A new plan

Aside from Asia fatigue, general exhaustion and my sickness I think Ali and I have just checked out of Asia. Our reassessment a week or so ago to stop full time travel and instead find a place to settle down, has us really excited and in a rush to get started. Unfortunately we're stuck in the wrong part of the world and it feels like we're wasting time.

Whenever a setback or difficulty arises like the last 48hrs, it's made doubly hard by the fact that our hearts are just not in it.

When I imagined travelling in Asia I imagined Tuk Tuk's, beach huts, white beaches, turquoise waters, palm trees, temples, splashing to shore with bags over our heads, street food, etc... The reality is that we've found travelling in Asia really hard.

Probably the main thing is that we always seem short of cash. Hygienic restaurants are expensive, well located hotels with good facilities also, and last minute flights can be too. This would have been partly avoided by having a prebooked itinerary as Ali had always wanted. I pushed hard not to have one preferring the flexibility to leave or stay in place depending on whether we liked it or not. Unfortunately by leaving it late, a lot of previously affordable places and experiences have got very expensive, and as yet we've not found even one place that we wanted to spend much more time in (except compared to worse places) - Ali is understandably pissed at me, particularly since she's spending so much of the trip on her phone researching or booking our next accommodation. For the record a fixed itinerary with the jetlag and various illnesses we've had would have been a nightmare too.

We are only half way through our trip, how can we make the rest of it easier and more pleasurable? What do we now?

Well KL is turning out to be much cheaper than Bali. While our very nice Airbnb (with pool)

costs a little more, transport is super cheap and we're managing to eat for about half the price. There is also lots of things to do both for us and the kids, it's like living in a much cheaper London but with consistently hot weather.

So the plan is to split most of our remaining time between KL and Bangkok with occasional regional jaunts/tours. If any flights are involved we're going to book them well ahead of time. Fingers crossed...