South East Asia highlight reel.
As we jet-set away from Bangkok, it’s time to look back at some of the awesome and not so awesome - but memorable - moments of South East Asia. It was a destination that I have never been drawn to - not like Central or South America where I can let the sexy Spanish language wash over me and get embarrassingly whisked around the salsa dance floor, by some incredibly hot Latino man, looking like an uncoordinated giraffe. Nevertheless I am so grateful that I came.
Singapore:
The communal breakfast table at our hostel was a source of inspiration. I met a Malaysian woman who is trying to achieve world peace through teaching dance at universities. She grew up in South Africa and went through a programme aiming to integrate cultures after appathied ended. It helped her immensely and now she is sort of doing something similar throughout Asia and teaching tolerance and other worthwhile lessons like waste management. If that wasn’t enough, she is also a travel writer and rides motorbikes all around the world with her husband. The universities she teaches at give her an allowance to stay in hotels but she would rather stay in hostels and save the money. We also met the only Kiwi we have come across so far, and even though the taste of Marmite was still a recent memory at that stage it was lovely that she let us spread it on our toast. She was in her early twenties and grew up in small town New Zealand and was extremely enthusiastic about the new foods she was subjected to. She had never tried hummus and watching her eyes sparkle as she dipped a falafel into the chickpea dip was priceless.
Phillipines:
We had our first (and only so far) couch surfing experience in Puerto Princesa, Palawan. Our host, Jonathon, lived down a dusty unmarked road littered with chickens, pigs and dogs. There were bamboo huts that people called home, with children flowing out of them playing in the dirt. Nick and I glanced at each other, both looking a little fearful, but as we started walking the children greeted us with big smiles and everyone was used to backpackers making their way to Jonathon’s house. Our host took the couch surfing business seriously and had erected bamboo houses which sleep about 20 people at one time. We got the special treatment and stayed in his house in a double bed. He lived with his girlfriend Svetlana from the Czech Repulic. I will never forget one conversation we had while we lounged in the hammocks outside his place.
“You are from New Zealand, but you two are thin,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought New Zealanders were fat.”
This generalisation had come from a friend who had spent sometime fruit picking around the country. Nick and I laughed at the bluntness that only a Eastern European can get away with. Somehow it suited her and it wasn’t offensive. Plus after getting mistaken for being pregnant in Singapore, it was quite nice to be called thin even if the rest of New Zealand was obese. Nick and I were quick to defend our country.
“But we are known for all the outdoorsy sort of activities like hiking and snowboarding - how could we have a reputatation of being a fat nation?”
We conceded that we did have one of the highest rates of obesity in the world and perhaps there is some truth in the generalisation…
On a island hoping tour in El Nido our guide offered us the chance to swim into a lagoon. Most of the other tourists were tired or couldn’t swim so only a handful of us did. Nick and I swam ahead and found ourselves alone in the beautiful emerald lagoon. No guide, no other tourists, only the monkeys swinging through the trees to keep us company. It was one of those unplanned moments that turn out to be one of the best.
On Nick’s birthday we “slept”68 the night in Manila airport. We picked up our luggage and were greeted by the overpowering aroma of fish juice soaking through Nick’s bag. Suffering from fatigue I thought the most appropriate response to this was to hysterically laugh much to Nick’s disgust. The smell did nothing to help our ill prepared sleep on plastic chairs. On our right there were those decked out with camping equipment, all they needed was to pitch a tent. Air mattress, sleeping bag, pillow and they never wavered from their slumber. We grumbled and tossed and turned. Poor Nick - his pillow was covered in fish juice and while he tested it out for a bit, he eventually gave up. Once we landed in Bangkok, we treated ourselves to three nights of luxury at a four star hotel and the porters looked at us with utter contempt as they delivered Nick’s smelly luggage - they didn’t even hang around for a tip.
Thailand:
Chiang Mai was the most relaxing place I have come across. It doesn’t have a beach which would normally be my requirement for a relaxing place, but it’s just a place where we felt no pressure to do anything. The food was a truly spritual experience and we had the best thai curries of our life at a place called Angel‘s Secrets. We went to the market each morning to eat museli and yoghurt topped with advocado, mango, dragon fruit, papaya and a range of melons, and Nick developed a love for a banana pancake street vendor and has been searching for a pancake that good and cheap ever since. I think he would go back to Chiang Mai just for him.
We met a British couple at our guesthouse and although we were staying at one of the nicest places in our trip - we had HOT WATER, and there was a SWIMMING POOL - for them it was “slumming it”. We poked fun at each others style of traveling. We walked while they taxied or tuk tuked, we bused while they flew, but we still found a lot of common ground. I miss them - especially the way they discribe an experience with that British dry sense of humour.
