I’ve read many times that it’s part of Asian culture to avoid displaying excessive emotions in public. Throughout our visit to Southeast Asia, this cultural norm seemed mostly correct. On our prior visits to Japan, I would say this generalization is definitely correct. I mean, if I were to (ok, ahem, when I did) lose […]
*Full Vietnam photo gallery below* When we first planned our itinerary, we were guided by both a long list of places we wanted to see as well as the logistics of connecting flights around the world. As the trip plan was fine tuned, I thought what we had ultimately chosen was an itinerary diverse enough […]
We started out today with a half-day tour of the Cu Chi tunnels, about a two hour bus ride from Ho Chi Minh City. The bus ride and tour was another one of those tourist bottlenecks where all the foreigners merge onto one space like a swarm of locusts. I was reminded again of my […]
Vietnamese people, generally speaking, are kinda serious people. Right next door you have the nearly always cheery and jaunty Cambodians, and next door to that it’s “the land of smiles.” In Vietnam though, a lot of people initially present a very severe business-like facade. A little small talk usually breaks through the facade, but in […]
“If this is the tourist bus, where are all the tourists?” It’s a question that’s been asked a few times on this trip, enough that it’s become a bit of a joke. The first time it came up was in Mexico, taking a bus to the pyramids. I was the only foreigner on the buses […]
**Complete Cambodia photo gallery below** The railroad system in Cambodia has largely languished in disrepair for the past few decades. The tracks were originally laid in the 1930s and 1940s when the country was still an imperialist French colony. After the civil war in the 1960s-1970s, and during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, the […]
“Thunder Ranch Shooting Range” is definitely on the tourist circuit in Phnom Penh. It’s in all the books, guides, and sample itineraries. And why not? In the USA, (and for that matter, many other countries) you can’t very easily (and legally) go and fire off fully automatic weapons unless you’re in the military or law […]
Six hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh left at 0730. The bus and bus station should be familiar to anyone who’s taken, say, the “Chinatown buses” in the U.S. like Fung Wah or Lucky Star. Same Same. The last bus ride we took on this trip was from Delhi to Jaipur, and […]
I thought this was only a Thailand expression, but it seems to really be a SE Asian expression. Well, the first part, that is. It gets used all the time by locals and the expression is well known and funny enough to find it’s way onto T-Shirts and all other sorts of souvenirs. We saw […]
Ok, actually it’s The Floating Village. Even though we’re a month into the rainy season in Cambodia, things remain really dry. And while the river is a lot lower than usual for this time of year, there are still plenty of “floating” homes along the river that leads to lake Tonle Sap. Since the only […]
We’re not the first to observe that Cambodia is kinda like a giant “Dollar Tree.” Seriously, everything here is $1 US. Ok, maybe not everything, but nearly everything. If it’s not $1, then it’s 2 for $1, or 3, or 4, or 10. And if it’s more than a dollar? It’s almost always some tidy […]
Before arriving in Thailand, we received some suggestions from family members who had previously traveled there for things to do and stuff to buy. The thing is, the family members with suggestions had visited in the 1970’s. Well, obviously things have changed there since the 1970’s. The ways that they’ve changed are kind of interesting […]
*Full photo gallery below* Last full day in Thailand today, tomorrow we have an afternoon flight to Cambodia. Sites today included Wat Ratchanadda, Jim Thompson House, Lingam (fertility) Shrine, and Patpong Night Market. The Wat we saw in the morning is unique in that it’s black and made of metal, the only one of it’s […]
Full day exploring Bangkok today. We hit the three main tourist sites in Bangkok: The Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun. It seems that the place most tourists hit first is The Grand Palace, so we left that for second. It closes at 3:30 though, so you really don’t want to delay too much […]
So what brought us all the way out to Kanchanaburi was a place called “The Tiger Temple.” It’s a Buddhist monastery that has an animal sanctuary around it. There are lots of animals there, many of them running wild within the gates, but what we came for of course are the tigers. The best package […]