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Thor

Thor Winther is an engineer by profession but has been travelling the world full time since late 2015. He is the author of www.worldwidewinther.com, a blog focused on budget/backpacking solo round-the-world travelling.

Long term travel Insurance

You’ve decided to go long term travelling and you are looking at long term travel insurance. This can be tricky and is something I spent some time on. First of all there is the difference between travel insurance and health insurance.

Types of travel insurance

  • Single-Travel travel insurance is something you get for a set period of time. You have health insurance in your home country but it doesn’t cover worldwide travel so you need to expand your insurance. Usually your normal insurance company offers a solution for this. What it covers is smaller immediate healthcare needs (like medical attention when you get food poisoning) but also and more importantly – your trip home. You will then be getting taken care of in your home country.
    • Pros: You can take care of everything before you leave and not worry about it again (unless you overstay your pre-set period of time).
    • Cons: You both need to know (roughly) how long your travel is and you need to pay up front. It is hard to extend and in general less flexible. Just offers a plane ticket home unless it’s a small illness. Moderately Expensive
  • Yearly based travel insurance is running continuously all year through your normal insurance company and covers all travels you go on and you pay even if you don’t leave the country. This type of insurance usually covers all travels you go on – short, long, extreme and you don’t have to deal with insurance every time you go travel. There are, however, usually restrictions so that your travel cannot be longer than 2 months before you have to return home and just like with single-travel travel insurance you get a plane ticket home unless it’s a small illness.
    • Easy, simple, always active, cheap
    • Travel restrictions for travels over a certain period of time (usually around 2 months). Just offers a plane ticket home unless it’s a small illness.
  • World wide health insurance is the full deal, not just a plane ticket home but actual health coverage worldwide. With this you won’t be getting a ticket home paid by the company but the actual hospital bill wherever you are. You can also extend it on a monthly basis.
    • Pros: You won’t need to know your return date or length of trip. You also won’t have to end your trip unwillingly if you extend your stay longer than originally planned or need hospital care half way through.
    • Cons: Expensive, you might have to deal with two insurance companies (home and worldwide)

Which travel insurance to recommend?

For trips shorter than a month or two, or for trips where you know your end date I would recommend normal travel insurance. Call your current insurance company and ask what a travel insurance costs. Personally mine is about $100 year and I’ve had that for many years. As long as I don’t travel more than 60 days (on one trip) I will always be covered on my travels and I’ve always travelled a lot making it an easy decision to maintain this insurance.

For longer trips it get’s tricky. My current trip is without an end date meaning that I will pass my 60 days. This means I will need actual worldwide health insurance and not just “travel insurance”. Alternatively I could come home every 2 months and keep the cheap insurance as I would technically start a “new” trip every 2 months (note: I don’t know if all insurance companies sees it this way but for mine: I just need to be home a day to “reset”). Seeing as my travel insurance is $100/year and worldwide health insurance runs at about $100/month it actually almost makes sense, moneywise, to just go home every two months. However, personally, I don’t want to deal with the hassle of interrupting my travels all the time. Ultimately I’ve chosen to have both yearly travel insurance and worldwide health insurance.

If I do decide to visit home I can use my yearly travel insurance for the first two months after I leave again and save the money I would have otherwise spent on the worldwide health insurance. After two months I activate my worldwide health insurance again and travel as long as I want. I save a lot of money but the downside is that I will have to remember cancelling and activating my worldwide health insurance.

Overview chart

For other travel insurance companies and for a great overview (no really), check out this chart:

Conclusion

There are many choices out there for you and the topic is not easy to wrap your head around. I’ve written about some of the problems you will run in to and what I’ve consequently ended up doing. It offers the cheapest solution while maintaining flexibility.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me or comment on this page if you have any questions!

pagoda-mt-zwegabin-monastery

Sleeping in a monastery on a mountain top in Hpa-An, Myanmar

  1. Applying for a Myanmar (Burma) visa in Bangkok
  2. One night in Bangkok
  3. Visiting Rural Thailand – enjoy the silence
  4. Sleeping in a monastery on a mountain top in Hpa-An, Myanmar
  5. Overview of tourist hotspots in Myanmar (Burma)
  6. Naypyitaw – The official capital of Myanmar
  7. Being sick on the road
  8. The End of an Era – I’ve Sold My Motorbike and Left Vietnam
  9. Cambodia – First Impressions
  10. Koh Ta Kiev – Where the boat leaves from
  11. The Future of Sihanoukville, Cambodia and the Surrounding Areas
  12. What Were We Thinking (and other ramblings)

Update 18-10-2017: As per comment on this post, it looks like it’s no longer possible!

