2008 - Washington DC
2010 - Cuba
2011 - DR, Bermuda, & Cruise
2012 - DR & Costa Rica
2013 - Cruise, CR, & USA
2014 - SE Asia
The Year Off 2015 - 2016
- Preamble
- Thailand & Malaysia
- Italy
- Germany, Belgium, & Lux
- Czech, Poland, & Germany
- Austria, Slovakia, & Hungary
- Slovenia, Croatia, Austria & Germany
- England & Scotland
- Turkey
- Colombia
- Peru: Lima & Amazon
- Peru: Cusco & Inca Trail
- Peru: Cusco to Lima
- Mexico, Guatemala, & Belize
- New Zealand
- Australia & Thailand
2017 - The Balkans
2017 - Hungary, Romania, & Switzerland
2018 - New York
2018 - Amsterdam, Poland, & The Baltics
2019 - Costa Rica
2019 - France
2020 - Thailand
2023 - Mexico
2023 - Iceland & Cruise
2024 - Philippines
2025 - Japan
2025 - Iceland
Short Trips
Lists
Links
| Jan 16, 2014 - Thursday to Jan 17, 2014 - Friday | Saigon | Vietnam |
|
For my thirtieth birthday I decided to go somewhere completely different. I
booked a G Adventures tour that started in Vietnam, went to Cambodia, and
finished in Thailand. This was the first group tour that I ever took. The
tour itself was about 9 days, and I arrived a day early and stayed a few
extra days on my own. I left Canada on January 14th and after about 24 hours
of travel I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) on the 16th. I stayed right
in the middle of the tourist area in this skinny concrete tower that had two
rooms per floor. I went to the war museum which told the story of the Vietnam War from their point of view. It was pretty slanted in the point of view that the Americans were the aggressors and committed many war crimes and so on. The North Vietnamese did win the war so I guess I understand their position. I also visited the former presidential palace. The rooms in this place are huge. I also saw the old post office which was designed by the same guy that designed the Eiffel Tower, got a massage which was dirt cheep, and I also got a haircut. I was trying to grow my hair out more than usual back then but when I got to Vietnam with its one hundred percent humidity it looked like crap. So I found a barbershop and for about the equivalent of $2.50 Canadian dollars I got my haircut. It looked pretty good and you can't beat that price. The traffic here is insane, just non stop motorbikes with the occasional car. If you want to cross the street you just start walking at a normal pace. They will not hit you. 
 After a day or so I transferred to a new hotel and met the tour group in the evening. The other people on the tour turned out great. I got along with all of them. One older woman was a bit of a sourpuss but otherwise they were all nice people. The tour leader was a Thai lady named Amy who was also pretty good. |
||
| January 18, 2014 - Saturday | Saigon | Vietnam |
The first full day of the tour was a tour of the Mekong Delta near Can
Tho, which is a little south of Saigon. We were obviously on a tour circuit
and were taken from stop to stop. We tried different fruit from the area,
had a sampan ride, and short boat cruise and stuff like that. For the first
time in my life I held a snake. I hate snakes but figured this was a good
chance. The guy with the snake also told us it had just eaten a chicken (and
I could see the bulge), so I figured it would be okay. And it was. I got a
pretty good picture of the experience and of course I had to email it to my
Mom who is terrified of snakes to the point she can't even look at one.
Unfortunately Dad saw the picture first and warned her, so she didn't open
it. Anyways, later that day we returned to Saigon and after dinner myself
and a few of the other people on the tour went up one of the tallest
buildings in the city to see the views.
