Piece From The Southeast

It's been so long since I've updated this poor, starving blog of mine, I really don't know where to begin....

Instead of writing about my many travels over the past few months, I would much rather upload some photos for your viewing pleasure, as "a picture is worth a thousand words". But unfortunately, I was a an idiot with my packing strategy and thus forgot to bring my battery charger with me to Southeast Asia... and then I repeated the mistake before heading to Europe. Not to worry, though, my dwindling-few-blog-readers! Ken (boyfriend) took a few thousand pictures, so my memories have not been entirely lost. Naturally, however, there is a problem: Ken is in Toronto and I'm in stinky, old Michigan; his camera is there, and my camera is useless.

With that said, I suppose I'm left with little choice but to give you a brief run-down of my trip(s). Starting with Southeast Asia:

On a dreary, cold day in mid-February of this year, we set out from Busan, Korea for an adventure of a lifetime through the southeast. Given our lazy planning strategy (i.e. no planning strategy), we left Korea with absolutely no itinerary for said adventures. We only knew three things for certain at the time:

(1) We were flying into Bangkok sometime that evening.
(2) We wanted to see Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, but had no idea how to get to any of the above places (aside from Bangkok, of course).
(3) We had to be back in Korea by March 26th to fly back to North America.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what actually happened:

(1) We made it to Bangkok without incident (aside from our cab driver taking us to the wrong guesthouse after picking us up from the airport and, as a result, drove us through the seediest parts of Bangkok where lady boys and prostitutes were working their corners in droves).

(2) We made it to Thailand (obviously), Laos, and Cambodia, but Vietnam sadly didn't make the cut.

(3) We made it back to Korea by March 25th, with a whole day to spare!

And here's a tidbit of what we discovered in each of the countries:

Thailand...
is overrated. After wandering around Bangkok for a couple of days (until my feet blistered up and turned blue from what appeared to look suspiciously like a scorpion sting) looking at temples and being ripped off by tuk-tuk drivers, we decided to get ourselves out of there as quickly as possible. So, in a rush to get out of Bangkok at any expense (not only for the sake of my feet, but for the sake of our blackening lungs), we booked a plane ticket to Koh Samui for the following day. Now, let me be the first to admit that--as hasty decisions tend to go--this move wasn't wise. We arrived in Koh Samui to find the tourist mecca of Thailand awaiting us. Long story short, it was a glorified Florida, the only differences being prostitutes and silk tailor shops located on every corner and on every beach. Together.

Much to our dismay, we accidentally locked ourselves into Koh Samui for an entire week when we had made an online reservation for a guesthouse (Unwise Decision #2) and said guesthouse refused to give us our money back. So, we made do with overpriced beds, overpriced meals, and overpriced women beckoning us for overpriced massages (which we fell for once, bringing us to Unwise Decision #3) for the entirety of the week.

After spending too much money on too little fun, we flew back to Bangkok a week later (with our tails between our slightly-tanned legs, with the shame that accompanies traveller's stupidity) and made a beeline from the airport to the Bangkok train station to catch the night train up to Chiang Mai. The night train, to be completely honest, turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip, whereas Chiang Mai proved to be one of the biggest disappointments. Like everything else in Thailand, Chiang Mai is slightly overrated and definitely overpriced. We stayed there for a few days, eating lots of yummy vegetarian dishes, attempting to bike on the insanely busy streets (only to give up a couple of hours later after my third brush with death), getting our colons professionally cleansed (a story for another time...), sleeping on pee-soaked mattresses for $1.50 per night, and checking out old temples and being chased away by the wild dogs that seemed to take it upon themselves to protect the monks who resided there. And then we decided to go to Laos.

Laos...
is one of my new favorite countries. The natural scenery and the overall simplicity of the country is positively gorgeous. We took a van from Chiang Mai up to the Laos border (I managed to puke three times from an unknown illness on the way up) and crossed into an opium town in Laos (I managed to remember it was an opium town, but I can't remember the name of it. Hmmm...). There, we boarded a boat and set out on the long journey to Luang Prabang, via the Mekong River.

The Mekong River (in Laos, anyway) is in the middle of nowhere. I would even venture to say that Laos itself IS the middle of nowhere. In an over-crowded boat filled with travellers from all over the globe, we witnessed nature without interruption. Aside from the occasional shack-on-stilts and a water buffalo here and there, we were lost in an endless sea of green trees and jagged mountains. And--let's not forget--the incredibly murky water of the Mekong.

