 weeks in SE Asia.

They went to Southeast Asia for 3 months (!) the year before. Also, they introduced us to Kim and Erran and what it means to be Travsessed! We went to Patagonia with Travsessed and just fell in love with Kim and Erran and the whole Travsessed brand. If you haven’t heard about them or love to travel and want to learn more, check them out here. They mentioned that Travsessed was going to Bali and how we should look into doing another Travsessed trip with them. How could we say no???

Quick Links…

Bali is literally on the other side of the World. It is a long plane flight and nearly takes a whole day to travel there. You even lose a day because of the time change. So, we decided to make the most of it and take advantage of this travel healthcare lifestyle. One of the many perks, taking as much time off between contracts as we want (and can afford)!

First Stop: Bali – 3 weeks (2 weeks with Travsessed)

A 3 hour flight from DFW to San Francisco, 12 hour flight to Taipei, 6 hour flight to Denpasar, and ~30 hours later we finally made it to Bali! We left on a Tuesday and got there on a Thursday. It was a little trippy. We applied for our visa ahead of time to skip some lines. Lucky for us, Kim and Erran introduced us to Gede who arranged a ride for us to our hotel in Canggu. 

Gede is an AMAZING human being who owns his own transportation business (and part of a tattoo shop, Mr. Ink) in Bali. He helped us out with planning and scheduling the taxis and ferry to the islands. Feel free to reach out to us for his WhatsApp if you need a taxi (or pretty much anything) while in Bali. 

Canggu

We spent one night and most of one day in Canggu at the start of our trip and came back for a few days after Nusa Penida. It is a very busy area thriving with tourists, digital nomads, and scooters. The beaches in Canggu are a great place for sunset as it faces the West and there are many beach bars with bean bags or balconies to watch the sunset or surfers. 

Adam and I even tried out some surfing lessons! It was 300k each for a 2 hour lesson. There are photographers on the beach taking photos with professional cameras. They will send you your photos for some rupiah in return (haggle with them to a reasonable price).

The beach is walking distance from most boutiques, restaurants, homestays, and hotels in the area. There is traditional Balinese food, lots of smoothie bowls, and so many Western options in the area. We recommend Milk and Madu for brunch or pizza. Our friends also said that Amo Spa was the best massage of their life! Maybe worth checking out if you’re into that.

Nusa Lembongan

Sanur Harbor is about an hour and a half car ride (depending on traffic – there is usually traffic) from Canggu. We arranged a speed boat to take us to Mushroom Bay at Nusa Lembongan with our driver. He took care of buying our tickets for the correct boat and for the return boat (I told you, Gede is amazing). This was all included with the cost of the ride. 

Nusa Lembongan is a small island with winding bumpy roads and seemingly less infrastructure as Bali. The roads are thriving with motorbikes and some small work trucks with seats in the back to pick up passengers. On your ride across the island, you are likely to pass Panorama Point, a viewpoint overlooking the East side of the island and Mount Agung across water. 

There are lots of Warungs, shops, and excursions such as scuba diving and snorkeling on the main street on the west side of the island. We found some beach swings on the West side of the island, checked out Devil’s tears and watched the sunset at Cloudland Bar. 

Nusa Cennida

Nusa Cennida is the island that is connected to Nusa Lembongan by the famous yellow bridge. We only walked across the bridge to Nusa Cennida and went up to the Mangrove Lookout. The yellow bridge is also where you can get a water taxi to go to Nusa Penida. You just wait there until enough people come along to fill up the boat. This is where our Chacos and Osprey travel backpacks really came in handy. You have to walk out into the water to get to the taxi. 

Nusa Penida

Nusa Penida is the island with the most picturesque beaches. I (Erin) had seen pictures of Diamond beach a million times while doing research for our trip. But, none of those pictures do it justice, and my jaw literally dropped when I saw it. This island is bigger than Nusa Lembongan with real cars, restaurants, and shops. There are different ways to explore the island, by going on your own on a motorbike or hiring a driver for the day. 

We opted to hire a driver for 3 separate days because we have not had much practice with a motorbike. We paid 600,000 rupiah/ day + tip. The driver we had in Nusa Lembongan gave us the WhatsApp number for our driver in Nusa Penida. Kuat was great, he would walk us out to where we needed to go and was ready to take our picture everywhere we went. He hung out with other drivers while we went to explore at each stop. Reach out if you would like his WhatsApp number, we would love for y’all to support him and his family too!

1 day to explore the northeast side of the island: Diamond Beach, Atuh Beach, Thousand Islands Viewpoint. 1 day to explore the west side of the island: Kelingking Beach, Broken Beach, and Angel’s Billabong. 1 day to go to Tembeling Beach and Forest and Crystal Bay.

