Vietnamese Train Ride According to my trusty Lonely Planet guide, taking the train along the coast of Vietnam is more scenic, comfortable, and interesting then taking the bus. For the record, Lonely Planet knows shit. I caught an 11pm train up to the beach town of Nha Trang. Since it was dark when I left, and would be dark when I arrived, I could effectively cross ‘scenic’ from the list. My ticket was for a soft seat in an AC car. This meant that I would essentially be sitting up for the entire 8 hour trip. There goes ‘comfortable’. I’ll [View Full Entry]

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Highlands and Lowlands In an effort to escape the relentless heat, I decided to head up into the mountains of Dalat for a few days. This small town, surrounded by lakes and waterfalls, is so beautiful that both sides declared it a neutral zone during the war. No bombs were dropped here, or rounds fired. It managed to escape this violent period of history unmarred. I caught a late afternoon bus up to the mountains. As usual, I was the only foreigner on board. And as usual, I managed to land one of the least appealing seats on the bus. Slightly [View Full Entry]

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Canadian Geisha in Can Tho While waiting for my laptop to get fixed, I decided to head South into the Mekong Delta to visit the floating market. Having missed the experience in Thailand, I was really looking forward to witnessing this early morning spectacle. I caught a local bus to the town of Can Tho where I was, as usual, adopted. This time my personal guardian angel took the form of a young Vietnamese woman with a flawless command of the English language. The usual litany of questions were brought forward, and having ascertained that I was indeed traveling alone, she [View Full Entry]

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Acts of Kindness I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City on a rainy afternoon after a border crossing from hell. Feeling wrung out and exhausted, I allowed myself to be persuaded into one of the lurking taxi’s who were issuing promises of a ‘cheap guesthouse’. When I asked him how much the taxi ride would cost, he pointed to the front seat and said ‘meter…no worries’. Foolishly, I got in. The meter was in dong, which I did not have, and when I asked the driver whether I could use USD instead he said no. Alarm bells should have begun ringing [View Full Entry]

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Cambodian History Lesson; Crash Course Phnom Penh. A city where you can hire a child prostitute for $2USD and order an assassination attempt for $200. A place where the cops are more corrupt then the criminals. Where anything can happen, and often does. Having left Lee behind in Siem Reap where she would be spending some additional time and money helping the local street orphans and disabled victims of the Pol Pot regime, I jumped on a bus to this Cambodian capital on my own. After having heard outlandish stories and reading disturbing documentaries about the city, I was a [View Full Entry]

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Templed Out As we pulled into the bus terminal at Siem Reap, Lee and I were unexpectedly greeted by the sight of our names being held aloft by a friendly looking tuk tuk driver. As we hadn’t made a reservation with any guesthouses, or scheduled a pick-up, we were justifiably confused about this occurrence, but decided to go with him regardless. As we jostled through the chaotic crowd of eager tuk tuk drivers pushing their services, we were struck with the uncharacteristically laidback attitude of ours. Both Lee and myself immediately took a liking to him, particularly afte [View Full Entry]

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Cambodian Crossing The crossing from Laos to Cambodia hit us like a slap to the face. After reveling in the relaxed pace of the former, the chaotic and abrupt nature of the latter came as an unwelcome surprise. The first sense of distaste came at the border crossing. As we were passed from one border official to another, it felt as though I was perpetually reaching into my wallet for the obligatory $1 USD “administration fee”. I didn’t need the pages of the Lonely Planet to tell me that this was, in fact, blatant and unapologetic bribery. Lee attempted to [View Full Entry]

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A Portrait of Vang Vieng Let me try and paint an accurate picture of Vang Vieng. Imagine a town set in the backdrop of central Laos. It’s a place where the dramatic landscape of the North concedes to the gentle plains of the South. A river, wide and serene, hems in the town from the West. Looming in the distance, and circling around to the north, is the lush and imposing limestone karsts casting their shadow across the land below. The bustling traffic of highway 13 blocks the town from the East, while the quiet farmlands of the South stretch indefinitely [View Full Entry]

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Southern Laos After experiencing the friendly and beautiful North, and witnessing the tacky tastelessness of Vang Vieng, it was time to turn my eyes to the mysteries of the Southern provinces. Due to an unfortunate quirk of nature, and assisted by the fact that our visas were rapidly running out, we decided that the sights of central Laos were not appealing enough to tempt us, and so booked a ticket on a 12-hour overnight bus to Pakse. Lee was originally reluctant to go along with this scheme due to the fact that she is undoubtedly one of the lightest sleepers I’ve [View Full Entry]

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Plain of Jars Heading down to the city of Phonsavan meant once again tackling the nauseatingly windy mountain roads of Eastern Laos. I was expecting a repeat of the miserable retching we were forced to witness on the way to Sam Neua and had my trusty bottle of Tiger Balm on hand in order to help me ward off the smell. However, miraculously enough, we somehow managed to find the only busload of iron stomachs in all of Southeast Asia. Tempering this accomplishment though, was the extremely small bladders of the residing passengers, as several times the bus was forced to [View Full Entry]

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