reflections on asia

---

So, Cambodians are friendly and they are bright, very switched on individuals. Everywhere you go people are trying to sell you stuff, but they do it in a very nice way. Their english is often faultless and very up to date, an interesting change from India where people speak 1950s style english 'actually sir i think that you will find the people running helter skelter when they hear of this news' and other such like...
They are a people constantly trying improve themselves. maybe this is due to their past, but vietnam and laos have not had an easy ride. perhaps the fact that laos and vietnam are 'people's republics', as opposed to being straight out capitalist democracy makes a difference? whatever it is, cambodia has a distinctive attitude to itself, it's future, and the way it interacts with others.

Thailand was another kettle of fish. this is a country that KNOWS tourism, lives and breathes it.
we had fun in bangkok. A city of bright pink taxis, massive shopping malls and great food. spent way too much money. then took an overnight train south to get to the island of koh pangan - best know for full moon party fame. the bus we took down was proper plush, but only had 8 people on it. strange. also the travel agent and the person who took us to the bus both warned us about keeping our valuables safe, warning bells rang. the bus was pretty smooth, got off at 7am the next day, only to find that our bags had quite obviously been opened. we.were.not.happy. we never keep valuables in our big bags, always in money belts or in a locked day sack (unlike the countless other people we have met who have had passports and money stolen from them whilst they slept on buses/trains) so all they could take were some pretty smelly clothes. however, it was the PRINCIPLE of the thing. but when questioned about it, all we got in reply was a shrug. obviously it is an easy way to make a bit of cash off stupid naieve tourists, just arrived in thailand, off for a party on koh pangan. Unfortunately this left a bit of a bad taste in our mouths. We didn't have enough time to venture off the beaten track in thailand to try and get a more favourable view of the people, so were left with the decision of putting thailand firmly at the bottom of the list of favourite countries. shame.
we were deliberately avoiding the full moon party, we weren't really in the party mood and apparently they have turned into a massive money making scheme, with a lot of crime, a lot of rubbish, and not much fun involved. We headed to the north west side of the island for a more chilled out retreat.
Had some lovely snorkelling, found a snake in our room, i got trapped in the toilet by an aggressive 3ft hornbill (seriously) and we ate some great thai curry.

from there we caught an overnight train south to malaysia, we'd had enough of buses. it was only in the morning, just as we were arriving at the border that we read in the lonely planet that they advised against the particular route we had taken through southern thailand as this was an area rife with sectarian troubles. the train stations were especially targets in bomb attacks. well, as i'm sure you guessed, were were fine.

our travel through most of southeast asia was pretty hard and fast, not really how we would have wanted it in a perfect world. however we had our sights set on 2months in indonesia, backdated from when we were going to meet up with the parentals in australia, so we had to prioritise.

apologies for lack of photos, but the internet here is pretty slow. more phots can be found at
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=92619&id=587436874&l=81ffcfac1a
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=92197&id=587436874&l=ee9df7da56
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=92618&id=587436874&l=b1a119ecb5

---