http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/phaedrus/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from phaedrus en-us Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:45:17 +0000 Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:45:17 +0000 The Taxi driver who drove me to Suvarnabhumi Airport is named Sukhumnipursriniram. Irsquom mot sure I spelled his name correctly. I havenrsquot the foggiest idea how to say it correctly either. Itrsquos a long ass name longer even than the Hawaiian Superman Israel Kamakawiworsquoole. Actually Bruddah Iz is not the Hawaiian Superman. He just wrote and sang a song called Maui Da Hawaiian S http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Bali/Kuta/blog-410957.html Saturday April 12 2009I really have nothing specific to do here. The only reason Irsquom here is because I booked a flight online a few days ago when I was in Laos to Bali from Bangkokrsquos Suvarnabhumi International Airport. My flight is on Monday April 14 2009 two days away from now. I got here early for precautionary reasons in case something went totally awry so that I would have e http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-408652.html A large group of young monks in orange robes piled into the tiny Nong Khai train station in the afternoon accompanied by an older monk who was obviously an elder mentor of some sort as well as their guide or guardian. These young ones were tiny little creatures with shaven heads and wearing nothing but the bright orange sheets that they wrapped around their bodies with and their feet were either b http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-East-Thailand/Nong-Khai/blog-406346.html Southeast Asia is full of hawkers touts and scam artists combing the streets where many tourists tend to congregate and they are the most intense and aggressive in the border towns of Laos Cambodia Vietnam Thailand and Burma. The minute you get off the plane train bus or outside of your hotel touts of all types will undoubtedly approach you and quote you a price of a service you donrsquo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-East-Thailand/Nong-Khai/blog-403735.html The flight from Hanoi to Vientiane takes only about one hour but the price of the plane ticket cost almost twice as much as the flight from Saigon to Hanoi. I have no idea why this is so other than itrsquos probably due to some tariff levied on international flights. I had wanted to take a bus from Hanoi to Vientiane Laos via Dien Bein Phu but many travelers whom I met in Hanoi discouraged me f http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vientiane/blog-401570.html ldquoDominiquerdquo An old French lady yelled to another near Gate 6 of the departing lounge at the domestic terminal of Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Saigon. ldquoDominiquerdquo She yelled again. ldquoDominiquerdquo She yelled a third and final time because thatrsquos when ldquoDominiquerdquo finally noticed that her old friend was trying to catch her attention. Domin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-399817.html Got in a little hometown jamSo they put a rifle in my handSent me off to a foreign landTo go kill yellow man nowFrom Born in the USA by Bruce SpringsteenRefugeeThe dust has settled somewhat after thirty plus years since the fall of Saigon on April 30 1975. The Vietnamese Refugees have settled somewhat comfortably in the USA. Some have even comeback to visit the motherland. Others have totally a http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-397527.html Got on a plane in FriscoAnd got off in VietnamI walked into a different worldThe past forever goneFrom Still In Saigon by the Charlie Daniels BandGetting on the plane in FriscoMy coworkers tried their darnedest to keep me in the office for as long as they could but I wrestled my way out of there by 4 pm. I got out of there past my coworkers past some pretty important people whose favorable opin http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-396012.html Manila is not for the faint of heart. Even if yoursquove been to some pretty nasty places on the face of this planet it is hard not to feel sad and disgusted at the sight of Manilarsquos slums and squatter areas. I made a cursory walking tour just across the Pasig River from Intramuros and what I saw was not a pretty sight a hodgepodge of settlements makeshift houses made of corrugated she http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Negros-Oriental/Dumaguete/blog-323246.html Manila is a god awful place. This is what I was told by every Filipino I know in the United States Filipinos who've never been to Manila Filipinos who have been to Manila but left a long time ago and never wish to return Filipinos young and old Filipinos born in the Philippines but immigrated to the United State a million years ago and Filipinos who were born and raised in the United States a http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Manila/blog-320647.html I had not planned on stopping in Kuala Lumpur but to due to conflicts in scheduling and the intricacies of traveling I had no other choice so I was stuck in KL for a couple of days with nothing specific to do. Kuala Lumpur is not necessarily one of my favorite places in Malaysia but itrsquos endurable. I probably like it a little more than Singapore but Irsquom not sure. One thing for sure http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/Wilayah-Persekutuan/Kuala-Lumpur/blog-318047.html Cambodia. Itrsquos the end of my prolonged stay here in a country that I barely knew. There are a lot of things in Cambodia that I havenrsquot really seen. I have seen very little of it as a matter of fact. Siem Reap is one. The area around the temples of Angkor is another. These two places are hardly representative of what Cambodia is really all about because there are too many tourists and http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Angkor/blog-313710.html I get on my knees and prayWe donrsquot get fooled again by The Who a rock bandThe toughest thing about writing is when the events that happen all around you are so boring that you would rather not write about them at all for fear of producing work thatrsquos uninspiring unimaginative and completely dull. Aspiring fabulists who are unable to capture the magic out of an ordinary mundane situ http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Siem-Reap/blog-312696.html A train of elephants comes parading out of the south gate of the Angkor Thom compound as I was walking down the short causeway that leads to the entrance. The elephant drivers are all wearing green uniforms fashioned in traditional Khmer clothing. Tourists eagerly point and click at these humongous creatures lumbering out of the south gate of Angkor Thom. One foolish tourist got so close practica http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Angkor/blog-308807.html I woke up relatively early in the morning of my second day in Cambodia a nice partly cirruscloudy morning with no trace of the rain that came pouring down in the Siem Reap flatlands the night before just after ten in the evening. Kampuchea is the Khmer translation of the westernized Cambodia. In French they say Kim Budge but it is spelled Cambodge. I wouldrsquove thought that the French pro http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Angkor/blog-306450.html Irsquom still trying to adjust my bodily functions to the local time. I havenrsquot quite adjusted yet although Irsquove been in Southeast Asia for almost a week now as Irsquom writing this entry into my little notebook while complaining about bodily functions not adjusting to the local time. Thus I have this tendency to fall asleep at odd hours of the day like at nine orsquoclock in th http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/North/Siem-Reap/blog-304815.html Mabuhay GardensIt is now Sunday morning in Southeast Asia The Philippines at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Centennial II strictly for Philippine Airlines. The flight from Frisco to Manila took about twelve hours direct without any stoppage in Guam. Now I am sitting here at the Mabuhay Lounge in NAIA Centennial II waiting for the last leg of my flight from Manila to Singapore to depa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/Holland-Village/blog-302484.html The Red Eye from Frisco InternationalRight now I am reading the San Francisco Chronicle The Chron. This is the first leg of a triple stop flight from Frisco to Siem Reap Cambodia via Manila and Singapore. I try to fly first class or business class whenever possible or affordable on a flight that is more than four hours long. This is because Irsquove had my share of agony in coach or economy http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Palo-Alto/blog-301239.html Another whack job in the orientOn my umpteenth time of eating at Kinamot Restaurant I began to notice that there was a Westerner who frequented the place an old guy with gray hair about sixty years old or so or at least he looked like it sitting alone in a table for two on the far end of the veranda. What the hell he's doing here I'll never know. He could be American he could be European Aus http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Southern-Leyte/Sogod/blog-132435.html Maasin is a bustling little town or city as the inhabitants of Maasin will insist with quite a bit of sophistication or at least more than I had expected from a place that on the map seemed a million miles remote from civilization. Although the major modes of transportation are your usual jeepneys and motorcabs there are also plenty of privately owned vehicles. There are two local colleges http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Philippines/Southern-Leyte/Maasin/blog-130174.html