Help me with travel tips for Southeast Asia! (and Melbourne, Australia too!)

good lusk, have an amazing time

sorry, luck

and i was hoping "lusk" was some sort of southeast-asian delicacy that i should seek out

durian!

aren't those the really smelly, spikey fruit-things?

Yes, and they are delicious!

i wouldn't spent more than 2 days in Singapore, as the place is pretty small and there isn't a huge amount to do. but do try the Hainan Chicken Rice.. holy shit it's awesome.

also the tiny Santosa island of Singapore - the southern most point of Asia.. just so that you can say you've been there. (even though the fact that you can see indonesia(?) right across the sea kind of ruins it)

Of those places I've been to Thailand and Vietnam. I went to Bangkok and Chiang Mai (northern city). In Vietnam I went to Hanoi and Saigon. I flew between the two but if I had more time I would have loved to see more of the country. I regret I didn't make it to Cambodia. Wow, I just noticed how long you are going for(!). Lucky.

What are you interested in doing? Lazing about or cultural pursuits?

Rob, your timing is impeccable - March 14 is my birthday! =)

So, I must arrange for some kind of FAP drinkies for us all, and/or maybe we can sit about and have some g4nj and watch weird B grade horror movies or.. I dont know, I am terrible at playing tourist guide.

Hi Trayce! Yeah, I was hoping to arrange some sort of Melbourne-FAP. Sadly, I just realised that my flight from Bangkok is really long (thanks to a stopover in Sydney) and I don't actually arrive in Melbourne until the morning of March 15th local time :(
I'm staying with a friend who might be playing a gig in town that week, so I'll be sure to beg y'all to come out for a beverage or three...

Mary - I'm hoping to do a lot of both: lazing and cultural pursuits. Ideally, I want to spend as little time as possible in cities - I want to be out in the country, staying in villages, doing treks, river tours, etc. Obviously I'll have to be in cities at some point (Siem Reap, and probably Chiang Mai and Saigon too), so any tips are welcome!

so hot. so very hot.

loving bangkok so far. i have to stick around a few more days to get some visas, then i'm off to chiang mai. i have to resist the urge to buy more bootleg CDs from a dude nearby that has what seems to be EVERYTHING.

can't wait to get out of the noise and the pollution, though.

still planning on being in melbourne on march 15...

if you have the money, FLY between hanoi and vientiene, because the bus is omg so long and horrible. its worth the 80 bucks or so to fly. hope you keep having fun in bkk. and i hope youre not staying on khao san road.. anyways, when you got to melb let me know. i have tons of friends there who have great parties!

rob: trang province is nice, avoid phuket. the NE is very nice...quieter. find a wee place along the mekong and chill! i haven't been for 10 years though! are you going overland into Laos? i'll try and think of some indonesia/malaysia spots for later. why aren't you coming to sydney you fucker?

massage? boom boom? do you want a lady?

North Vietnam is amazing. Hanoi is one of the most charming cities I've ever been in. Make sure you go on a trip up to HAlong Bay. Do an overnight boat cruise or something, it's unmissable. If you've got the time, get an overnight train up to Sa Pa, spectacular mountain scenery, good hiking and fascinating hill tribe culture.

The South overall isn't as impressive. If you skip Saigon, you're not missing much. I didn't warm to that place at all.

yeah i liked hanoi a lot better. the cha ca is so yummy and the vietnamese sandwiches oh awesome. omg so tasty. try to avoid the organized tours to halong bay and sapa and just do it on your own, much better. dont buy a bike and try to ride on national highway 1 because thats what i did and i almost got killed about 172 times.

how long are you in bkk for? you should go to this bar i dj'ed at. its called Q bar off of sukhumvit, or however you spell it. its nice. good drinks and lots of non-hooker thai girls, if you're into girls, which i remember you as being. also, if you go to phnom penh, see if you can find people to stay at the Top Banana hostel. its the best place ever. the owner is a young guy who's super cool. every night if there were enough people into it, he would gather the entire hotel and go to a club and party, and buy us all drinks, and as people got drunk and needed to pass out, he would drive them back to the hostel then come back and party more. and bottles of cambodian whiskey were so so so cheap.

