Goodbye S.E Asia, Hello China

As our plane flew out of Ho Chi Min city towards Hong Kong early in the morning, laden with more prams than any other plane in history, we bade farewell to part 2 of our 4 part trip. America and New Zealand seemed like a year ago already and now S.E Asia was also officially finished. Part 3, being China was now only a few hours away. China has always been the part of our trip we had the most trepidation about, the place where we had the least expectations and knew the least about.

We reflected upon our last five months, stepping out of Jakarta airport facing our first army of touts, our cheapest room ever in Jogjakarta with a hose for a shower - a world away from the Ritz Carlton KL, getting stranded in the middle of the night at a junction on Bali, lying ill in bed in Singapore and so forth through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam with the unscheduled addition of Cambodia and learning to dive. It had been Jam-Packed and we covered enough ground to have made a year's trip out of it alone.

It was interesting to watch subtle changes across the continent as we made our way north. The staple Indonesian dish Nasi Goring, consisting of fried rice and vegies, a bit of meat stirred in too with a fried egg on top and a couple of satay skewers transformed at a consistent rate, first losing it's skewers and finishing up in Vietnam as a plate of plain rice with a scattering of green in the middle, Cameron Highlands seeing the last authentic plateful really. The driving standards remained fairly consistent across the board and the continental record of 4.7 million roads injuries every year, including 75,000 deaths stands testament to the lack of standards. In Thailand for example the driving test consists of a successfully filled out application form - the end! It's probably the same else where. The award for the scariest streets went to Surabaya. It wouldn't be possible to say that the people of any one country were nicer than any other, they were all uniformly nice and helpful, though the North Vietnamese definitely scored a black mark. The novelty of being white ended shortly after Indonesia with fewer people wanting to take our photos. Against expectation, the award to the country with the best English goes to Cambodia, where we were taken aback several times by their grasp of not only the language but international politics - testament to the benefits of international cable TV.

We also wondered how much we had forgotten already - you don't think this blog is for your benefit do you? That was all behind us now though. The future is bright, the future is red.