As soon as I left the big city of Saigon to start exploring the rest of Vietnam just over a month ago, it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Suddenly I could breathe again. The rut I had been experiencing seemed like ancient history. I was back to doing what I enjoyed most: travelling. I am a fairly restless person – not always this way, mind you – and for better or worse, this characteristic has coloured many of my decisions over the past 10 years.

And now that I’ve seen Vietnam from top to bottom, the thought of returning to Saigon and working causes a bit of a twitch to develop. So I’m not.

Instead, I’m heading off on my own. The next month will see me backpacking through Southern Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma). I will be posting updates and stories from the road, assuming I can find an internet connection in some of the places I have on the agenda. I’m planning on continuing until there’s no dong left in my pocket.

Hope you’re up for the journey.

After spending a few days in Siem Reap we headed to Phnom Penh, Cambodia where we visited the Choeung Ek Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng Museum.  The Tuol Sleng Museum was formerly a prison during the Pol Pot regime where prisoners were kept and tortured and eventually taken to the Choeung Ek killing fields where they were executed.  Rarely was it a quick and painless bullet to the head as bullets were precious.  Prisoners were often beat to death.  When we entered the killing fields we saw a giant Buddhist stupa filled with over 5000 human skulls and a ridiculous number of mass graves.

This is without a doubt one of the saddest places I have ever been….

Beds that prisoners were tied down to and tortured.

Prisoners of Tuol Sleng

Tiny prison cells

The Flooded Forest of Kompong Phhluk is by far one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It was a 45 minute tuk tuk ride from Siem Reap, another 45 minute boat ride before we made it to a little fishing village, and from there we had to swap to a paddle boat in order to navigate the dense flooded forest. After we left the flooded forest, we got back onto the bigger boat which took us out to a lake where we saw the raddest sunset ever. Once again, the video cannot do the the flooded forest justice, you’ll need to go check it out for yourself!