3 Months Are Up

I am entering the final six hours of my travels. Although to be fair Korea has and will continue to be part of my travels. Perhaps a better way to put it is, this chapter of my travels or some other hackneyed phrase. Regardless of nomenclature, I prepare to leave Saigon in a matter of moments, and I took some time this afternoon to reflect on the scope of my trip as well as some of the more pertinent reasons for such an undertaking. I will of course leave that for a few more days until I can get re-ensconced in the gunmetal cold of Seoul.

I guess this may be the most bloggish (I take my own meaning of it, don't ask) of my entries. I don't really have the capacity to write anything overly witty or in depth. I had to get passport photos taken this morning and I looked haggard. Perhaps it is just the beard. In any event, a quick rundown since I left Saigon.

Phu Quoc was absolutely beautiful. Saw probably the most stunning sunset of this entire trip (Trevor did make a good case for one we saw in Sulawesi, but we missed the actual sunset merely basking in its afterglow). There was virtually nothing to do but sit on the beach, drink Vietnamese beer, which to my discerning palette could be much worse, and whiled the days away. From there we pushed into the heart of the Mekong. I have to take a moment here to encourage everyone who may be reading this to find time to make that journey. The lower Mekong and the delta are an amazing experience. The colors are a vibrancy that I cannot really describe. The people live within an entirely different rhythm than most people I know. We spent a night in Chau Doc, met a carpenter from Philly who I will have more to say about in another entry, took what could have been the most leisurely cruise up the river into the Kingdom of Cambodia and eventually to Phnom Penh.

Cambodia is another place I highly suggest visiting if you have not already done so. To be sure the hardships faced there are amazing. The lack of old people alone is a telling sign of what life has been like for people. However, without sounding too much like a Lonely planet intro, they are a wonderful and resilient people. Somehow cheerful in the face of so much. Proud despite the dark cloud that hangs over their recent history. Hopeful. If this is sounding too cute, so be it. I am entitled I think. Phnom Penh is certainly sobering on one level. We visited Tual Sleng (S-21) and the Killing Fields. Bottom line: absolute ideology, however misguided or genuine should not be trusted. The excesses that inevitably arrive in its wake are never very pleasant be it Khmer Rouge, Cultural Revolution, Shining Path (hmm stop me if you like Maoism). Anyway, beside that it seems to be a city on the rise. Worth a visit and nowhere near as dangerous as something like wikitravel would have you believe.

Siem Reap is another world really. Almost not part of Cambodia, although the Angkor Temples are certainly the jewels of national pride and rightfully so. The nightlife is excellent, food is amazing and yeah the temples are worth seeing, although I have some intellectual reservations about that as well (I will wait on the archaeology debate for later). Trevor departed from Siem Reap,, and I was glad to get an email from him this morning telling me that it is currently blizzarding in Swillbrook NY. Stay warm Mr. McRo.

There is not much more to say here that I won't want to say in more detail later so I will leave with a tally of sorts

Cameras broken: 2
Phones lost: 1
glasses stolen: 1
money I misplaced: just 50 singapore dollars 3 months ago
disc tournys: 3
people I met that I liked: too many
people I met that I disliked: 5
career paths considered: at least 3
times I was scammed: too numerous to count
shoulder straps torn: 1
amount of noodles I ate: enough that I am fat again
new tattoos: 1
new stamps in my passport: 20 stamps/5 full-page visas
new pages in my passport: 24
best beer consumed in quantity: Beer Lao
best beer consumed: Murray's Anniversary Ale
t-shirts "won" due to alcohol consumption: 2

So, I hope you have enjoyed and I hope you will continue to enjoy as I make my way back to Korea and beyond. I think that Burma and Mongolia are the next places on my list. And please, if you have any desire to come visit I hope you will (see my later post on the carpenter we met). You are more than welcome in Seoul and anywhere else you may want to go I imagine I will be glad to join. Asia is a great adventure, and everyone says its gonna be an Asian century so you might as well see what the hype is about.

palabra.