A 4:45am departure to get a good spot to see the sunrise at the main attraction of this trip: Angkor Wat. We entered the complex from the west in the pitch dark using our phone flashlights to find our way.  The goal was to get to a good viewpoint for the sunrise, which we did … Continue reading SE Asia Day 37: Siem Reap

A long day in the bus to travel to Siem Reap. Google estimated 5.5 hours and Happy Jack ~8h with stops. 😩 Fortunately we had a massive upgrade in our transportation- instead of a cramped mini bus we have a full-sized 45 seater with tons of legroom and decorated in pleasing shades of mauve 😆. … Continue reading SE Asia Day 36: Siem Reap

Somber start to Christmas Day with a visit to the infamous and tragic Killing Fields. Not to get too much into a history that can be Googled but when the communist leader Pol Pot took control in 1975 his hatred of those he called Capitalists, which meant anyone in government, in business, in education, any … Continue reading SE Asia Day 35: Phnom Penh

A new country: Cambodia! A bit of a mission to get here though. 3 hour bus ride to the border, check out of Vietnam, walk bags across No Man’s Land, check into Cambodia, then a 4 hour bus ride to the capital city Phnom Penh. In No Man’s Land between Vietnam and Cambodia Rice is … Continue reading SE Asia Day 34: Phnom Penh

Day 2 of my Cambodia tour and I’m still in Vietnam, lol. Today 3/4’s of the group did the optional trip to the Mekong Delta but since I just spent 2 days there I opted for another day at leisure in Ho Chi Minh City. I pretty much covered the main tourist sites yesterday, albeit … Continue reading SE Asia Day 33: HCMC

Yay! An unscheduled day! It felt great to have the day to myself. A last breakfast with the 6 remaining members of my tour group who are departing at various times today then I went out exploring. I stuck mostly to walking around as the heat + lack of sleep of the last couple of … Continue reading SE Asia Day 32: HCMC

We return to HCMC today starting with an 8am departure from our homestay and a short boat ride back to the mainland. There’s several activities planned on the way; first up: seeing a terracotta factory. It’s rather an organic operation. They use rice husks for fuel, sand from the river and clay from the rice … Continue reading SE Asia Day 31: Ho Chi Minh

🎶 “a 2 hour (bus) tour”🎶. Again. And again. Lots of time driving on this trip. It took 2 hours this morning to get to our boat for our first activity…. It’s so warm here they can grow rice year round Our day’s journey with A being our first destination Back on the Mekong! The … Continue reading SE Asia Day 30: Mekong Delta

An early morning departure from Hoi An to arrive in the steamy city of Ho Chi Minh/Saigon just before lunchtime. A food court meal then 10 of us set out for the 2h bus ride to see the Cu Chi Tunnels. First built by the Viet Cong in the 1940’s for the Indochina War they … Continue reading SE Asia Day 29: Ho Chi Minh

A late start on the tour today as it’s a “Me Day”, the only scheduled event is a noodle-making lesson. I took advantage of the extra time to have an early morning walk down to the Old Town. Pretty much everything was closed up still at 7:30am and it wasn’t an especially attractive walk but … Continue reading SE Asia Day 28: Hoi An