We also met the elephants in Chiang Mai at the most ethical park we could find, The Elephant Nature Park. Most had been rescued from the now illegal elephant logging industry in Thailand and because they had been domesticated they wouldn’t have been able to survive in the wild. Their days are now spent with tourists who feed them fruit, bath them and give out lots of pats and hugs.
Vietnam:
We met Voc at the Asia Star Hotel in Hanoi. She fast became, not just a staff member, but our friend. We stayed in Hanoi for two weeks trying to secure jobs, and when we told her that it wasn’t working out and we were going to move on she looked genuinely devastated, and so were we to leave her. She had made Vietnam make sense for us, and we learnt more about the Vietnamese culture through her than we could through any museum. We told her that our free walking tour guide had told us that Bia Hoi, the super cheap beer that you consume on minature plastic furniture on the sidewalks, translated to “stinky beer.” She found this hilarious. Hoi said with slightly different inflections can mean stinky or fresh, and from that moment on they were “stinky beer” corners instead of fresh beer corners.
Cambodia:
While the temples of Angkor were breathtaking, it was Phnom Penh which gripped my heart. It’s a city that I could easily live in with cool cafes, art house cinemas and something interesting happening every night. There is an NGO on just about every corner and while the reason for this is a sad one, it also gives the city a multi-cultural melting pot vibe.
Nick and I visited S21, the former high school which was turned into a prison during the Pol Pot regime. The inmates were forced through torture to confess to things they didn’t do, and then they were sent to the Killing Fields to be executed. Among the thousands of confessions there was one written by a New Zealander, Kerry Hamill. He was sailing and accidentally passed into Cambodian waters where he was captured. He was made to confess that he was a member of the CIA but he included little nuances that only his family would be able to recognise showing his sense of humor down to his final hour. His brother made a documentary about Kerry and the Pol Pot regime called “Brother Number One.” it’s hard to comprehend a genocide - it just doesn’t make any sense. While I don’t know Kerry, I grieved for him and it gave me a slither of insight to how surviving Cambodians might feel. Western nations including the New Zealand government recognised the Khmer Rouge as the leaders of Cambodia well into the 80s, due to hostilities towards the Vietnamese who took over Phnom Penh, and the leaders of the regime still haven’t been brought to justice.
I have learnt so much in the three months I have spent in South East Asia, and met some truly memorable characters. I have already shared so many adventures with Nick, and there is still so many more to come. I can’t wait to see what’s just around the corner in India.
Singapore:
The communal breakfast table at our hostel was a source of inspiration. I met a Malaysian woman who is trying to achieve world peace through teaching dance at universities. She grew up in South Africa and went through a programme aiming to integrate cultures after appathied ended. It helped her immensely and now she is sort of doing something similar throughout Asia and teaching tolerance and other worthwhile lessons like waste management. If that wasn’t enough, she is also a travel writer and rides motorbikes all around the world with her husband. The universities she teaches at give her an allowance to stay in hotels but she would rather stay in hostels and save the money. We also met the only Kiwi we have come across so far, and even though the taste of Marmite was still a recent memory at that stage it was lovely that she let us spread it on our toast. She was in her early twenties and grew up in small town New Zealand and was extremely enthusiastic about the new foods she was subjected to. She had never tried hummus and watching her eyes sparkle as she dipped a falafel into the chickpea dip was priceless.
Phillipines:
 |
| Out to dinner with our host and other couchsurfers |
We had our first (and only so far) couch surfing experience in Puerto Princesa, Palawan. Our host, Jonathon, lived down a dusty unmarked road littered with chickens, pigs and dogs. There were bamboo huts that people called home, with children flowing out of them playing in the dirt. Nick and I glanced at each other, both looking a little fearful, but as we started walking the children greeted us with big smiles and everyone was used to backpackers making their way to Jonathon’s house. Our host took the couch surfing business seriously and had erected bamboo houses which sleep about 20 people at one time. We got the special treatment and stayed in his house in a double bed. He lived with his girlfriend Svetlana from the Czech Repulic. I will never forget one conversation we had while we lounged in the hammocks outside his place.
“You are from New Zealand, but you two are thin,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought New Zealanders were fat.”
This generalisation had come from a friend who had spent sometime fruit picking around the country. Nick and I laughed at the bluntness that only a Eastern European can get away with. Somehow it suited her and it wasn’t offensive. Plus after getting mistaken for being pregnant in Singapore, it was quite nice to be called thin even if the rest of New Zealand was obese. Nick and I were quick to defend our country.
“But we are known for all the outdoorsy sort of activities like hiking and snowboarding - how could we have a reputatation of being a fat nation?”
