Okay, so we’ve figured out our path from India into Southeast Asia. Since our original plans to cycle from India to Myanmar at the border crossing have been thwarted, we’ve had to consider another way of getting there.
After considering many different options, the one we decided on is to fly from Chennai, India to Phuket, Thailand in mid-January. I’ve just booked the flight, and we are starting to figure out other logistics.
Why Phuket and not direct to Myanmar? We have friends in Phuket, and it also has a great cycling culture, so we will be able to get our bikes and cycling clothing repaired and updated. Also it’s super easy and tourist friendly, and after nearly three months in India, that will be much appreciated.
After Phuket, our plan is to make a figure-eight through Southeast Asia, heading north into Myanmar and doing a loop there, then coming back through Thailand towards Cambodia, then Vietnam, then up the coast and back west into northern Laos, to Chiang Mai, and then back south again towards Singapore. Once in Singapore, we would like to explore Indonesia a bit before we finally head to Australia!
Other options we considered:
- Continue cycling through India to Bangladesh and then fly from Dhaka to SEA, possibly doing side trips to Sri Lanka and/or Bhutan. This was a very attractive option because there are so many interesting things we’d love to see in all of these places, but it would mean we’d get to SE Asia towards rainy season. SE Asia has been one of my most looked-forward to areas for cycle touring, so we decided we should try to get there while it’s still season. Also, the states of Odisha and Andra Pradesh in India, although probably very interesting, have few things that were high on our list. I think it’s likely we will come back to India to cycle tour again, so we are happy to save that for another time.
- Try to find a cruise or boat to get from India to SE Asia. It is possible and would be quite an adventure, but it’s prohibitively expensive. There’s a boat that runs a few times a month from Chennai or Kolkata to the Andaman Islands, part of India. It’s fairly affordable, running from $30-150/person depending on whether you want to sleep on the deck for 3 days or be treated like a king. But from the Andamans to Thailand, there are no public boats, just private yachts that you can charter. The cheapest are around $3,000/week.
There are many things we will miss from India, and there are many things we are looking forward to in SE Asia. We are very excited to have a goal to cycle towards, and we still have 3 weeks to enjoy India.