World Trip

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Category: Southeast Asia

  • Sulawesi, Indonesia: The Island Less Traveled (Part 2, Tangkoko National Park and Tomohon)

    It was extremely difficult for us to leave Bunaken Island, but what it made it feel a bit easier was that three other travelers that we had met in Panorama were also planning to go to Tangkoko National Park and we were able to travel there together. It was interesting to recognize that even after…

  • Sulawesi, Indonesia: The Island Less Traveled (Part 1, Bunaken Island)

    Indonesia is huge. It is both exciting and completely overwhelming when planning a trip there to realize how many different islands and places within those islands there are to visit. Everyone seems to head straight for Bali, but when there are seemingly unlimited choices for places to go that just felt too boring. Brian and I…

  • Siem Reap (real quick)

    Siem Reap is the gateway to Angkor Park. Given the amount of money that flows through the Park, it’s not surprise that Siem Reap has seen a lot of development. We didn’t get to see a lot of Cambodia but it is hard to imagine a city that got more attention than Siem Reap. It…

  • Angkor (Is Awesome):Part I

    And that’s not ‘awesome’ the way I usually use it, as in ‘this ice cream is awesome’ or ‘I got an awesome parking spot’. It’s more like this: awe·some /ˈôsəm/ adjective extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear. Angkor Wat and the surrounding sites truly deserve this word. Wandering around inside the…

  • Angkor (Is Awesome):Part II

    After Bauphon, we pedaled ourselves a little off the beaten path. This was done quite literally, as we took a dirt path that seemed more or less abandoned to reach the eastern side of Angkor Thom. After spending some time gawking at the massive stone gate, we continued on to see Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm…

  • Phnom Penh: Asia’s Pearl, Diminished

    After seeing Luang Prabang (last mentioned by Marisa in our most recent post) and after the disappointment of Kampot, we were looking forward to seeing Phnom Penh. The city was once referred to as the Pearl of Asia, one of the ‘loveliest French-built cities in Indochina’ (at least according to Wikipedia). We were expecting something…

  • Cambodia! Completing the Southeast Asia Loop (Kampot and Kep)

    Our first stop in Cambodia was the small town of Kampot. I wanted to go to Kampot because I had been hoping it would be like Luang Prabang (one of my favorite places, as you may recall). Kampot is described as a quaint riverside town, so it seemed reasonable to think it might be like Luang…

  • Phu Quoc, Or At Last We Find Our Private (ish) Beach Paradise!

    We were well aware of Thailand’s famously spectacular beaches prior to traveling to Southeast Asia. The problem is that everyone else in the world is aware of this fact too. After our first experience on Koh Tao, an island that is considered to still be relatively unvisited but which contained some of the worst drunken, obnoxious…

  • Vinh Long: Meandering through the Mekong Delta

    There isn’t much to see in the actual town of Vinh Long. The place serves almost entirely as a place to launch a boat to tour around the fabled waters of the ‘Nine Dragons’, the nine main rivers that make up the Mekong Delta. We chose Vinh Long as an alternative to the larger and…

  • Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City, but Saigon is such a better name)

    When I was writing the post on Hanoi, I realized that I would have to save some of my hyperbole about Vietnamese cities for the post on Saigon. The two big cities in Vietnam have some similarities. They are both marked by the Vietnam War and they both feature clouds of motorbikes zipping through their…