The second leg

Siem Reap: 1 night
We went here to take in the amazing temples complex surrounding Angkor Wat. We hired a tuk tuk driver to take us around for the day and went for a couple of quiet pints at night.

Phnom Penh: 3 nights
Myself and Will randomly bumped onto Paddy Bourke from Dunboyne in the Mekong River bar. As a result, the following 3 nights decended into drunken mayhem amid remeniscing about the good old days. During the days we visited S-21 torture prison and, particularly disturbing, The Killing Fields, the most depressing place I've ever been.

Ho Chi Minh City: 4 nights
Formerly Saigon, we arrived in the old capital of South Vietnam and almost immediately had another chance encounter. As we were walking to get food, we bumped into the two Cork lads and had a few nights out with them. I also visited the war museum to get a Vietnamese version of the events surrounding the Vietnam War. It documented the atrocities committed by US soldiers on civilians and the generations of deformities cause by Agent Orange. A little one-sided but still interesting regardless.

Hue: 2 nights
We took a flight up to here and walked around the citadel and the remains of the forbidden city. We also celebrated Will's birthday all night with all the staff of the Why Not bar, drinking local vodka with the locals til the crack of dawn. We then took a cramped sleeper train to....

Hanoi: 3 nights
We met up with Colm, my co-worker from Korea and his girlfriend after a night train. We sat on "beer corner" drinking local beer priced from $0.25 - $1 and shared stories from our respective trips. Hanoi's old quarter is also a really nice part of town to walk around which is essentially all we did while here.

Ha Long Bay: 1 night
We took a boat tour of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, which involved touring a cave, kayaking, swimming, and the most food I've ever eaten. The views were breathtaking but the tour was too much like a package holiday with everything being too rigoursly scheduled. We had a few people around our own age on the boat though and they ended up being nice company for the tour.

Hanoi: 2 nights
During our second leg here we did very little. On the second night a chance encounter with Vali the Romanian ended us up at a house party with a few Romanians, Belarusians, and Ukranians, enjoying Hanoi vodka and weird conversations.

Next stop is the Philippines for two weeks where I'll be meeting up with Gary Fallon. 
Hope everyone is well and and another update will follow in a couple of weeks.

The first month of my travels

It's been one hell of a month so here's the basic outline.

Kuala Lumpur: 2 nights

We show up in the city I'll never be sick of. The food is amazing but the drink is outrageously expensive. We stay in Chinatown and I meet up with a friend from secondary school on the second night who currently resides there. Good times.

Bangkok: 2 nights

Gave the city I rebuked so much a second chance. Really enjoyed my time here this time around. Took a water ferry cruise up the river. Price has doubled in five years so although food is still dirt cheap the drink isn't. Had two good night on and around Koh Sahn Road. Got the night train up to Chiang Mai and bumped into a couple of Irish brothers from Cork and had great craic with them on the disco car.

Chiang Mai: 3 nights

Love this city. Didn't really do very much here but it is a fantastic sleepy little place to take it easy for a couple of nights. When we were done relaxing here we took a bus up to a city on the Thai-Laos border with the Cork lads. We woke at 7 the next morning to sort out our visas, cross the river into Laos and jump on a slow-boat that spend two days lazily winding it's way up the Mekong before arriving in...

Luang Prabang: 5 nights

And I thought Chiang Mai was chilled out. Lovely food from curries to baguettes in the setting of an old French colonial town with temples around every corner. We were still with the Cork lads and one day we went swimming in a waterfall just out of town. At night things were sedate as most places close at 10:30pm except for the bowling alley. Needless to say, we all had a new found flare for ten-pin.

Vang Vieng: 4 nights

Beautiful surrounding, stunning scenery and tubing. To be honest, I was a bigger fan of the first two. The tubing was fun on the first day, getting drunk and going on zip-lines and rope swings but it's basically like Santa Ponsa in Laos. The following day was St. Paddy's Day so I went again out of obligation but already the novelty had worn off. Also, one of the Cork lads developed Dungue Fever so that but an added dampner on the place and we parted company with the lads.

Vientienne: 1 night

Don't ask. We left here on a night bus which broke down and had to spend the night at some podunk town on the Cambodian side of the border. This ended up being ok as we got to know a lot of the people on the bus.

Phnom Penh: 1 night

We arrived here late and literally went straight out for a few beers with the gang from the bus. We got up early the next morning and got onto the bus to Sinhoukville.

Sinhoukville: 10 nights

I met up with my friend Kari from Karma who's working in a bar there called JJ's. We've played volleyball, gone on a booze cruise, played soccer with the locals, gone to a bucket party on a boat during a thunderstorm, driven out to secluded beaches on hired motos, enjoyed fireshows, hung out with the JJ's staff, been attacked by fireworks (harmless ones), and learned a cool straw trick from Took (the bouncer in JJ's and the funniest man in the world).

Next stop is Siem Reap and then Phnom Penh for a few nights. Hope everyone is well and I'll send another update in a few weeks.