These posts have mainly be to ensure I don’t forget the main things that happened while I was away. My time in these three countries was less about sightseeing and more about chilling, strolling around and not doing much. I was in Vietnam for three weeks, but two of them involved me pissing yellow out of my arse. I was in Cambodia for 8 or 9 days, and Thailand just 3 days.
Most of my time was spent walking around trying not to die of sweat. The evenings were filled with drinks in the hostel, or Tinder dates. I look back and slightly regret not making the most of it, but travel fatigue had set it and I was in no shape to do much traditional sightseeing. I loved being away for such a stretch of time, but it does take its toll.
Ho Chi Minh was first and boy did I love it. At the risk of sounding like a twat, the ‘vibe’ was spot on. So much atmosphere. Most travellers seem to prefer Hanoi but I much preferred HCMC, although that may well be because the aforementioned arse trouble happened in Hanoi. I’d like to go back and try again some day.
I took a lot of photos while I was there and I’m happy with very few of them, but I love this one:
Hanoi was very humid and wet while I was there, and even though I was in a relatively cheap country, my money had run out and I didn’t have much left to play with.
Yet I did manage to go on a trip to Ha Long Bay, and it’s as beautiful as it looked in the photos, but RAMMED with tourists and tourist boats which did take the edge off. But it’s hard to argue with this:
Cambodia was next, starting in Phnom Penh. I’ve led quite a sheltered life and this was the first time I’d come face to face with really troubling poverty.
Begging children was a constant fixture, and I was approached by people looking to sell troubling things on more than one occasion. But at this point I only had one thing on my mind:
Fuck! What a let-down.
The Genocide Center was maybe the most upsetting thing I’d seen on my trip, and I speak as someone who had been to the Hiroshima Peace Museum and North Korea in months prior. It was fucking awful. An important thing to see if you’re in the area, but be prepared for a harrowing time.
The next day I moved up the country to Siem Reap, and the following morning it was time for Angkor Wat, something I’d been looking forward to since the early days of trip planning.
I was up at 4.30am to get there for sunrise, and acquired a driver for the day for an embarrassingly small sum.
It was a glorious way to start the day. Really special.
My driver took me to all of the big sites, and made fun of how much I was sweating each time I re-entered the car.
Angkor Wat had been packed, but I ended up having the ‘Tomb Raider’ temple Ta Promh to myself.
I made another monkey friend too:
And a dog friend:
And a chicken friend:
And then, Bangkok. 72 hours to explore the city but boy was I knackered. I barely took any photos, but it was shortly after the King had passed away, so this kind of thing was everywhere:
Weirdly the two bookend cities of my trip, Beijing and Bangkok, were my two least favourite. I hated Bangkok. It was seedy but not in a fun way, just in a yeuch way. Traffic and smog everywhere. Nah, not for me. Thailand as a whole looks great but that will have to wait for another time.
Tell you what I did like to see, though:
That’s yer lot. Fuck off.
