2011 - My Tiki Tour (Part 16 - UK and final summary)
The final entry.
Friday 27 May 2011 - Sunday 19 June 2011
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2011 tiki tour
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Thursday 26 May to Wednesday 1 June - A week with my friends in London. Catching up with guys at cricket club and actually umpiring a match for them on a typical London wet afternoon.
Thursday 2 June to Thursday 9 June - A week with my cousins up in North Wales, visiting various family members and so on.
Friday 10 June to Sunday 19 June - A few days in both Bangkok and Phuket to catch some sunshine and good food on the way home.
Summary:
In all, it was an interesting trip away. Lots of new places visited, a couple of places last visited back in 1986 (Istanbul and Athens) and places visited regularly (most notably Bangkok and Phuket).
Food
In all places the food was good. We managed to concoct decent dinners on the truck from what we could find in the local markets and on the truck itself.
Beer
They make good beer in Egypt, which is surprising given that it is a Moslem country.
But, as usual, the best beer has to be in Germany. Large steins of white beer, dark beer and everything in between, for a reasonable price.
Budget
I managed to keep to the budget reasonably well. Haven't yet added up the grand total of money spent and I am not sure I would want to. As long as I have monies in the bank until I find a job I am okay with not adding it up.
Destinations
I was happy with each destination that I chose to visit. Ones that I would go back to would be Oman (armed with a Toyota 4WD and map), Italy (especially the smaller cities and towns), Poland, Germany and Greece. I had lived in the UK for many years so had been to Europe many times in the past, so for this trip I cherry picked interesting places that I had not been before, hence the slightly unusual itinerary.
The other issue was that given I had a fixed itinerary, I could not change it. For example, I wanted to stay longer in Poland but I had train and hotel bookings already made for Germany and getting to the UK. Changing things at the last moment would have been time consuming and costly.
Facts and figures (I know, I'm an accountant!):
Transport
| Flights | 20 (counted by take offs and landings). |
| Airlines | 7 (Air New Zealand, Emirates, Air Asia, Tiger Airways, Oman Air, Aegean Airlines and Bangkok Airlines). |
| Ferries | 5 (Phuket to Ao Nang, Nuweiba to Aqaba, Athens to Chios, Ancona to Split, Mainz to Koblenz). |
| Cruise | 1 (Croatia) |
| Trains | 22 (including Cairo to Alexandria to Cairo to Aswan, Kota Bharu to Singapore, Split to Zagreb to Vienna to Katowice to Krakow to Wrocław to Dresden to Mainz and so on). |
| Overland truck | 1 (named Fanny). |
| Buses, mini vans etc | Lots (mostly on the overland trip as we did not have the truck in Egypt). |
| Rental cars | 2 |
| Accommodation (not on overland trip): | |
| Hotels | 26 different hotels (two of them twice). This includes a dormitory in Vienna shared with snoring Koreans. |
| Friends and relations | 2. |
| Overland trip accommodation: | |
| Hotel nights | 13 |
| Overnight train | 1 |
| Felucca | 2 |
| Overnight bus | 1 |
| Tents | 19 |
| Cabins | 2 |
Final comments
It is good to be home again back in NZ (winter rains notwithstanding), looking for a reasonably well paid accounting job and staring to plan the next trip away. In the meantime, I am going to start putting up on TP here all my previous travels, so expect to see lots of maps and photos being posted over the next few months or so.
Posted by nzhamsta 13:00 Archived in United Kingdom
