I am the only member of the new cast who has travelled to Southeast Asia which gives me an interesting perspective on what we can expect.  Back in 1998, I was a bright-eyed, naive young woman.  I had spent a couple months in Europe the year before and therefore considered myself an accomplished world traveller (ha!).  The idea of traveling somewhere a bit rougher than Europe was something I had tossed around, but my mind was made up when the guy I was crazy in love with, Darren, told me he was going to Indonesia that winter.  I lied and said that I had also planned on going to Southeast Asia and maybe we could travel together.  He agreed, and although he was leaving a couple months earlier, we made plans to meet in Bangkok in January.

It’s a funny thing about expectations.  I imagined that Thailand (“the Land of Smiles”) would be exotic, untouched and the most amazing place on Earth.  That was not entirely my experience.  When I landed, a miscommunication meant that there was no one to meet me at the airport so I was left to try and find a guesthouse by myself at 1am…and naturally headed to Koh San Road.  I had never felt that kind of humidity before, and was terrified to see what it would be like in the mid-day heat.  We spent a few days in Bangkok, and I discovered that I despised that city.  To this day, after visiting tons of metropolises, there is no rival for the hatred I feel for Bangkok.  On the second night there, Darren took me to Patpong, which is the sex district of the city.  I was already suffering from some pretty serious culture shock, and I saw things there that I did not even know were humanly possible. Someone hawking T-shirts outside one of the ping pong places wouldn’t leave me alone and I had a major meltdown right there on the street.  I think a combination of the heat, aggressiveness and poverty (which I had never seen before) all attributed to the tears.  I begged Darren to get me the hell outta there.

The plan had been to spend the 2+ months just in Thailand.  That plan quickly changed.  We went north through Chang Mai and Chang Rai and entered Laos.  This was now closer to the trip I had envisioned – in 1998, Laos was very rough travel and not too many tourists were going there.    We started at Muang Sing, and went south through Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, and down to Pakse.  I ABSOLUTELY LOVED LAOS.  I knew virtually nothing about the country before we went, but we had the best time.  I loved that sometimes the only transportation was in the back of a pickup truck.  I loved that people who didn’t even speak English would invite us into their simple homes for a home-cooked meal.  And I loved that I was finally getting the kind of trip that I had envisioned.   After Laos, we headed into Cambodia and visited Ankor Wat…still to this day one of the most amazing things I have seen.   There is now an international airport in Siem Riep and the site is apparently crawling with people so I consider myself very fortunate to have gone when I did.  The last two weeks of our trip were spent in Southern Thailand, partying on the beaches of Krabi and Koh Samui.

In Northern Laos, the only transportation choice was often a very dusty, bumpy ride in the back of a pickup (which I thought was SO COOL). Here, I'm also getting a lesson in the treatment of animals in the third world.

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