Farewell Asia... Goodbye 50c fresh mango shakes (2 a day at the moment...) Farewell stray dogs and rubble dotting the streets No more steeling for a fight as I approach a rickshaw or tuk tuk or taxi...no more rickshaws for that matter. Gone will be the motorcycles by the side of the road, offering a lift for 2000 riel or 20 baht, or 10,000 dong, or 5,000 kip. Rubbish or shrine? can't be played in Australia, or Iowa (That cold cup of tea on the tabl...

When Disneyland meets urban development I stopped in Singapore for a few days because some good friends were living there as ex-pats. I had already been to Singapore once before (visiting other friends who were living there as ex-pats), so seeing 'the sights' (such as they are) was not a big priority for me. I had vague recollections of Singapore being a hub of good shopping, very clean, but still a bit foreign - I remember going through the stalls in China...

Appeals at Angkor Due in large part to aforementioned strife, Cambodia has more than its share of the world's impoverished, orphaned, destitute, and malnourished. Combine these circumstances with truckloads of white people coming to see what must surely be one of the ancient wonders of the world, and you end up with a lot of begging. The outside of the temples of Angkor Wat (and, my god, are there a lot of temples) are filled with kids selling all number of...

To begin to understand Cambodia you must first face its tragic, horrific, recent past Brief though probably inadequate overview of recent Cambodian history Post-colonial Cambodia saw a military coup of King Sihanouk in 1970 (with 'tacit US consent'...oh yes, the hands of the US aren't clean in this story either) and Sihanouk* fled to Beijing setting up an exile government aligned with a revolutionary group known as Khmer Rouge, ostensibly to support the overt...

Farewell to Laos On my last night in Laos I sit in the southern island of Don Det, sweating in the humid sunset, Beerlao in hand, reflecting on the past 2 weeks in the country. It would be fair to say I had fairly high expectations for the country. Nearly every traveller I met who had 'done' SE Asia would say "oooh wait till you get to Laos!" "head to Laos!" "I loved Laos!" "It's so lovely and relaxing!" I'm still ...