We conceded that we did have one of the highest rates of obesity in the world and perhaps there is some truth in the generalisation…
On a island hoping tour in El Nido our guide offered us the chance to swim into a lagoon. Most of the other tourists were tired or couldn’t swim so only a handful of us did. Nick and I swam ahead and found ourselves alone in the beautiful emerald lagoon. No guide, no other tourists, only the monkeys swinging through the trees to keep us company. It was one of those unplanned moments that turn out to be one of the best.
On Nick’s birthday we “slept”68 the night in Manila airport. We picked up our luggage and were greeted by the overpowering aroma of fish juice soaking through Nick’s bag. Suffering from fatigue I thought the most appropriate response to this was to hysterically laugh much to Nick’s disgust. The smell did nothing to help our ill prepared sleep on plastic chairs. On our right there were those decked out with camping equipment, all they needed was to pitch a tent. Air mattress, sleeping bag, pillow and they never wavered from their slumber. We grumbled and tossed and turned. Poor Nick - his pillow was covered in fish juice and while he tested it out for a bit, he eventually gave up. Once we landed in Bangkok, we treated ourselves to three nights of luxury at a four star hotel and the porters looked at us with utter contempt as they delivered Nick’s smelly luggage - they didn’t even hang around for a tip.
Thailand:
 |
| Gentle giants in Chiang Mai |
Chiang Mai was the most relaxing place I have come across. It doesn’t have a beach which would normally be my requirement for a relaxing place, but it’s just a place where we felt no pressure to do anything. The food was a truly spritual experience and we had the best thai curries of our life at a place called Angel‘s Secrets. We went to the market each morning to eat museli and yoghurt topped with advocado, mango, dragon fruit, papaya and a range of melons, and Nick developed a love for a banana pancake street vendor and has been searching for a pancake that good and cheap ever since. I think he would go back to Chiang Mai just for him.
We met a British couple at our guesthouse and although we were staying at one of the nicest places in our trip - we had HOT WATER, and there was a SWIMMING POOL - for them it was “slumming it”. We poked fun at each others style of traveling. We walked while they taxied or tuk tuked, we bused while they flew, but we still found a lot of common ground. I miss them - especially the way they discribe an experience with that British dry sense of humour.
We also met the elephants in Chiang Mai at the most ethical park we could find, The Elephant Nature Park. Most had been rescued from the now illegal elephant logging industry in Thailand and because they had been domesticated they wouldn’t have been able to survive in the wild. Their days are now spent with tourists who feed them fruit, bath them and give out lots of pats and hugs.
Vietnam:
We met Voc at the Asia Star Hotel in Hanoi. She fast became, not just a staff member, but our friend. We stayed in Hanoi for two weeks trying to secure jobs, and when we told her that it wasn’t working out and we were going to move on she looked genuinely devastated, and so were we to leave her. She had made Vietnam make sense for us, and we learnt more about the Vietnamese culture through her than we could through any museum. We told her that our free walking tour guide had told us that Bia Hoi, the super cheap beer that you consume on minature plastic furniture on the sidewalks, translated to “stinky beer.” She found this hilarious. Hoi said with slightly different inflections can mean stinky or fresh, and from that moment on they were “stinky beer” corners instead of fresh beer corners.
Cambodia:
 |
| Art in the park in Phnom Penh |
While the temples of Angkor were breathtaking, it was Phnom Penh which gripped my heart. It’s a city that I could easily live in with cool cafes, art house cinemas and something interesting happening every night. There is an NGO on just about every corner and while the reason for this is a sad one, it also gives the city a multi-cultural melting pot vibe.
Nick and I visited S21, the former high school which was turned into a prison during the Pol Pot regime. The inmates were forced through torture to confess to things they didn’t do, and then they were sent to the Killing Fields to be executed. Among the thousands of confessions there was one written by a New Zealander, Kerry Hamill. He was sailing and accidentally passed into Cambodian waters where he was captured. He was made to confess that he was a member of the CIA but he included little nuances that only his family would be able to recognise showing his sense of humor down to his final hour. His brother made a documentary about Kerry and the Pol Pot regime called “Brother Number One.” it’s hard to comprehend a genocide - it just doesn’t make any sense. While I don’t know Kerry, I grieved for him and it gave me a slither of insight to how surviving Cambodians might feel. Western nations including the New Zealand government recognised the Khmer Rouge as the leaders of Cambodia well into the 80s, due to hostilities towards the Vietnamese who took over Phnom Penh, and the leaders of the regime still haven’t been brought to justice.
I have learnt so much in the three months I have spent in South East Asia, and met some truly memorable characters. I have already shared so many adventures with Nick, and there is still so many more to come. I can’t wait to see what’s just around the corner in India.
Great writing Rose, highlighting the people you met along the way makes me identify more with your travels. Hope you will be sending these blogs to newspapers for possible publishing. Well worth a go.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that, Dad xx
ReplyDeleteCheers Parents xx
ReplyDelete