Update 20-10-2017: I asked my niece who was there 7 months ago and she went up there and slept just two days before it happened. She also says that she’s heard alot of people say they couldn’t go up there anymore.

Please confirm / de-confirm if you have updated knowledge

Note: for detailed practical information, scroll down

The mission (and its complications)

The first time I saw the monastery in Hpa-An was while visiting a field filled with statues of Buddha, more than 1100 actually. There, in the distance on a mountain top, I saw the monastery and I immediately wanted to go up there. I knew it was possible to go up there and climb down the same day but I’d also heard people talk about sleeping in the monastery. However, there were some implications.

buddha field with a view to mt zwegabin monastery
Standing between a sea of buddhas with a view to the monastery. Do you see it? It’s right there!

First of all, I wasn’t sure if it was even legal/possible with the Myanmar government having some strict laws against foreigners (hostels have to have a license to be allowed to host foreigners) and I was getting mixed signals from asking around – some said it was possible, some said it wasn’t. Secondly I had to actually climb 2000 steps and finally I was probably going to have to sleep on a rather hard surface with nightly temperatures actually making the experience a rather chilly one. Even though it was warm in the day, it got chilly at night.

After getting direct confirmation from people who had done it I was convinced and my mission was clear:

  1. Climb the 2000 steps
  2. Watch the sunset
  3. Sleep there
  4. Watch the sunrise
  5. Climb down

The ascend to the monastery

I started the ascend from the bottom of the mountain around 15:30 (3:30pm) carrying with me 1 litre of water, a hoodie, a camera, a phone, my wallet and a power bank. Around 17:00 I finished. I believe it can be done in 1hour with someone experienced but takes more like 2 hours if you are not rushing, I did it in 1:25. The first step of the way I was following a guy that was going pretty fast but halfway up (after only 35 minutes) he got ahead of me and I slowed down my pace considerably after that.

beautiful-hike
Halfway up the mountain, the view is already beautiful. It was an astonishing hike

The steps seemed to be endless and just when I thought I’d made it another leg of stairs revealed itself. In the end I found that a very slow speed (like a step every second) was the way to go, as I almost didn’t have to take any breaks like that. Slow and steady wins the race and finally I got there.

The top

At the top there was a sleeping hall for the monks, a sleeping hall for tourists and a restaurant like building where they cooked food. It was also possible to buy food there as a tourist between 6pm and 7pm. There was of course also a few Pagodas and other religious symbols. And then there were monkeys – aggressive monkeys. They would snatch anything you had left unnoticed including things out of purses and coke cans out of your hands. Luckily there were also dogs and all through the evening the dogs and monkeys would fight each other – the monkeys would come close and the dogs would bark them away. It was fun to watch how, as soon as someone made a little scream due to a monkey coming too close, the dogs would come running instantly to scare them away.

Quickly after reaching the top, I sat down at the eating area and was offered free food and tea by the monks – not enough for dinner, but enough to keep me going until real dinner later that evening.

The rest of the evening was spent watching the monkeys and the sunset and also the 8 of us up there who were tourists played a bit of cards before hitting the bed early.

sunset at top of mt zwegabin in myanmar
View from the top of the monastery as the sun sets over Myanmar
evil monkeys
Evil mischievous monkeys

The descend

The descent in the morning around 6:30 was much quicker. I got down and scooted back to town to return the scooter. I had made an agreement with the scooter renters to not charge me an extra day even though they technically want you to return it the evening before. One thing to note though is that you should stretch! I could feel my calves for days after that descend.

