Southeast Asia Roundup

Coming from almost 6 months South America, we were ready for a whole different side of the world. And that’s what we got, but it wasn’t all that was imagined for us.

There’s really two tales here, the first being Vietnam, and the second being everywhere else. So lets talk about Vietnam, where we spent a month exploring the limestone landscapes and food.

Vietnam started out a little funny, due to the triple whammy of jet lag, a party hostel with doors (and occupants) that make sounds throughout the night, and a complete overdose of caffeine. We lost a lot of sleep and never quite recovered. Hanoi became a bit discouraging, due to our insomnia. Sapa was a little funny too. Not quite the hike we had envisioned. It also rained the whole time.

Then we had a whirlwind two week adventure that saw us camping in caves, on limestone bay cruises and boating in Chinese river waters that completely made Vietnam for us. Jam packed adventure after adventure, with fantastic food. The Kong Collapse cave adventure remains the coolest thing I think either of us have ever done in our lives. We camped in the 4th largest cave in the world. Lan Ha Bay was also lovely.

Then there’s the rest (Cambodia, Thailand, Laos), which was riddled with small issues that just kept adding up. These issues somewhat outweighed the excitement of the areas.

The first major concern for us was the heat. For nearly a whole month, we had to shelter from the outdoors during midday. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. We don’t normally do well with heat on its own, but it also came with a heavy dose of smog (two sources, vehicles and crop burning). So being outdoors wasn’t really all that fun. We tried being mall people in Bangkok, but it just didn’t work right.

The frustrations from the outdoors also didn’t couple well with the fact that we hadn’t really had an extended time to relax since we started the trip. We had some chill days and some less adventurous weeks sure, but they always included a museum, or errands, or an afternoon writing this blog, or something else. We have not read a lot on the trip because frankly, there hasn’t been a lot of time. So we didn’t really have the energy to put in the effort to figure out how to change our overheated futures.

This all culminated in a Thai island relaxation that probably could have been better spent somewhere else. Somewhere with less infrastructure, and less tourists. Somewhere where we are not being peddled to buy ‘handcrafted’ goods. Somewhere where were not worried about being run over by an impaired tourist on a motorbike. The effect of the vacation was still evident, we came out of it ready to travel and experience new things again, but it took a while.

So with all that said, heres an absolute laundry list of hits and misses form Southeast Asia.

Hits
Our favourite stuff from this little corner of the world.

Limestone Landscapes
North Vietnam is full of karst landscapes (really old limestone that has been eroded over hundreds of millions of years). There were many great places to experience this. Like Lan Ha bay, where sharp jagged islands jut out of the ocean in a mazelike way, creating all sorts of bays and caves to go paddling and swimming through. We also had a lot of fun with these in Ninh Binh, where we went paddling through a 1km long cave, and biked around the mountains.

Cao Bang
Cao Bang province was a fantastic place for a day trip. There are quite a few world class viewpoints in the region. Like Ban Gioc waterfall along the Chinese border, or Angel Eye mountain, a mountain with a hole in the middle that looks perfectly placed in its valley. Our hostel here was probably our favorite as well. Linh was by far the most helpful person we met in the region.

Phong Nha Cave Adventures Kong Collapse, Pygmy Cave)
The big adventure of the region was a success. A collapse and a massive cave entrance were easily the coolest places we have ever camped. Swimming through the pitch black caves, hanging out in calcium pools, and watching the massive entrances slowly get larger and larger was a great three days that we will never forget.

Vietnamese Food
Everywhere we ate was a complete banger. The Dish, pho, bun cha, banh mi, spring rolls, it was always amazing, no matter what. It was really nice being confident that no matter where we went, we were going to get some great food that wont make us sick for a good price.

Angkor
The ancient Hindu Angkor temples are magnificent. Pouen was a great guide for our time there, and we got to explore some absolutely insane overgrown ancient cities. Angkor Wat is obviously the crown jewel, at it has to be seen in person to be believed, but the rest were also great fun to wonder around in and be a temple explorer

Nong Khiaw
This is where we should have spent our time relaxing and recovering. This hill village deep into Laos was a great spot for a morning hike, a paddle, and other slow exploration in the region. We could have, and should have, spent an extra week just hanging out watching the world go by

Misses
Somethings just don’t go to plan. Here’s what happened there.

Sapa
Advertised as ‘The Authentic Vietnam’ this area for rice paddy trekking felt anything but. There was probably a better way to do what we did, but we ended up on rainy, muddy hillsides with hundreds of other tourists plowing through various villages. At least the company was lovely.

Heat & Pollution
Spending a whole month mostly cooped up avoiding the sun and the air is not a great way to spend your time. near the end we reverted back to wearing masks to try and keep the toxins out. When we blew our nose it was sometimes black. The combination just made it really hard to experience anything. We were constantly worried about where we were going to spend our afternoons indoors.

Exhaustion
We burnt ourselves out, and SEA was just the unfortunate victims that took on the brunt of it (and a severe sun burn our first day on our island vacation). Due to the burn out, we didn’t plan things as well as we could, and probably should have. Going to poor locations, just doing the mainstream thing instead of what we would have wanted, these symptoms all came from the problem of just not wanting to figure it out.

SEA Tourist Party Culture
In a couple places, like Vang Vieng, Laos, and Koh Phangan, Thailand, it felt a little weird walking around at night. SEA has a reputation of being a sex and drug tourist centre, and seeing that first hand was not great. Many things felt exploitative of the people working. You couldn’t go anywhere without walking by a brothel, or a party drug front. The environment in these locations felt icky.

With all that said, it was still a memorable couple of months exploring and learning in this part of the world. Please enjoy some photos now of our favorite things form these couple months!

Missed Adventures
As always, there are many more places to go. For Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand that’s no exception. Here are some notable ones for us.

Hue
This city features an ancient Vietnamese imperial palace, as well as its own special brand of Pho

Da Lat
The adventure capital of South Vietnam. Lots of limestone mountain stuff to do here

Ko Rong
This Cambodian island is a ever growing tropical paradise. Kampot is near too, and they apparently have great crab

Mondulkiri
Deep in the Cambodian jungle, this elephant sanctuary is one of the premier elephant destinations in SEA.

Luang Namtha & Phonsavan
More Laotian jungle adventures lie here. The Plains of Jars are apparently wild as well.

Paske
Some absolutely killer waterfalls can be reached from this city. Lots of beautiful Wats as well.

400 Islands
A rare river archipelago in the Mekong. Easy to bike around, paddle around, and go fishing.

Sukhothai
The ancient capital of the Sukhothai empire

Koh Chang
Some quiet Thai islands to relax on. Well out of the way of the standard tourist trail

Khao Sok
Another karst landscape. This time with a massive lake in the middle of it

Krabi
The most beautiful beaches that I’ve ever seen photos of are here