Lola and Elbub's final thoughts on S.E.Asia

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We're back in Bangkok for our flight out to Darwin tomorrow. So we're going to leave you with some words of wisdom. And lets face it, you wouldnt want to come here without having read these!

1. Oreos ( and their copycats, Choc-o's, cream-o's,...) are the food of the gods. Embrace their wide availability and stop worrying about eating overpriced Western food.

2. Bus timetables exist purely for decorative purposes, if you can get hold of one at all, that is. Buses themselves go from the satisfactory to the diabolical.

3. Be prepared to do a lot of smiling and nodding as regards communication.

4. For any veggies: acting out the movements and noises of fish and animals gets you nowhere when ordering food. Picking out dodgy looking lumps and pretending they were never there is the only way forward.

5. 'Slowly' and 'safely' mean nothing to mototaxi drivers. Our only tips are: pray before a ride and kiss the ground after a ride.

6. When people don't know what you're saying, they answer yes. This seems to be some inbuilt instinct. Try and trick your way to the truth, eg:
"is this dish vegetarian?" (yes)
"does this dish contain meat?" (yes) - aha!

7. Try avoid telling people you're english as the only responses you get are:
"lovely jubbeley" and "top bananas".
However fun this sounds, it's mightily irritating.

8. Cambodians address all females as, "lady", regardless of whether there are 1 or 20 of us, we are still "lady". Don't bother trying to correct this as you're greeted with a blank look, a moment of silence and then "you say what, lady?".
This is fair enough though as they shouldnt really have to learn english for us, however, they do enjoy shouting out, "COLD DRINK LADY??!!" many a time, even if you already have a drink in your hand.

9. Prepare to surrender your real name in favour of one which is more easily pronounceable, (see title). Or just call yourself Mary / Jane, and be done with it.


And so...

Currently we are in Bangkok again, having come up from an island South of here - Koh Chang. After a fairly hectic 7 weeks, we were glad to have some beach time! Stayed in a bungalow pretty much right on the beach and felt prety lucky for it, (though not for the burning holes in our pocket).

We are really sad to be leaving S.E. Asia. Given another couple of months, we could still think of plenty of things to see and do to fill up our time. All the countries we have been to have been ridiculously easy to travel in, with a very well set up tourism infrastructure and plenty of things to visit along the way. We both agree that our favourite country was Vietnam with its good balance of things to visit, it was crazy-busy as well as having a relaxed atmosphere (esp. Hanoi) and some lovely beaches along the way! Another serios contender was Cambodia - despite spending very little time here, we did like the laidback atmosphere, and Angkor was spectacular, which may have helped our estimations of it!

And so to Oz... we're very much looking forward to this... and the lack of egg fried rice and FISH SAUCE IN EVERYTHING will be a bonus! Until then...

Elbub and Lola xxx

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Comments

[steph]

pearls of wisedom
very wise words!! glad you didn't pull a bridget in thailand, lolo!! xx

[Olly]

genius!
Best blog entry yet ladies. (That comment was meant to sound more Cambodian, but it doesn't look right coming from someone who speaks english, it looks too polite and posh instead doesn't it?) I have to admit, if I ever encountered someone in SE Asia saying "Top banana" at me, I might keel over from a fit of laughter, so well done on surviving that one. Did you pick up any of the language? I expect you to have at least picked up the phrase "I am a fish." Purely from a selfish perspective really, as it'll extend my knowledge of how to use this great phrase to three different languages (in addition to French and, er, English). I have to wonder how "Elbub" is more pronouncable than "Laura" though, that is superb. These people are an untapped comedy source I swear, there should be sitcoms written or something. "The Cambodians" - it'd be like The Simpsons, only more sexist. Have fun in Oz!!! I've heard Darwin is mighty warm, so I'm very jealous (I write this as New Cross is in the midst of a blizzard... well, not actually a blizzard, more of a mild snow, y'know, but I wanted to sound dramatic). Have a great time!!!! Olly xx PS: apologies for the twaddle again.

[Paul]

top bananas
hey hey hey, you're the best vegetable I ever met, eat this sausage! go on, go on, go on, eat this burger. Do you have your phone heloise? I sent u a msg, i was feely particularly lubbly jubbly at the time. I'm at work, very jealous, remember when we used to eat sandwiches and watch bollywood dancing together in our lunchbreaks, before you sold out. Maybe I'm still pissed.

[Paul]

hurry up, write more!
I want more blog, I also want to see the commentry of the pots, send it to me!