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.