Statistics time is here yet again! In August, I did pretty well as far as budgeting. August began with my departure from Guwahati, took me through Meghalaya and Cherrapunji, the wettest place in the world, and then west and north into the Himalayas, where it ended in Darjeeling and big pots of steaming coffee every morning.
I did pretty well with the budget this month; the breakdown always seems to be about 50% for food, 25% or so for accommodation, and then all the rest. This month there were no breakdowns, not much extra to spend money on, and I managed to camp and homestay quite a bit, not to mention find particularly cheap hotels, so accommodation costs were even lower than normal. This is what I wish my expenditures were like every month.
Yet again, accommodation chart shows a roughly 60% / 40% split between paid and unpaid accommodation. Maybe one month I should try really hard to not pay for accommodation at all. I’ve met some guys on the road who ONLY camp; even if it means the possibility of getting bothered by dubious characters in the middle of the night. Normally when I camp, it’s with someone’s permission and implicit protection – next to a church or temple, on someone’s property, in a park, or outside a countryside restaurant. I like my sleep, and $75 is really not much in the way of expenditures, but it would be fun to try to have a free sleep month or something.
Finally, I managed to cover 918km / 569 miles in August. Not bad, but it’d be nice to do 1,500 – 2,000km each month if possible. I guess, however, there is a tradeoff between time spent on the bike and time spent doing other things. If I’d not taken days off in Cherrapunji, Siliguri, and Darjeeling, I would’ve probably been able to cover more than 1,500km, but then again, I wouldn’t have gotten to see the living tree bridges, or hike down into a 1,000m gorge, or hand out with Uncle Sinha, so maybe I should just count my blessings and not worry too much about how much ground I cover each month. It looks like the next few months might be super slow anyway, as I find non-bike stuff to do for the winter, and wait for spring to come again so I can cross over through central asia!
I did pretty well with the budget this month; the breakdown always seems to be about 50% for food, 25% or so for accommodation, and then all the rest. This month there were no breakdowns, not much extra to spend money on, and I managed to camp and homestay quite a bit, not to mention find particularly cheap hotels, so accommodation costs were even lower than normal. This is what I wish my expenditures were like every month.
Yet again, accommodation chart shows a roughly 60% / 40% split between paid and unpaid accommodation. Maybe one month I should try really hard to not pay for accommodation at all. I’ve met some guys on the road who ONLY camp; even if it means the possibility of getting bothered by dubious characters in the middle of the night. Normally when I camp, it’s with someone’s permission and implicit protection – next to a church or temple, on someone’s property, in a park, or outside a countryside restaurant. I like my sleep, and $75 is really not much in the way of expenditures, but it would be fun to try to have a free sleep month or something.
Finally, I managed to cover 918km / 569 miles in August. Not bad, but it’d be nice to do 1,500 – 2,000km each month if possible. I guess, however, there is a tradeoff between time spent on the bike and time spent doing other things. If I’d not taken days off in Cherrapunji, Siliguri, and Darjeeling, I would’ve probably been able to cover more than 1,500km, but then again, I wouldn’t have gotten to see the living tree bridges, or hike down into a 1,000m gorge, or hand out with Uncle Sinha, so maybe I should just count my blessings and not worry too much about how much ground I cover each month. It looks like the next few months might be super slow anyway, as I find non-bike stuff to do for the winter, and wait for spring to come again so I can cross over through central asia!