 |
||
| January 19, 2014 - Sunday | Phnom Phen | Cambodia |
| We went to Cambodia by private van. Before getting to the border we stopped for lunch at some roadside place. I had some soup, which was a huge mistake. A few hours later we were at the hotel in Phnom Phen (capital of Cambodia). Shortly after arriving I got violently ill. I was spewing fluids out of both ends. It wasn't pretty. I ended up missing the afternoon activity which was a guided bicycle tuk tuk ride around the city. But that was okay. Anyways after throwing up eight times I went out of the hotel and walked down the street to a pharmacy. One American dollar later I had antibiotics which I would take for the next week. Thankfully they started working fairly quickly and the next day I was better, but still not great. | ||
| January 20, 2014 - Monday | Phnom Phen | Cambodia |
| Today was supposed to be a tour of the schoolhouse that was turned into an infamous prison, and the killing fields where Pol Pot had something like 30% of his population murdered. I went to the prison but decided to take a cab back to the hotel after about half an hour, so I missed part of that and the killing fields. Later that afternoon I was feeling a bit better so I went to the main temple area and saw that. | ||
| January 21, 2014 - Tuesday | Siem Reap | Cambodia |
| I was basically back to normal, and it was a good thing too. Today was mostly spent traveling the main highway to Siem Reap. This highway was not in good shape and I don't think our bus was able to go very fast. Tonight we ate at a place which had some traditional dancers who did a little performance, which I didn't think too much of. | ||
| January 22, 2014 - Wednesday | Siem Reap | Cambodia |
This morning we were out of bed before dawn so that we could go see the
sunrise at Ankor Wat. Ankor Wat is the main temple in this very large area
with many temples. Frankly, the sunrise was okay, but not sure if it was
worth getting up that early for. We then toured the main temple which I
really enjoyed. It's amazing how they were able to build this thing so long
ago. We went back to the hotel for breakfast, and then returned to the
complex to see more of the temples, including one that was featured in the
movie Tomb Raider. That took the rest of the day until about an hour before
sunset, when some of the group and I went ATV'ing along the more rural parts
of the area and some rice paddies. This was a ton of fun, and the little
kids we passed while riding seemed so happy to see us and wanted high fives.
That night I tried a "fish massage", which is where you stick your feet in a
tank of water with a bunch of fish that eat the dead skin off your feet. It
didn't really hurt and felt ticklish at time, but man were my feet ever
smooth after that.
 |
||
| January 23, 2014 - Thursday | Siem Reap | Cambodia |
| We toured more of the Ankor Wat temples and had lunch at a school that the tour company sponsors. The meal was cooked by young ladies as a way of giving them some employment skills. Snake was one of the things we got to try. It was heavily spiced, and I didn't really like it. | ||
| January 24, 2014 - Friday | Bangkok | Thailand |
| The tour group went to Bangkok and we had a final dinner with the group before the tour ended the next morning. I had booked my flight home for about four nights after the tour ended, so I was going to stay in the city. I had become friendly with one of the girls on the tour who was also not leaving for a while, so we got a nice hotel near the river. The pool was unheated and almost too cold, even though the outside temperature was hot. | ||
| Jan 25, 2014 - Saturday to Jan 30, 2014 - Thursday | Bangkok | Thailand |
The two of us went to the Lebula sky bar, which was in the movie Hangover 2.
Very expensive drinks, but they were excellent and the views of the city
were superb. One of the days we spent touring the Grand Palace and a bunch
of the Buddhist Temples. There was some demonstrations and protests in part
of the city, so we stayed away from those areas.  One day we took a full day tour out to see tigers and elephants. We got to play with the baby tigers, wash the adolescents, walk the big ones, and I got to put their heads in my lap for a picture. It was very cool, but I would not do it again. The locals didn't treat the tigers very well (although the foreigners working there did) and sometime later (months later) I learned that these places are not very nice. After seeing the tigers we went to a nearby place to see the elephants. We got to ride on and play in the river with it. This was pretty fun. Before returning to Bangkok we stopped at the "Bridge over the River Kwai", which was a bridge that the Japanese made Allied POWs construct during the second world war. A day or two later I said goodbye and flew home. 
 This Asia trip in January 2014 literally changed my life. Despite the food poisoning, I had the time of my life and gave serious thought to canceling my return flight and staying. If I didn't have my job and the associated golden handcuffs I probably would have. After returning home I started reading the various travel blogs and bucket lists. I had really caught the travel bug. |
||