Practical information

  • It takes about 2hours to climb the steps, 1hour if you are fast, 3 hours if you are slow
  • Sunset is around 5:45pm but depends on time of year. I started at 3:30pm  and made it easily.
  • The first four to check in will be sleeping in twin rooms (2 in each – seperate beds)
  • The rest will sleep in a sleeping hall
  • Beds are not soft but not rock hard either
  • You are expected to give around 5000 kyats in “donation” to sleep there
  • There is food up there and you will be provided with a blanket. You can also buy soft drinks – no beer!
  • I slept in shorts and a hoodie and that was warm enough – I was in a twin room. This was in winter time
  • There was power in the twin room
  • The climb is fairly rough and steep but I’m not trained at all and I would say anyone could make it, given enough time.
  • You’ll be in shade about half the time
  • I rented a scooter to get there and left it overnight. Another guy hitchhiked there and back – it’s not hard.
  • There are two entrances and the main is at the field of Buddhas about 30 mins out of Hpa-an- ask around but it’s not hard to find.
pagoda-mt-zwegabin-monastery
One of the Pagoda’s at the monastery on top of Mt Zwegabin

Visiting Rural Thailand – enjoy the silence

  1. Applying for a Myanmar (Burma) visa in Bangkok
  2. One night in Bangkok
  3. Visiting Rural Thailand – enjoy the silence
  4. Sleeping in a monastery on a mountain top in Hpa-An, Myanmar
  5. Overview of tourist hotspots in Myanmar (Burma)
  6. Naypyitaw – The official capital of Myanmar
  7. Being sick on the road
  8. The End of an Era – I’ve Sold My Motorbike and Left Vietnam
  9. Cambodia – First Impressions
  10. Koh Ta Kiev – Where the boat leaves from
  11. The Future of Sihanoukville, Cambodia and the Surrounding Areas
  12. What Were We Thinking (and other ramblings)

Dave and his place of residence

I had previously reached out to Dave from Dave’s travel corner who owns a house in rural Thailand in a small “village” (consisting of now only 3 houses) in Prachinburi province, about 2 hours drive east of Bangkok along route 304. Dave lives there with his wife Syy and when he is not in Thailand he is either at his base in California, or he is out travelling (to Antarctica just to name one he’s already got planned)

dave-office
Dave in his “office” beneath his house

The area in Thailand boomed over the last 5 years due to paper making business’s moving in which means there is now actually a city nearby and more than one place of accommodation. As a side-effect this also puts a certain smell down over the nearby area that probably takes some getting used to. Luckily neither the hotel I stayed at or Dave’s house had any smell when I was there. It is still a sleepy town and when I asked Dave what kind of people would just randomly drop by here, he answered “no one”.

So what do you do in a town like Dave’s

I arrived from Bangkok in the afternoon on a Friday and was due to leave two days later.

The town didn’t disappoint me and neither did Dave. There was no Eiffel tower or reclining Buddha to see but there was a fishing pond, a scooter drive to a nearby delicious noodle store, and some drone flying. Dave has made an excellent edit of the drone flying footage. We managed to crash it a few times but it survived and gave us some interesting footage of Thailand from the sky.

Finally, of course, I spent a lot of time talking to Dave about everything travel – blogging, travelling, packing, anecdotes from foreign countries and everything in between. Compared to this guy I’m a fledgling traveller barely having touched the world while Dave has somewhere around 130-150 countries under his west– he’s been going at it since 1996. So needless to say he had a lot of knowledge to drop on me.

Moving on

I had two very good days with Dave and Sai, hanging in the hammock and enjoying the serene life of rural Thailand. Especially after 4 hectic days in Bangkok, this was a welcomed break! I could easily have stayed a week more, just doing nothing and absolutely loving it. However, all good things must come to an end and Dave and Sai had to move on. After having pursued alternative methods to get to Myanmar by land we realised there was only one way and that was to go back to Bangkok and take a bus from there. At least I could share the first leg with Dave and Sai as they were heading to Bangkok as well.