Let’s wrap it up folks.

Location: The lovely Newcastle, Australia aka HOME

So here we are.  Home.  The journey is over, well and truly over at this point, 4 months over in fact which is actually half the time I was away.   That dream that I once looked at from afar and wondered if it would ever be possible has now been achieved and is threatening to become all but a distant memory.  Dreams are funny like that…  So with that in mind I thought it prudent that I wrap things up here.  I like things in neat little boxes where they can feel taken care of and up until this point this poor blog has been left flapping out there like a sheet  in the wind for quite sometime as not only has it been 4 months since my return, it’s been about 7 months since I actually last wrote.  So let’s put an end to this little afair shall we?

Recapturing the vibe

Current Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Recapturing the Vibe. Hilltop Hoods wrote a song about it. Or titled the tune with that name anyway. I wonder if they felt that they succeeded. You know, it’s virtually impossible to really recapture an exact feeling, emotion or experience once it has passed. I don’t think I realised that before now, before my attempt to recapture my initial Cambodian experience. I hadn’t actively thought about it anyway. How many factors do you think need to remain the same, exactly the same, in order to make it happen? Some might say hundreds, thousands, or all of them, however many there are. I say not really that many but there are always a couple of key ones. In my instance they were just me…and Cambodia. Two teeny tiny little factors. Ahhh….yep.

Decision time…

Current Location: Sometimes Chhuk Village and sometimes Siem Reap, Cambodia

Well hello again beautiful perusers of my blog. As I sit down to write this post I am nice and wet from the afternoon rain and I’m half heartedly wiping the mud from the back of my legs. The reason I’m kind of half hearted about it is that I always seem dirty here so really, I don’t much care about a bit more. You really get used to dirt, dust and bugs living in the village. I have deliberated long and hard about what to write in this post, mainly as I have been a little undecided about things, however I’ve had my moment of clarity and made some decisions. Thus, I have a story to tell you.

Happy New Year Cambodia!

Current Location: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Phew. I’m here. I made it. I’m IN Cambodia. After years of trying to figure out how to make this dream a reality, then weeks of traveling and 3 other countries I have finally arrived to the place that, really, is the sole purpose of this trip. I arrived in Phnom Penh on a bus from Vietnam (or Viet Nam as it actually is in Vietnamese) last Thursday, 10 April and I have to say that as I looked out of the window of the bus at the scenery of this amazing country I couldn’t help but feel just a little bit moved. It was like coming home to see an old friend and it certainly felt like the right thing to be doing.

Khob chai lai lai (thank you) Laos!

Current Location: Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok, Thailand

I originally started this blog in Laos but I just couldn’t finish it.  For some reason I couldn’t properly articulate my thoughts about the country.  You see Laos was a lot different than I expected – far more developed than I ever imagined.  In some ways even as much as Thailand just in smaller doses - I don’t think I encountered a squat toilet once, western style food is abundant and they do it quite well and the streets are really quite clean for an Asian country.  Nearly everyone tells you that Laos is about 20 years behind it’s South East Asian neighbours and while that may have been true just a few years ago, due to tourism I think they are certainly catching up quickly.  I expected something much more like Cambodia with its bad roads and evident poverty but Laos was very different to that.

Farewell to the land of smiles…

 Current Location: Chiang Khong, Thailand

So today is the day I cross the border to Laos!  Hooray!  I am super excited about this as I’ve never been to Laos before and I haven’t heard one traveler say a bad thing about the place.  Besides that, I think that land border crossing are always a bit exciting for us ‘island’ dwellers.  Unlike our European friends we can’t just trip on over whenever we please so there is definitely an element of novelty to it.

I want to live in a Bungalow!

Current location: Pai, Thailand

Ahhhh Pai, the town of bungalows on the river and reading books in your hammock. Talk about chilled out! People have a reputation for getting a little “stuck” in Pai – a 2 or 3 day stay turns into 5 or 10 or for some people even months. The feel is a little like an island but without the beach (although they have a very cool local pool here!). To me it feels a lot like Koh Chang for any of you that have been there. Someone told me the guidebook called Chiang Mai the jewel of the north however I would have to say if that is true then they got it wrong! 

It’s about the journey, not the destination!

Current Location: Ayuthaya, Thailand

Well here I am again, coming to you live from Ayuthaya, Thailand. It`s nice here and I`ve enjoyed a nice couple of days chilling out, meeting it seems only French peoples and checking out the temple ruins which are rather spectacular. It`s funny as in Bangkok and Kanchanburi I met mainly Brits and Swedes (there are loads of Swedes in Thailand – lovely people too with fantastic English) but here it`s been French. I`m yet to actually meet an Aussie which is pretty funny given how many of us travel here. I think that maybe they are all in the islands partying!

Raft houses, waterfalls and 3 bottles of Thai rum…

Well when I last left you I was waiting for the end of the alcohol ban to get a beer and attempting to see the temples. I managed to achieve both the following day so hooray for me! I ended up having to walk the to the temples as I couldn’t get a tuk-tuk driver to take me for love or money – well to be honest and fair I didn’t offer them any love but given that I’m a dirty white fat farang I’m pretty sure I would have had the same success rate anyway – which was zero. The comment “no shopping” really does piss them off. To be fair, the temples were in reasonable walking distance anyway so I copped it sweet and took my life in my hands and crossed the crazy roads to the Grand Palace.

…and so it begins…

So here I am at the end of my first full day in Bangkok and it’s certainly been an interesting one. I’d forgotten how much I love this city. It assaults the senses from the moment you take your first step out of the airport. Bangkok is completely in your face and it makes no apology for it. As opposed to Singapore that seems to be a pretend western city with a slight Asian tinge, Bangkok is a dichotomy of eastern and western cultures and yet the two seem to co-exist with ease and vibrancy. I guess this is part of what gives Bangkok its character and charm.