Broken Beach and Angel’s Billabong are just tourist traps in our opinion. It is beautiful, but swarmed with people. We wish that we went to Manta Point to snorkel instead. Next time 🙂

For our accommodation, we stayed at a homestay on the east side of the island called Setilas bungalows. We did rent a motorbike here to go to dinner. There was happy hour and live music at The Chill Penida, the Cactus Beach Club, and Ba Pasih Warung all nearby. 

Travsessed Bali

This trip with Kim and Erran was our second adventure trip with them. It was not in our plans because we had gone with them to Patagonia earlier in the year and had such an amazing time! Buuuuuut, the opportunity arrived and we were talking with Kim and Erran, and ultimately decided to pull the trigger. There is not one ounce of regret in that decision. This trip with them was fantastic! Bali is such an amazing place, with amazing people and amazing culture. Seriously, the nicest people ever.

We got to experience all of the amazing sights, sunsets, waterfalls, beaches, and everything. But our tour guide, Gede, taught us so much about the culture of the Balinese people, and that was so cool to learn about everything they do.

From food and drink pairings, to ATVing through the forest, to snorkeling with sea turtles off our private catamaran, to cliff diving off waterfalls. Kim and Erran pack so much into these trips, and make it such a unique, off the beaten path experience for everyone. As always happens on these trips, we became fast friends with everyone, and family by the end of it.

Second Stop: Singapore (24 Hour Layover)

Anyone that has done any travel, or is somewhat in tune is familiar with Singapore and the majestic architecture in the city/country and how highly regarded the airport is. Our plan was to go from Bali to Bangkok to start our Thailand leg of the trip, and we happened to find a flight that had a 24 hour layover in Singapore. It did not seem like we needed a ton of time there since buildings are not really our vibe, but we figured it was worth a day on the way.

It was sad to leave Bali and our Travsessed family, but we were excited to continue our trip with some new countries. The one thing was that Adam was feeling like absolute crap. It was a combination of Bali belly, dehydration, not enough sleep, and (probably) one too many espresso martinis in Bali. But, we only had 24 hours so we loaded up on gatorade and some foreign medicine that I hoped would get me through.

Our big goals were to “eat like Bourdain” and check out the Gardens by the Bay.

We started with eating. The Tiong Bahru Market is full of “Hawker Stalls” with delicious food. Hong Heng Friend Sotong Prawn Mee was our first stop. Long name, with delicious food. We did not really know how to order, so we mostly pointed, and it turned out just fine. Next stop, Jian Bo Shui Kueh for shui kueh which is a steamed rice cake and preserved radishes. It sounds kind of weird, but it was amazing!

Check out our more detailed post on our 24 hour layover in Singapore here.

Third Stop: Thailand

Bangkok (3 nights)

Our Thailand journey started in the bustling city of Bangkok. If you are looking for the city vibes, with a million things to do, then Bangkok is definitely your place. Even if your more interested in the jungles of northern Thailand, or the beaches and islands of southern Thailand, it is worth a couple days to check out Bangkok.

The first objective was to get some authentic Thai food. We got that and our first Thai downpour at the same time. Make sure to be prepared for the rain. We did a lot of walking on our own to explore the city, as well as a guided bike tour. The Grand Palace is pretty impressive and worth checking out as well. Be sure to take a ride in one of the tuk tuks, they are pretty sweet.

Chiang Rai (1 night)

The temples of Chiang Rai are worth spending at least a day there. The White Temple (Wat Rong Khun), The Blue Temple (Wat Rong Suea Ten), and The Big Buddha (Wat Huay Pla Kang) were the 3 that we checked out. They are all so beautiful and so different. It is certainly not a “you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all” type of thing. The Black House (Baan Dam) is another one that is pretty popular. We ended up at a cat cafe (interesting), and had some delicious Tom Yum soup while we were there.

Chiang Mai (4 nights)

We were much more excited about Chiang Mai overall, and planned to spend more time there. It was a 3-3.5 hour bus ride between the cities, and it is worth the extra few bucks for the “VIP bus” and the extra room. There were a few things we were looking forward to here, including an elephant sanctuary (no riding them), cooking class, and fooooood. The vibe of the city is great, the food was spectacular, and the elephants were such an amazing experience. Highly recommend spending at least a few days in Chiang Mai, and get the Khao Soi (one of the best dishes of the whole trip).

Krabi/Railay Beach/Ao Nang (4 night -> 7 nights)

Originally we were only supposed to spend 4 nights here before heading off to Vietnam. Due to issues with our Vietnam visa, we ended up getting a few extra nights here.

We were really excited for Railay Beach since you can only get there by boat, and not as many people stay there. It was also the “rainy season” or off season, so there would not be as many tourists there.

While we were there we did some snorkeling, kaying, rock climbing, and took a trip to Koh Phi Phi. We loved everything about our time here, and only wished we would have spent more time in Koh Phi Phi (or one of the other islands). Due to forecast for rain, we ended up changing our plans for Koh Phi Phi to a day trip instead of staying there. We felt that was a mistake on our part.

