Monday 19 March 2012

My costs so far!

Finally got all the data off the GPS (while loading in some maps for Nepal and India) and calculated all my costs and distances.

Here's everywhere the bike went in South East Asia. I also went to Vietnam!

Here's what I found when I looked at all my distances and costs:




Part 1
Part 2
Total

Australia
South East Asia

KM
8043
12346
20389
Riding Days
32
89
121
Total Days
48
223
271
Fuel
485.86
762.24
1248.1
Fuel$
$721.99
$805.51
$1,527.50
Km/L
16.55
16.20
16.34
Accomodation
$728.00
$3,248.00
$3,976.00
Food
$970.00
$3,069.00
$4,039.00
Others
$2,079.00
$5,516.00
$7,595.00
Shipping
$2,044.00
$1,508.45
$3,552.45
$/day
$136.31
$63.44
$76.35
And some explanation for the above.

Food:
I try to eat cheaply in South East Asia, very rarely would I eat anything over $10. If I'm near a market then I could eat for less than $3, otherwise I'd just have what's available but it was very rarely over $6. You could eat for a lot less in Asia but I found myself eating a lot of ABF(american breakfast), hamburgers and pizza. 

In Australia it's far more difficult to eat cheap. I did camp a lot and bought food at coles/woolworths, but sometimes it's actually cheaper to eat at McDonalds. And there were a lot of meals cooked for me!

Before I left Australia I had budgeted for what I spent though.

Accomodation:
I stayed in Motels in Australia when I wasn't camping or staying with friends/family. Motels get expensive fast, if I had to I'd try go for less than $80/night but then I got a place to park and somewhere to charge everything. Most of the time was spent in a tent or someones spare room though. 

In South East Asia I tried to budget for $10-15 a night, at that price it got me a spot to park in busy towns, and mostly clean basic rooms. I tended to go for places with air conditioning in the south, but not all the time. In a small quiet town I could get away with a lot less. Loburi and Ban Krut in Thailand were the cheapest at $3-4 a night in a guesthouse. Everywhere else was slightly higher. It's not easy on the bike to go into places and check on prices all the time so I started using Agoda for Malaysia and Thailand which had some good deals, however in most places if you just turn up you get the same cheap rate. That doesn't apply in Bangkok though, the place I was in charged $13 via Agoda, and $25 if you just arrive at the door. I did sign up for couchsurfing too but haven't used it yet.

Again, this amount was expected when I budgeted for everything back in Australia.

Other:
This was my left over catch all category. Things like washing, phone costs, internet, bike servicing, ferrys, taxis, trains, medication... Everything that's not food, fuel and accommodation. This is what I hadn't budgeted for and why I think I'll run out of money a lot sooner than I thought I would. 

I did buy a new camera along the way, so there's that expense. There's a couple of flights in there between Vietnam and Laos, and also to Nepal. A lot of the costs came from replacing things that were broken (clothes/shoes especially!). Otherwise it was all the little expenses I didn't account for that made this amount very high.

Fuel:
Fuel is roughly the same price everywhere. Somewhere between $1.20 and $1.50. The only exceptions to that were the middle of the Northern Territory where it was closer to $2, and Malaysia where the subsidy kept it at 60c/L.

Shipping:
Shipping costs were expected. There's probably a couple of hundred I could have saved on both shipments so far, but I had budgeted about $5000 for all the shipping required to get to Europe. What I haven't thought about is returning the bike to Australia!

Out side of all those expenses is the documentation costs to keep the bike out of the country. I have to keep my Victorian Registraion and Insurance up to date to keep the Carnet valid, that all adds up to $1500-2000/year. 

The other big cost was Travel insurance. Had to pick one that would cover me for areas where the government warns you not to travel (The Thai/Malay border for example...). Note that in Australia Travel Insurance is almost always backed by the same two companies which both have the same rules. The only one that covered me was IHI Bupa and they charge about three times what everywhere else does, but I'm covered for everything except a war zone (even then they help you get out) and jumping out of a helicopter to ski down a mountain (the helicopter has to land for it to be covered).

But now I'm in South Asia! Things are supposed to be cheaper now but I suspect I'm still getting ripped off everywhere I go...

Here's a timelapse sunset from the top of the guesthouse roof here in Kathmandu.

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