After seven hours on the boat, we stopped along a tiny town called Pak Beng for the night, where electricity shuts off at 10p.m. and thieves are known to break into your huts and steal. (Yes, it was a long night.) After successfully surviving the threat of being murdered in our beds, we climbed back on the boat the next morning for another 7 hours and finally arrived at our destination of choice: Luang Prabang.

Luang Prabang is a beautiful little place where the French--in all of their glory--left a European mark in the town's architecture, streets, and food. The best word I can think of to describe the town of Luang Prabang is quaint (go France). We rode bikes around town, visited temples, watched the sun set over the Mekong, shopped in the famous Night Market (where Ken, for some reason, bought 48 silk scarves), and took a little two-day-trip to the nearby country-side to hang out with elephants on an elephant-preserve. (We got to wash them, feed them, and ride them!)

After reluctantly departing Luang Prabang, we took a nauseating, four-hour van ride on a bumpy, windy road through the mountains to the small town of Vang Vieng. Not much to report there, other than an infestation of rats in our bungalows, a bunch of foreigners sitting around the local restaurants getting high and watching the TV sitcom, "Friends", and a real-life lazy river. The lazy river was by far the highlight, as it included floating down the river in a tube, occasionally stopping for a beverage at a bar along the river, and swinging from contraptions in the trees into the river (which Ken suddenly felt inspired to do and, as a result, dislocated his rib cage).

Then we went to the country's capital, Vientiane, after yet another four hours on a vomit-inducing van ride. And, really, it wasn't that interesting. It was from Vientiane, however, that we found a cheap plane ticket into Phnom Penh. Which leads me to...

Cambodia...
is not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Phnom Penh definitely had its sketchy-looking places, but I was more overwhelmed by the poverty we encountered there than I was by the potential threat of danger.

Cambodia has had an extremely difficult and all-too-recent past. The Khmer Rouge took over the nation in the 1970's, and wiped out a good share of their population in an unthinkable genocide before Vietnam eventually came to the rescue. Needless to say, the country is still recovering.

We felt compelled to visit the S21 prison and the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh that were used by the Khmer Rouge regime, in hopes of gaining a small understanding of the nation's past and, ultimately, their present. Sidenote: If you don't know much about S21, the Killing Fields, or the Khmer Rouge, I recommend reading about it online. I had NO idea, prior to going to Cambodia, the bloody and unnecessarily tragic history they've had. So, brace yourself to be appalled and depressed, and educate yourself a little bit. (And that concludes my lecture for the day!)

After a few days in Phnom Penh, we travelled to the small town of Siem Reap to see the famous temple of Angkor Wat, among the hundreds of other temples in the surrounding area. After a few days of poking around the massive, ancient temples, climbing up their many steps, tearfully climbing back down the steps (I'm terrified of heights, as I think I mentioned in a previous post about climbing the Great Wall of China...), and dodging the little Cambodian children who were desperately trying to sell their little souvenirs, we decided we were officially templed-out. The weather was scorching hot (quite possibly the hottest oven I've ever been in), so we decided to spend our next few days lounging by a hotel pool by day (we ended up sitting in the pool most of the time, as the heat became unbearable) and shopping in the night markets by night.

Cambodians, although their history is devastating, proved to be our favorite people of the entire trip. They were warm, funny, and oh so smiley. And so it was about a week after our arrival in Cambodia, that we sadly realized it was time to make our way back to the dreaded city of Bangkok. We bid Cambodia farewell as we flew out of Siem Reap and headed toward Bangkok in order to make our flight back to Busan.

After a slightly terrifying flight that included the engines of the plane suddenly dying and restarting in mid-air (if that's even possible), we arrived in Bangkok in one piece, four hours before our next flight was scheduled to depart. After entering through customs to claim our baggage and then having to turn around and exit through customs again after re-checking our baggage (another case of traveller's stupidity), we climbed aboard our flight to Korea, with the Southeast Asian chapter of our travels closed. For now, anyway.....

And with that, I'm done with this post. My head hurts from trying to remember everything and my fingers hurt from... well, typing. But I promise I will eventually update you on our adventures in Europe!

...in about three years.