It’s mid-June, the start of the Southern hemisphere’s winter. I’m stood on the back of a tour boat in a wetsuit, teeth chattering audibly as I peer over the rails across the icy-blue horizon.
We’re in Kaikoura, a small coastal town on the South Island of New Zealand which is renowned for its abundance of marine wildlife. We’ve been searching the seas for dusky dolphins with Dolphin Encounter Kaikoura for about an hour now and my initial exhilaration has now curdled.
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With a glass of cheap local whisky loose in my hand, I’m deep in conversation with a group of travellers in Koh Rong, Cambodia, bundled up close to a flickering campfire. A mix of nationalities, some of the group I’ve known for weeks and some only a couple of hours, yet our mutual adoration of travel and adventure has bonded us instantly.
We’re all smiles, the conversation flowing effortlessly. I’m twenty-two years old and two months into an epic eight-month-long backpacking trip around Southeast Asia. Life is very good indeed and my new nomadic and unperturbed lifestyle is a welcome change after a difficult past year living in London.
As soon as I arrived in the incredible city-state of Singapore, gazing up at the teeming skyscrapers and marveling at the fast-paced hustle of my surroundings, I was eager to explore. However after months spent indulging on the likes of £3 foot massages in Thailand and huge cheap-as-chips exotic spreads of food in Laos, when we arrived in Singapore things seemed… not so cost-efficient.
On a pretty strict travel budget, me and my travel buddies made sure to try our very best not to spend too much in Singapore. Here’s how we did it:
Kampot, a charming riverside town in Southern Cambodia is a spot I wished we had longer to explore. Realising back in Sihanoukville that we would be limited on time for Kampot due to our visa for Vietnam starting imminently, my travel buddies and I decided to make a quick beeline for the quaint little city. We had one full day to make the most of our visit – here’s what we got up to.
Battambang, a city a couple of hours’ drive away from Siem Reap is a spot that is often left out from a typical traveller’s itinerary of Cambodia, overshadowed by the spotlight of the temples of Angkor and the bustle of Phnom Penh. However, after reading up about it in my trusty lonely planet guide, I was pretty keen to at least spend one full day there to explore the town’s surroundings.
We hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day (only $18 between 6 of us!) and we did indeed have a great day out. There was certainly lots to do. We spent the day journeying on a bamboo train, exploring various different temples, wandering through a vineyard and visiting a former interrogation centre and ‘killing caves’. These were used by the Khmer Rouge back in the 70s and although it was sad to see and learn about, it was also very interesting.
But it was something else that really for the first time during our trip honestly left me open-mouthed. Bats leaving their cave for the night. Literally millions and millions of them!
For our first stop in Cambodia, we travelled straight to Siem reap with the remaining members of our Thakhek loop gang we had met in Laos. The predominant reason most people visit Siem Reap is to check out the magnificent ancient temples of Angkor, and many will agree that no trip to Cambodia is complete without a visit.
Warning: This post is very image heavy!
Laos has so far been one of the most beautiful countries I’ve visited on my travels. Throughout our three weeks spent there, I was constantly having to reach for my camera to take a quick snap of my surroundings. So, to celebrate the beauty of the lovely country that is Laos in all its glory, I thought I’d put together a photo post of the 25 most stunning views I came across. Enjoy!
After successfully completing the Laos Thakhek bike loop, some of the group decided to head down South for some chill time in Si Phan Don, more commonly known as ‘Four thousand islands’. We stayed on one of the more popular islands, Don Det, which is still a tiny little place very much backpacker orientated with a cool hippy vibe. We were there for four nights but again like in Pai in Northern Thailand, when I look back at our time spent there I struggle to pinpoint exactly what we got up to! It is very much a place to hammock-dwell with little planned. Many travellers we met said they had ended up spending a lot longer there than anticipated, simply enjoying the sunshine and having a chance to relax without rushing around doing activities and excursions.
So, what exactly did we do?