We took the bus over the dancing road to Battambang yesterday morning. I did a moto tour when we arrived. We drove into the rural areas of Battambang and saw rice paper being made as well as rice noodles. Battambang is a very typical Cambodian city. There’s very little tourism and a lot of poverty. So this is “real” Cambodia. The women who make the rice papers to sell to restaurants make about $3 a day. In Siem Reap, the street children all sell postcards and bracelets. A little girl who looked about 3 years old, tawdled up to me Read more…

Travel day! What was supposed to be five hours in the van ended up being eight hours. Needless to say, I wasn’t a happy camper since I only had a few granola bars to snack on. The border crossing to Malaysia was pretty uneventful. We stood in line on the Thailand side, got our passports stamped before walking through, where we got in taxis to get to the Malaysia side, where they stamped our passports again, and then drove on through the baggage scan. They didn’t even stop our taxi to scan our bags! Then the taxi dropped us off Read more…

It’s so nice being out of Bangkok and out on the beach. Today we took a day trip out to Ko Phi Phi. We boated out to several islands, and swam, snorkeled, and laid out. Then we went into an inlet area with sheer rock face cliffs and blue, shallow water. It was really gorgeous. We got out of the boat to swim a little and there was even a rope swing! Then, we stopped at a cliff area, where all of these monkeys live. I had never seen a monkey, other than the zoo. They’re kind of crazy though. Read more…

After over 24 hours of traveling, the last thing I wanted to do today was to hit all the tourist sites. Instead, I walked to Khao San Rd, (and yes, it’s every bit the hippy backpacker ghetto that I imagined). So far, Bangkok just seems like any other massive city in Asia… dirty, crowded and busy. I bought the Lonely Planet SE Asia on a Shoestring guide book, got some pad thai for lunch, and then went to a salon. I got a manicure and pedicure for 180 baht ($6) and then an hour Thai massage for 200 baht, before Read more…

Asia, take two. What a long day! I woke up at 3:30am to take the shuttle to the airport. I got to Melbourne around 8am, just in time to sit at the airport for five hours. Ahhh, airport fun! So what do I do in an international airport with five hours to kill? Coffee, sudoku, reading the Financial Times, Wii Sports in the electronics shop, Jelly Belly pear jelly beans, pretend shopping, reading, pancakes with maple syrup, 1/2 hour Internet, more Wii, and suddenly it seemed like I was being rushed onto the plane. ;) An hour into my JetStar Read more…