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Tag Archives: southeast asia

still alive, if barely

09-Jan-07

I’m in Melaka, Malaysia, right now, as are torrential rains. I’ve had some trouble getting to the blog… it seems I picked a bad time of year to transfer my domain and run out of disk space… and only fixed it at the end of this session, but I hope I’ll be able to post […]

Kuala Lumpur

05-Jan-07

Remind me never to leave so early from Macau: a flight leaving at 10:45 had me leaving Lingnan at 5:30. That wasn’t strictly necessary, but it was close enough. We’d booked a Turbojet ferry online for 0700 and taking the first West Rail train at 0547 got us there in time to grab breakfast. After […]

back in bangkok

26-Dec-06

and this computer’s shift key is not working well. found my couch host, all is well, feeling a little feverish but until i notice any other symptoms will blame it on bkk still being really, really hot and poor hydration patterns resulting from my epic trips and scary toilets lately. chiang kong was really nice, […]

December 24, 2006… from here on in I type without a script

25-Dec-06

The slow boat trip up the Mekong from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai (theoretically via Pakbeng) is hard to capture in words or images. The brown (yet glistening) river, the magnificent mountains and rock formations (on the shore and mid-river), the dazzling sky above the mystery village where we had to put in for the […]

More Laounging in Luang Prabang

21-Dec-06

Luang Prabang is my favorite part of Lao, my favorite country on this trip. I’ve been exposed to some more scamming recently, but overall it’s still very low pressure. Not quite Vientiane’s food variety, but still plenty of baguettes and laughing cow cheese and all the other French leftovers (I suppose they could have left […]

Laounging

19-Dec-06

Add fruit shakes and friendly expats to the list of things to recommend Vientiane. The only problem is that the guesthouse situation is still pretty pricy here in Vientiane, especially since I’m paying the “single tax”—dorm accomodation is unpopular compared to Europe because a) everything’s cheaper already b) people steal stuff more from dorms c) […]

Enough of Cambodia

18-Dec-06

I enjoyed paying just $4 for my bus ticket out of Cambodia, but did not enjoy the spine-cracking dust-filled journey as much. I’m still digging mud out of my nose every once in a while. I took a bus from Aranyaprathet to some random city (as yet unidentified) to Nong Khai, where my travel day […]

Keeping it Riel

16-Dec-06

Cambodia continued: as I expected, I’m about templed out after two days. That must be why the Apsara Authority, in charge of all the Angkor business, sells one and three day passes. The crowds of tour groups and occasional construction made the experience a little less transcendant than it’s been hyped up to be, but […]

Cambodia!

15-Dec-06

OK, I’m in the Kingdom of Cambodia—Siem Reap, that is, the town near the Angkor Wat set of temples. The border crossing itself was ok, but the border divetown of Poipet was absolutely the most miserable town I’ve seen in my life… and I’ve been driven through West Texas. The taxi ride was punishing and […]

My Own Personal Buddha

13-Dec-06

You might remember that Bangkok wasn’t my favorite part of Thailand. Unsurprisingly, it still isn’t. My way here was a little more complicated than I’d expected: When I got to Sheung Wan around 10:30, the next bookable ferry was at 11:35. Macau no longer runs a special shuttle from the port to the airport, and […]