After some deliberation i booked my holidays over the festive season. It was a toss up between going to South-East Asia or going further afield to the Cayman Islands (UK owned island in the Caribbean) to visit my sister Lorna and her boyfriend Stuart who have been living and working there since the start of the year. Anyway, the former was the more viable option for various reasons and so i will be going to Vietnam for 18 days flying into and out of Ho Chi Minh City.
I had always been thinking that i would travel South-East Asia when i left Japan but as i don’t know when that may be i thought i would go now. Another reason is that my friend and fellow blogger Richard has recently moved to Vietnam to teach English so its a good opportunity to catch up with him. Was also in two minds as where to go in ‘Nam as its a long thin country so to go from capital Hanoi in the north to the south via the other touristy areas would probably be too punishing a schedule as i don’t want to be too limited by time and having to rush around and taking lots of long bus journeys.
On top of that i will now also be going into Cambodia which wasn’t in my mind to start with but Richard suggested going to the capital Phnom Penh so if i am going there i may as well go ‘off the beaten track’ to see some little unknown place called Angkor Wat!
To be honest i don’t know too much about either country and what little i do know about them comes inevitably from the Vietnam War and films like ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Platoon’ as well as ‘Tomb Raider’ which was filmed in part at Angkor Wat. Anyway, i look forward to travelling around these two countries which no doubt are a different world from Japan.
Beyond The Movies 