moving on

a few weeks have passed once more without an update but i am on holidays after all so i think i deserve a little break. things are still going great. when i last wrote, we were about halfway down vietnam. well, we spent a few days in mui ne, just chilling out on the beach and taking a much neeed break from riding the bus. managed to get some colour, slept a lot, read a lot and then just as it was seeming to get a little tired we set off for ho chi minh city. to be honest, i wasn't really in the mood for a major urban center after the tranquility of the beach, so we took in a few sights by taking a walking tour. only spent a couple of days in saigon, but i did manage to make it to the war remnants museum. i expected lots of photos and artifacts from the war, but they were much more graphic and showed the terrible cost of war. i won't describe the images but they were enough to make me want to leave after only seeing a fraction of what they had. that said, i feel it's an important part of vietnam's history and should never be forgotten what many paid with their lives for.

the next stop along the way was in cambodia, specifically the capital of phnom pehn. we had gotten quite used to the vibe of vietnam and crossing the border at moc bai was like entering a different world. crossing the border overland is always an interesting experience because you instantly get to see just how different the countries are. it was almost like night and day. if vietnam had suffered in the war, it had recovered some what while cambodia still seemed to be in the grips of it. there were maimed roads and people everywhere, a painful reminder of what war can do to a country. when we pulled into phnom penh and finally found a place to stay, these two young booksellers came up to us and chatted in english. i eventually bought a book off of one of the girl's who seemed to be full of life. i asked her how she learned english, from school or her tutor and she just said she listened and learned. she didn't go to school. she ate with us and then off she went, happy as could be ready to sell her next book.

our only real destination in cambodia was siem reap, the closest town to angkor temples. we spent a whole day checking them out, but realistically it wasn't enough time to fully appreciate it so we just took in the highlights. it was spectacular and completely worth the jarring and hot bus rides we had to endure along the way. i remember along the way, the bus got a flat and we broke down for an hour. then, there was no air cond and it was bumpy all the way. about halfway through our ride, we stopped for lunch and we were all bitching about the trip. just as we were getting back on the bus, a pair of girls found a young woman lying in a ditch, covered in bruises and cuts. she was barely conscious and was severly dehydrated. someone arranged for a person to go to the nearest town and get a doctor to come and collect her. the rest of us had to leave but the poor girl had to stay there in the ditch and wait for the doctor to arrive. it was a shocking image and certainly made the rest of us on the bus feel as though we had nothing to really complain about.

we soon left cambodia behind after a short stay of only 5 days because we realized how quickly time was slipping through our fingers. we took another bus (sensing a theme here?) to bangkok and have been here for the last three days. we leave tonight to head up north to chiang mai and do our elephant trek which should be a lot of fun. afterwards, we had planned to travel through myanmar but it looks as though we aren't going to be able to do that. it's funny, but we arrived in bangkok to do our visas and the day we went the office was closed for some reason or another. a sign perhaps? whatever it was, it made us reevaluate or time and money and so we've decided to spend the remainder on the beach which is fine by the both of us.

still feeling good about the trip we've had, but feeling a bit tired of the tours, the haggling, and so forth. also, both of us can feel reality started to close in around us which is scary. the prospect of having no job, no apartment and heading back to a country where everyone has to strive to have the best of all this is enough to keep me awake at night. literally. i have been not able to fall asleep for the last week or so properly. just keep thinking about how things are going to be, the people and the places, what am i going to do next? the other sort of life crisis that hits when moving back to a different country. i'm still happy with our decision to leave taiwan...i do feel it was time, but i think maybe a little more effort should have been put into as to what to do next. i'm sure things will work out as they always do, but i also think i should really start looking for something to do with myself. i can hear my parents already, most likely about a week after returning...the inevitable "what are you going to do now?" speech. it would be nice if i could have an answer like "I've been offered a great job writing for such and such magazine." or possibly "I'm giving my life to jesus. " hmm...that last one probably won't fly too well. anyway, i'm just going to keep enjoying the time left over the next few weeks and try to put it out of my mind for the time being.