Memories of travels through Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam from September-December 2011.
From southern Thailand, we made our way up north to Chiang Mai and then further north to Pai. For me, this path was already trodden as I made the same journey (excluding Pai) while Casey was at home in Washington. However, northern Thailand is awesome so I was happy for a second visit. Plus, Pai and I had some unfinished business to consider.
After nearly sleeping through our names being called to board the plane in Hanoi, we made it back to Thailand and bused down to Koh Phangan for a full moon party, which is an income-generator for the locals and an excuse to party for foreigners. Originally, we had planned on skipping it because it didn’t sound like our scene, but we met so many people that insisted we go, so we decided to check it out.
Hanoi
From Hoi An, we headed to Hanoi via night bus. It was a rough journey 17 hour journey with too many potholes and too much horn honking, as is the norm in Vietnam.
Dalat
Dalat is a mountain town very different from everything else we’ve seen in Asia. It’s a honeymoon location for Vietnamese and the whole town is organized accordingly.
Before jumping into more depressing things, here’s some humor to lighten the mood. We had to climb about 170 stairs to the 12th floor of our hotel room, but they had this high-tech lift for our backpacks. And since the humidity and sweat from the climb upstairs work up a sweat, they even have real showers here!
Phenom Penh is a busy city and is not somewhere to linger. However, as the capital city of a recovering country, it is a place of historical interest. If you’re unaware of Cambodia’s history, do a quick Wiki read and the rest of this post will be better understood.
I just wanted to take a second to explain the big time between the last post and the ones to come. We flew back to the U.S. on December 20th and I had been journaling along the way because we didn’t have consistent access to an internet connection. I meant to publish these entries sooner, but they were stuck on the crappy Acer computer we brought with us and only recently did I recover them. So, without further delay…here’s the last month of our trip.
I could have stayed twice as long in Chiang Mai because I missed cuddling tigers and visiting a town called Pai a little further north; those things are on my bucket list. However, it was time to get to Cambodia and I decided to book the trip in one painful shot rather than taking an overnight layover in Bangkok.
The past two weeks have been among the most fun so far and consequently I haven’t made time to write until now.
I’ve spent time in three countries within the time frame and considering the distances traveled to accomplish this and itll be four countries by Tuesday. Encountering only three major frustrations along the way wasn’t so bad.