Definitely recommend spending at least a few days here. It is cheap, so that makes it easier to spend some time there too.

Fourth Stop: Vietnam

Hanoi (2 nights)

Vietnam was one of the countries we were most excited about, even more so since we got delayed a few days. Our plan was to start in the north and work our way down south.

Hanoi is a great city, and we were very impressed with the vibe, safety, cleanliness, food, and people there. We would be open to coming back here to spend a few more days.

Tu Long Bay Cruise (2 nights)

The cruise was one of the few things we built our trip around, so obviously we were pretty stoked on this. But, with our visa issues, we nearly missed it completely! Thankfully, the company was able to work with us and get us on a cruise on a different date. We were definitely meant to be on that cruise because we made some great Aussie friends!

Ha Giang Loop (2 nights)

The motorcycle tour through Ha Giang in the mountains of northern Vietnam was another adventure we were excited about. This also gave us the “opportunity” to experience a sleeper bus from Hanoi to Ha Giang. Safe to say there was not much sleep going on, but it was worth the experience for sure.

The Ha Giang Loop is absolutely stunning, and provided some of the most impressive views we have ever seen. It really was a unique and beautiful experience. But, it is a lot of sitting on a motorcycle and riding. We would have preferred something a little more active. Neither of us are very experienced, so we decided to have someone driving for us to be on the safe side.

Hoi An/Da Nang (2 nights)

We had one quick night in Hanoi after we were done with Ha Giang before we started our journey south. Central Vietnam was being hammered by torrential rain, which caused some flooding in the area we were heading to. Luckily, we got there just after it and had no real issues. Maybe the universe was helping us out with the visa issues and delaying us a couple days.

Hoi An is a beautiful, vibrant city. We really enjoyed our time here, and wish we had a little more time there. It had the best banh mi we have ever had, we got it multiple times in the short time we were there.

One of the things we wanted to do here was check out the Golden Bridge (the one with the hands). It was really beautiful, but we did not realize it was in an amusement park. That took away some of the overall allure of it for sure. We got there early and beat the crowds, so that helped. This would not be a must for us if we went back.

We actually ran into our Aussie friends here too! Our paths randomly crossed again, and we ended up hanging out until the early morning. It was such a fun night with them, and we ended up going to the Mr. Bean bar (the one place they said not to go lol).

Can Tho (1 night)

As we travelled further south, we ended up down at the Mekong River delta. This was another recommendation from Joe and Sara to check out the floating markets here. The city is pretty small, and quiet overall. We had a great tour of the delta, floating markets, and land markets. It may have been the best bowl of noodles we had from a small boat in the middle of the river.

We loved our tour guide Mariah, and would definitely recommend her to others. Reach out if you would like her information!

Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City (3 nights)

Our last stop in Vietnam was a good one. It is a massive city with tons going on. So much good food, and it has a great brewery scene. We learned that there are a lot of American ex pats that brewed in the States and brought it over. It was nice to have that little taste of home (and different beers than the cheap ones lol).

The Vietnam War museum was one thing we definitely wanted to go to. It was super heavy, and emotional, but a must see in our opinion.

Definitely do not miss Saigon.

Fifth Stop: Philippines

El Nido (2 nights)

We chose the Philippines because we wanted something that got use a little closer to home and something that could be pretty chill. 5 days was all we had, so we knew it would be quick and a little busy.

El Nido was our first stop. It is such a great little town, and we were able to do some awesome snorkeling and kayaking.

Coron (2 nights)

A short 45 minute up and down flight, we made it to Coron. It is not as built up and touristy as El Nido, but we really enjoyed it here. We both liked Coron more than El Nido.

The snorkeling here was absolutely unreal! Siete Pecados, Barracuda Lake, Twin Lagoon, and a sunken ship were a few of the places we got to snorkel at. Again, we scored with another awesome tour guide for snorkeling. We chose the private tour, because it really was not that much more expensive. Definitely worth it.

Manila (1 night)

Manila was essentially our stopover to get home back to the States. We got there from Coron with enough time to find a brewery of course, and have some dinner. By this point, after traveling internationally for 8 weeks, we were OK with a chill evening and getting ready for our long flight the next day.

The Philippines was a perfect way to end the trip. There are so many more islands and areas to explore!

Lastly…

While not everyone is able to take an 8 week trip, these can be done in smaller trips or individually. There is so much to explore at all of these places. The countries of SE Asia are much more affordable than most places in the US or Europe, so it is much more feasible to make a big trip out of it. It is hard to go wrong with any of the places you choose. The people are so nice and welcoming to tourists, so please return the same to the lovely people over there.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about our itinerary or what we did.

Also, check us out on Instagram and give us a follow if you are interested! @acoupleoftravelingpts

*Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, we will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

Erin & Adam