Ok, if I can remember Ho Chi Min at all.. The girls, Kieran and I made it a habit to get expensive dinners, because Ho Chi Min is the food capital of Vietnam. We enjoyed taking the girls out for their first ever japanese meal - sushi, shashimi, sake.. the works. It was good fun. Kieran and I got up at the crack of noon and searched long and hard for a restaurant that didn't exist. After that we visited the "re-unification palace", formerly the headquaters of the Southern Vietnamese goverment. It now served the same purpose for the government of [View Full Entry]

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So we got a hold of some Vietnamese Visas, and decided it was high time to leave Phnom Penh. We searched through our guide for the best route. We could've gone with a slightly cheaper/faster option and just taken the bus into Ho Chi Min city (Saigon), but the guide said that the most scenic route was a boat trip down the Mekong Delta, through Chau Doc. It was only six dollars more, so we opted for the boat. There we met a couple of English girls, Nick and Sara, who we wound up travelling with for the next five days. [View Full Entry]

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Boy I've got a lot of catching up to do. I'm writing this from Ho Chi Min city, Vietnam, but I should quickly summarize Phnom Penh first. The city was quite brutal getting in, but after a couple of days, you become quite used to it. Actually, by the third day, I hardly got hassled at all - I think I walked the city with a bit more confidence, and the drivers and dealers could see that. Having said that, Phnom Penh sure did try to sell me a lot of drugs. Quite sad to see I guess. People would flash [View Full Entry]

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Ko Pha Ngan was just a beach where young people got drunk. It is mostly at the south of Thailand, making it a long (24 hour) journey from Chiang Mai. Positive things: Our room, costing three dollars a night, looked over an astounding bay/beach, and was right in the heart of the action. It was my last few moments with Adam, so a laid-back, party atmosphere was what was needed. Negatives: We were right at the heart of the action, so pumping beats from various clubs were going all night. If I hadn't been drinking, I wouldn't've had a wink. The [View Full Entry]

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Kieran and I said our goodbyes to Adam, had a greasy hug ( he was covered in tanning lotion) and set off on a thirty six hour bus journey to make our way into Cambodia. It was pretty awful. We left at 11 am, arrived in Bangkok's Ko Sahm Road at five in the morning, and began looking for the travel company we were supposed to meet. Several bad directions later, we still hadn't found the place that we had been assured would be easy to find. We called the lady we'd booked with, and it turned out that she wasn't [View Full Entry]

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We got back from the temples, went to a bar, played a bunch of fooseball (which replaces billiards in Cambodia). Went to bed, woke up at 8, got on a bus. This time, we were headed South-East, towards the city of Phnom Penh. Phnomh Penh is the capital of Cambodia, by far the largest city, and the best place to apply for a Vietnamese visa. So Phnom Penh it is! We crammed ourselves into our tiny seats, bags cramping our feet and guitar across our lap. You know you've been spending too much time on buses when you're releived to hear [View Full Entry]

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I forgot to add - we went to see some Muay Thai! For those of you who don't know what it is, go and rent "Ong Bak". Muay Thai is Thailand's national sport. It's their take on boxing, but it focuses more on kicks, knees and elbows then on straightforward punching. It was a wild night. The first two fighters were just little boys - can't have been older then 8 or 9.. But they really went at it! It was strange to watch such young children fighting with such excellent technique, but they did really well for themselves, and although [View Full Entry]

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Chiang Mai is Thailand's second largest city, and is located close to the northern border. It's a great place. It serves as an excellent contrast to Bangkok, as the atmosphere is much more relaxed - you rarely have TukTuk drivers shouting at you, the markets are more craft-based as opposed to ripoff designer clothes, and all through the city center are these great, big, still bodies of water, which probably serve to cool the place off a bit. We went off to the National Museum up there, and the highlight was definately this enormous Buddha head, maybe one and a half [View Full Entry]

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Yeah, Buriram was a funny time. It was great, riding around everywhere on the back of a pickup, getting stares from all sides (Buriram is not exactly a major tourist destination), maybe getting a giggle from a gaggle of schoolgirls... it's almost like you have celebrity status! Some of the older men eye you distrustfully, while the older women will unashamedly call after you "Farang! Farang!" (white person). We ate fried pork with rice for breakfast, noodle soup, and usually a big feast for dinner. We'd always follow it with some fruit - my favourite were the Nga - A red [View Full Entry]

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So Adam's friend Alima comes from a Thai family, and we were able to get in touch with her family. We're now living in the suburb of a small town known as Buriram. We're surrounded by rice fields, tiny temples and altars, stray dogs, humpbacked, floppy-eared cows, and a whole lot of a language we can make heads or tails of. Noi, the mother, speaks a bit of English, and her husband, Gis, makes himself understood when he needs to. They have an adorable daughter named Sam, who is five and will come running up to you and push her head [View Full Entry]

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