Traveling to Asia

While we might not have seen MUCH of Asia (despite having been to 5 countries!) We definitely have our suggestions for places to go and things to do/see. So! If you're planning a trip to Asia, here are our suggestions for travels!

Thailand
Bangkok: Don't bother with Bangkok unless you have a good friend who lives there :-p. It's basically a big city with a Grand Palace and LOTS of temples to explore. If you DO insist on going, spend NO MORE than 2 days here. Also, make sure to check out the best Pad Thai place in the world - Pratoopi. You will NOT be disappointed!

Chiang Mai: There's actually a lot to do in this fairly small city. There wasn't enough time to fit in everything we wanted to do in the 3 full days we were there. This area is known for its temples, hikes, and also being THE place to hang out with elephants and take cooking classes. I was fairly disappointed we didn't get a chance to take a cooking class while there, but time didn't permit :(. Hanging with elephants normally takes a full day, and you can find cooking classes for either a half day or full day. I'd recommend AT LEAST 4 days in Chiang Mai, but honestly, if you are going to Thailand on vacation, I'd make it longer - closer to a week - if possible. In addition to all the activities available IN Chiang Mai, you can also do other day trips from there as well. Chiang Rai is also close, as is Myanmar and Laos, so you can take short trips to any of those locales from there.

Phuket/Southern Thailand: While we didn't get here on this trip, it seems like it would be worth it to spend time on the islands of Phuket, Krabi, or Ko Phi Phi. They are all highly regarded and would probably warrant about 3 days. Something to consider!

Cambodia
Siem Reap: We spent 3 full days here and it was a good amount of time. Passes to the temples are sold in 1 day, 3 day (can be used within one week), or 7 day installments (can be used within one month). We felt that 3 full days was plenty to see everything we wanted to see, although we also had a private taxi driver for our whole time there. If you would like to explore the temples via other means (either by tuk tuk or renting bikes) you would most likely need more time to get between everything. Also - even though our sunrise over Angkor Wat wasn't all that great, it is DEFINITELY worth doing - quite the experience. Try to convince your driver to leave your hotel at 4:45 - I'm convinced you'll get there ahead of most other people!

Phnom Penh: 2 days is plenty here, as it's another medium sized city. Spend several hours visiting the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng, then the Palace. There are also several different markets to explore - Central Market and the Russian Market. Central Market is right near Wat Phnom. There are river cruises as sunset, lots of restaurants. Everything is easily accessible in a tuk tuk and very cheap to travel around.

Malaysia
Kuala Lumpur: This city is wonderful. Very tourist friendly, lots of easily marked maps and directions everywhere, and lots of people who speak English. It's also a very clean city, which is always nice to see :). This was the first destination where Jon and I felt more at home (aka it's more Westernized). While 2 1/2 days was plenty, I wish we'd had more time to explore some of the neighborhoods near where our hotel was. That said, I think 3 - 3 1/2 days would have been a good amount. Don't miss - the Petronas Towers, the National Museum, KLCC.

Langkawi: While a great place for us to relax when we were totally over big cities, I'm not too sure I would direct people to visit Langkawi. Our hotel was nice, although it was far from the beach. We might have felt differently about the island if we'd stayed closer to town. If you go, try to stay at a place on the beach near town (there are lots, but it's high season right now and we booked our hotel about 5 days ago, so we were just glad to get any nice hotel when Expedia was telling us that 90% of hotels in Langkawi were booked for our dates!) If you find yourself on this side of the world and looking for a beach it's nice, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get here if you're not already over in this area.

Singapore
Singapore's a pretty cool place. While most people had directed us away from it, saying it was just another large city, we actually quite enjoyed it. VERY VERY VERY clean and organized. 2-3 days is definitely plenty of time here. It's fairly awesome to be able to traverse an entire country in about an hour's metro ride! Highly recommended: Cloud Forest and man-made tree forest, Night Safari (although don't worry about getting there super early - just purchase tickets in advance and show up at 7), Clarke Quay at night.

Indonesia
Bali: Honestly, we'd really been looking forward to going to Bali to relax at the beach. Until we got there. It was seriously disgusting. I'm going to go the same way I went with Langkawi on this one. I would in NO way recommend coming to Bali unless you were already on this side of the world. Our hotel was super nice, but honestly, it could have been anywhere and we would have enjoyed a nice few days staying by the pool. Do yourself a favor and skip Bali. Seriously. We've heard Lombok (the island next to Bali) is the place to visit in Indonesia so check it out if you're over here!)

I hope this little guide based on our travels around Asia helps you with your planning if you're considering a trip to this corner of the world! Let us know if you're thinking about going to any of these places and we can certainly talk to you about it :)