General summary

So here's a general summary of my couple months in SE asia.

The flight over was super tiring, but I did meet someone from HK and we're still in touch by email (considered extending my HK transit to meet up again, but it would have been hard to change flights at christmas). Arrived in KL for a night to drop off my work-stuff and was off to saigon early the next morning. There, I met with my friend's "niece" (though same age as us) and hung out a couple days. She didn't really speak english, so sometimes it was a bit boring or frustrating, but overall was nice to have someone around. Met up with my tour group and headed off towards Cambodia.

The first tour, Saigon to Bangkok through Cambodia, was quite good. I connected with the other people pretty well, the guide was great, there were lots of activities and things to see and do. I was kindof surprised how developed yet 'calm' Cambodia was compared to Vietnam. I expected it to be in rougher shape, given its history. Lots of cool temples, most famously Angkor Wat of course. Got to see some things I'd seen a couple weeks earlier on 'amazing race'. Unfortunately, it has reached the super-touristy point, and there are people (esp kids) everywhere chasing you and bothering you nonstop to buy things. Saw a 'US Election / Obama' party, seems the whole world was celebrating. Saw some dragonboat practices and talked to some people, but never had an opportunity to actually join a practice or see the races.

In Thailand the first tour ended and second tour began. I hung out with the first tour people as long as possible, as I'd have another couple weeks with the new people but was saying goodbye to the old people. Thailand was very westernized, in some ways that's good but in some ways bad. The best part of the second tour was near the beginning in Thailand, we were in Chiang Mai for "Loy Katrong / Yi Peng". There were thousands of people out and about, fire crackers going off underfoot and overhead, and hundreds of hot air balloon lanterns floating up into and across the sky, it was crazy and really beautiful.

There was nothing particularly bad about the second group, just didn't connect as well. The guide wasn't nearly as good as the previous one, and the tour through Laos included very few activities. As a result there was lots of free time, but often you couldn't make great use of the free time. For example, Laos was very scenic, quite forested and mountainous, there must have been some great hikes but I didn't get to do any. Without doing too many activities, it was more "relaxing" but therefore a bit boring. At least in Laos, maybe because I wasn't so into my tourmates, I met more locals. Not many, but a couple people at least. Most don't really speak english unfortunately.

I was glad to have done the first tour with the tour group, but I think the second one would have been better alone. In Cambodia, the tour included things I wanted to do, and things seemed like they might be a bit of a hassle to organize on my own, and I was with people I liked. But for Laos, I don't feel the tour really gained me much. More flexible timing would have meant doing some more interesting things, like hiking. And it seemed easy enough to get around.

At the end of the tour I stayed an extra day in Hanoi and did a day trip to Halong bay. I'd been there before, but it was nice to go again. After some initial anger and frustration about the trip out there, things became great as I met a wonderful girl. And even better, she was just there for work, and lived in KL so I would see her again a week later.

Back in KL, work started off messy, the person I was replacing was fired and left the morning before I arrived so we didn't have a handover, and there had been problems with the system. Luckily there was someone else around who'd been there a few days and was familiar with it. In general, things varied back and forth between busy and not too busy. Only made it out of the hotel vicinity two times in the month there. And the hotel vicinity wasn't particularly nice or scenic. The field crew wasn't particularly social. So overall it wasn't a particularly fun rotation. I met a couple more random people just by asking to join them at lunch or whatever. (A 'friend' was noting that I seem to be doing pretty well at meeting people. But then she pointed out something else which although not intended as such, was really depressing, so I won't bother talking about it here.) I also got together with the girl I met in Vietnam as well as someone I know from 1997 Montreal (and saw again in 2001 KL). So actually at the end of the trip, I was strongly considering requesting to change my flight and stay there working longer. If it wasn't right before Christmas, and having been away for Christmas last year too, I would have.

So that's things in 'brief'.