and at angkor wat, pay the extra money to go hire a bike driver to take you to the temple in the far northeast - the river of the thousand lingas and the other one. so worth it. though its bumpy ride. and dont go to the jungle without malaria pills because my israeli friend did and got malaria, and at the hospital i had to call his parents in tel aviv and had to tell them that their son got malaria and to send money. they were mad.

oh and battambang in camboda was interesting, and eat the spiders in skuon which i think i mentioned on another thread. take the bus between angkor wat and phnom penh because its way cheaper and the boat is scary and the road is getting improved. but pay your hostel girl a dollar extra if she can make sure the bus stops at your hostel first so you get first choice of seats. its so so worth if if you can get that one seat by the door so you have lots of room and leg room, or sit up front with the cambodian dude in the passenger seat.

Unfortunately, I did stay on the dreaded Khaosan on the first night - since I got a taxi in to town with some other travellers who were all going there (of course). Pretty damn noisy... I'm now staying on the street west of there, just north of the local Wat called Rambutti. Much nicer and my guest house is super-nice and new. Although I discovered a colony of ants living in my boxspring this morning...

I don't think I'll be flying much, and I don't plan on going to Vientiene unless I have to - I'm heading to Luang Prabang in the north via the slow boat, which I'm told is a pretty good time.

You've all got some pretty good tips there - thanks! I'll write more when I get out of Bangkok and I'm getting closer to Vietnam/Cambodia...

ok, a bit more time to catch up with y'all... i'm in chiang mai now (in the north). still hot like crazy, but at least there's not the crazy pollution. i had an overnight bus ride from BKK which wasn't great, but no matter...

bulbs - i am going to sydney! that is, if you count sitting at sydney airport for 2 hours... and i'll be getting my mekong on pretty soon. instead of doing overland into laos, i'm doing the slow boat from the thai border town (chiang khang i think) right to luang prabang along the mekong. it's a bit of an adventure from chiang mai, but i'm up for it. i've heard so many mixed things about the slow boat (takes 2 days with an overnight stop in a village), mainly because i think there are different types of boats, and some are shitty. but from what i can gather, this is still a good option. the speedboat is much faster, more expensive, but life-threatening, so i'll pass on that.

suess/phil - yeah, i'm looking forward to hanoi. a big thanks to ilxor's own pete b, for giving me a friend's details who lives there. local tips are always good... i'm not that fussed about saigon/hcmc either. i may only go there if necessary to get to cambodia.

get this - i'm walking along the street the other day, minding my own business, and i hear my name called. sure enough, it's a dude who i haven't seen in about 8 years, who i used to work with. how he recognised me i'll never know. he lives in siem riep now (working with the canadian consulate and the landmine museum - he's also a hardcore photographer who has seen and done some crazy shit). anyway, i'll have someone to hang with in cambodia. bizarre. as stephen wright once said: it's a small world, but i wouldn't want to paint it.

this the story of my ttrip too! i ran into so many people it was ridiculous!!!

i ain't comin to sit in an airport lounge with you tho! take an extra stdney day and col and i will entertain you though!

oh! go to the saigon water park! it was so much fun - but go on a weekday when all the kiddies are in school

my observation of the day:
http://www.kaos2000.net/interviews/michaelmonroe00/hanoi.jpg

i just got back from an interesting lunch at a snake restaurant. it's quite the way to start my day - watching a live snake get cut and then drinking a shot of blood mixed with some kind of vietnamese booze. pretty tasty actually. i didn't drink the beating heart, though - that dubious honour went to someone else at our table...

anyway, hanoi is cool. sadly i can't stay long, and i'm off to cambodia on sunday. i'll try to stay at that top banana place... after angkor wat i'll probably go for a little beach time down at sinoukville(?) - i'm told serendipity beach is pretty nice, and nowhere near as built-up as the thai beaches...

after that - australia! watch out, you melbourne types - i'm coming to the streets of your town...