Naveen’s Travel Blog

Thailand, Laos Travel costs and statistics

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 – 11:04 pm

Prior and post my 27-day travel to Thailand and Laos, many have enquired about the budget and costs of my self navigated adventure. It was a subject of immense curiosity! And i had also decided to measure it from the start of the travel.

First, for the sake of myself to see the economics for future trips and second, to provide detailed statistics to my friends and fellow travellers in order to give a fair idea of the costs involved.

Now, straight to the point, it cost me totally 109,460 in Indian Rupees. Just a few hundreds less than my budgeted 1.1 Lakh rupees. 

Yes, that much precisely!

Ah again Yes, it includes ALL costs A-Z of the travel including Shopping!!

If one takes an organised tour through the popular operators like Thomas Cook, Cox & Kings etc, such a trip to two countries in South East Asia could cost the same but for ONLY 2 weeks (or even less) and will not include expenses like visa, shopping, misc etc.

So i can conclude decisively that self travel saves upto 50% costs or gives 100% more time provided that one organise by himself and compromises his comforts to basics.

Sametime for the over-adventurists especially youngsters, i have a warning too.. With the free will and free spirit of self-travel comes the danger of your budget spiralling to out of control! A bit of self-disciple and sanity are essential.

Voila, here are volumes of statistics !

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1. Breakup of ALL expenses A to Z

• Nothing left out including insurance, local mobile, visa; even bank charges & restaurant tips!!!
• A plus was the shopping costs with which i was able to gift 7-8 friends with assorted souvenirs, t-shirts and add a small collection of art to our home.
• The SINGLE major cost was the international flight to and from Bangkok, the cheapest direct flight from Chennai that you can get by Yatra.com (still more cheaper option available if you are adventurous to see a few bombs dropped beside: take the flight via Colombo)
• Despite being an essential concern, getting your laundry done is dead cheap by the Kilo in guest houses. (Don’t try in hotels, your wallet will be cleaned out!)

2. Composition of travel expenses

3. Rentals of Hotel or Guesthouse room :

• The first 3 days are the only times that i stayed in the full luxury of a 3-star Hotel
• All other days were in a Tourist guesthouse or non-categorized hotel
• The days from 11-19 are the lowest thanks to Lao currency value

4. All food and drink expenses :

• A large buffet spread for breakfast was part of the room tariff on the first 3 days
• Almost never skipped the breakfast and dinner
• But i must admit that i had a chronic disregard for lunch during the whole trip
• The Dinners were the most elaborate, lunch-compensating, cuisine-testing, expensive routines

5. Transportation from one place to another (not necessarily cities)

• Both countries have a/c buses interlinking important cities
• VIP buses are tourist specific with more space and comforts
• Songthaew was like a covered pick-up truck
• For 2000 baht, Nok Air - the economy airline was a good bargain for a flight from Krabi to Bangkok. But onboard, even a gulp of water was charged!

6. Transportation within a place

• Motorcycle taxi was a pillion-ride in a bike or scooter; very enjoyable!
• SkyTrain and Subway Metro are in Bangkok only

7. Self Transportation by hiring bicycle, bike etc

8. Communication Expenses

• Getting a Thailand-based local SIM from Matrix does indeed help. But i got carried away and recklessly dialled in Laos, unaware that its international roaming from there. That explains my high mobile bills which i think are not so essential.

9. Volume of different currencies spend (in Indian Rupees)

• Expense in Indian and Foreign Currency

All above statistics were in Indian Rupees converted suitably from Thai and Lao currencies.

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10. Volume of different currencies spend (in their respective values)

• Almost 2 million Lao kips spend and its less than 10,000 rupees !?!
• Thai Baht was 130% of Indian Rupee ( 1 baht = Rs.1.30 )
• Lao Kip was 0.48% of Indian Rupee ( Rs.1 = 208 kip )

If you are impressed by such an extensive and intricate statistics, please thank my feeble memory! Because i dont really remember well the numbers. Added to that was my strange detachment to remember materialistic values soon after its purchase.

Contrary to such a deficiency, i never throw away a bill or chargeslip or ticket, altogether say: any piece of paper. All are tugged-in somewhere. And during the travel, i also made it as a hobby to organise all bits of paper and jot down the expense every few days. It was so helpful that once it even saved me at a border post where my credentials were severely questioned. As the immigration officer emptied my pocketbook and examined the meticulously recorded statement, he realised his folly. I’m indeed a tourist, maybe even an statistician !!

Finally the expense totals were verified with my travel card statement which was of good convenience to track the cash withdrawals in different currencies.

Last but not the least, those colorful graphs and charts are complied thanks to my brother who took it as a sort of summer assignment to generate the XML data files.