NathalieW

After an easy border crossing I arrived in the capitol of Cambodia: Phnom Penh. People warned me it was a horrible place and get out of there straight away after I had visited the most important sights. When I got there I wasn't looking too impressed.. it was dusty, busy and 20 tuk tuk drivers standing around me wanting to give me a lift to my guesthouse. I ended up going to the backpackers area and when I got there I noticed that the people were friendly and everyone was very chilled out (i do believe that the weed helped) and also a lot of Cambodian people spoke good English! With some people I met on the bus we decided to go for a walk around the city. The temples they have here are beautiful and ... read more

HANOI AND HUE I left Laos and for some crazy reason I decided to take a 33 hour bus ride to Hanoi, Vietnam. My God.. that was a long trip! It took me 2 hours to cross the Laos/Vietnam boarder! Everyone was pushing and shoving trying to get there passport stamped, but apparently they hadn't met me yet ;-) Buses were searched for drugs and a girl on the other bus had her phone stolen while waiting to get her passport stamped. So not a great first impression of Vietnam. Finally we all got to Hanoi and this minibus we got on to get to the backpackers area tried to promote his hotel. He got a bit grumpy when we said we already had reservations somewhere else we got kicked out and had to walk a ... read more

KANCHANABURI After leaving the islands I got a ferry + bus up to Bangkok. I didn't really know what to do from there but when I arrived in BKK at 3.30 am I decided to get a bus to Kanchanaburi. On the bus I met an Israeli girl Olga and American girl named Kate. Kanchanaburi is famous for the bridge over the River Kwai and the nearby Erawan waterfalls. The 3 of us got a room together at a guesthouse and rented some bikes to explore the village. We went to a museum which was about the bridge being built during WW II and it was quite interesting. Later we cycled to the bridge and walked on it. (For photos see my previous post) I was a very quiet town but very nice. We discovered that ... read more

The last few weeks I've been trying to get everything ready for my SEA trip for 6 months. There's actually a lot to think about.. passport, visa, vaccinations, medication etc. Getting a new passport was more difficult then I thought. Because I'm not registered in Holland anymore I had to go all the way to The Hague (1h20m away) to apply for a new passport. I wasn't too pleased about this, but there wasn't much I could do about it. So I went down there with a passport photo and my old passport (this should normally be sufficient) but no... Where is the proof that I'd been living abroad for the past 3,5 years? Well, seeing that I had nothing with me (payslips, work permits etc. were in a box in Switzerland) they had to do ... read more