This post was written together with Danielle and also appears on The Roaming Coconuts.
After four and a half months traveling together, Danielle and my first coconut adventure has now come to an end. Despite countless hiccups along the way, we both agree that it was an overwhelming success and have definitely left with some new favorite places in the world. Danielle loved Indonesia, especially the beachy islands, and I fell hard for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. In fact, while usually my love for countries is extremely fickle and I’m always eager to move on to new places, I’m already trying to think of ways to return to Central Asia and work on my oh so awful Russian.
But aside from all of our mushy emotions about traveling together and the countries we visited, how can we sum up our trip for you guys? Well, if you’re as big of a fan of numbers as I am, take a look at these ones:
Number of secondhand cigarettes smoked: 600. How often did we hear fellow travelers tell us that no, they don’t smoke at home, but the cheap price of cigarettes in Asia is a bargain too good to ignore. Really? Ew.
Weeks traveled together: 17
Countries visited: 8 Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam
Hospital visits: 4 All Silvia
Random languages from our past that have come in use: 6 Hebrew, Russian, German, French, Japanese, and Tibetan
Photos taken of us by Chinese tourists: 175
Times we cried: 12 (not always because of the photos)
Longest trip: 72 hours
Bag weight at the start: 9 kg (S) and 12 kg (D)
Bag weight at the end: 12.5 kg and 18.6 kg
Total money stolen: $180
Third coconuts joined: 3 Angel, Jeanna, and Sasha!
Most steamed buns consumed in a sitting: 14 (D)
Total money spent on visas (combined): $1132
Money Silvia saved with her Norwegian passport: $172 Could have saved an additional $100, oops!
Money spent on flights (each): $340
Longest stay: 3 weeks Beijing
Pairs of sunglasses gone through: 8
TOTAL amount of money spent (each): $4,630
And, drum roll ……
We have spent 415 HOURS in planes, trains, trucks, cars, vans, and buses. That’s just over 17 days, or 2.5 weeks.
Now pardon us while we go stretch our legs.
Jennifer Kimberley says
So you’re not traveling together anymore?
Silvia says
No, we had some different ideas about where we wanted to travel in the spring, plus 4 and a half months on the road together had been a bit intense, so we decided to go our separate ways for a bit. But we will be reuniting in Israel in June!
Omar says
I am wondering about the two passport option since i am able to do that too,what kind of problems did you rjn with that?!
Silvia says
Sometimes border guards were confused by it, but I never had any real problems switching passports.