U.R.A. Fever

Well, to think about it, it was bound to happen at one point or the other. I'm talking about writing in English instead of my native Dutch. It's been two months that I started travelling and a steadily climbing number of people started “complaining” that they couldn't read my blog. I know everybody is literally dying to read my stories and check the pictures, no matter what country or continent you are in. So, as a favour to them, and as a little experiment for myself, I'll do a entry in a language that I haven't written in in the last four years. It feels strange and unfamiliar, but I think I'll get the hang of it eventually. Hopefully the Dutch crowd back home won't have any troubles with it either.

I haven't been updating the website for some time now for a very simple reason: lack of inspiration. So I have to catch up a bit. Though I'm already in Cambodia, I'll tell about the final weeks in Thailand first. Just for clarity and easiness sake I'll do that in separate updates. The next one will come in a couple of days.

Anybody that wants to see the pictures, just navigate to the left sidebar to the little sideshow and click on it. That will open up a new window in which you can see all of the photographs that I took during the course of my travels.


After the Bangkok riots, I had to pack up and leave that city for a while. The political unstable situation during the Thai new year had been very exciting, but also very exhausting. I had to get away for a couple of days and regain some of that lost energy. Also, during the whole ordeal of violent protests and water fights, I actually managed to pick up a cold.

Mind you, this happened before the whole H1N1 flu epidemic swept the world – and all of the news headlines. I think travelling with a cold these days would be a lot more “interesting” to say the least. Sneezing, coughing and dripping snot in the back of a tuktuk in sweltering hot and humid weather, is not a very pretty sight or experience I can tell you. As far as the last reports go, my home country has been infected, but South-East Asia has not. The closest it got is Hongkong.

Which is a little bit worrying, I think, just because if the so called swine flu manages to lodge itself in a poor country like Laos or Cambodia, the consequences would be a lot more dire than in a western nation like the Netherlands. Most of the countries in this region are very poor and still don't have a proper healthcare system. A lot of people would first turn to homoeopathic and home-grown medicine which obviously wouldn't do a damn thing. Shamans, medicine men and town doctors afterwards; and they would only delay the inevitable. A proper doctor or hospital would be the last resort, but they are very expensive for the local population, or too far away. Waiting too long before seeking professional medical care would only allow the sick to infect more people. Before you know it, it's too late. A chilling thought.

Like I said the last week I rested and recuperated in the north-east of Thailand, in a region called Isan. Which was cool, but to be really honest, the only thing of any interest I experienced during that time was a national park called xxx. I saw elephants, strange tropical birds, monkey's and something that looked like a deer. I trudged trough the thick and clammy jungle with special leech socks on. You have to put these white cotton socks over your real socks and lower part of your pants and tuck them in your trekking shoes to try to keep the little bloodsuckers out.

I kid you not, after five minutes hiking around I had half a dozen of these small bastards crawling over my shoes and socks trying to get in. Which luckily they didn't. The jungle can be a scary place – lot's of bugs, big spiders and scorpions and other creepy crawlers around. It was a bit too much for one of our hiking party – an Italian girl – and every time she had one of the leeches on her socks she would start to scream and stamp her feet. Her face would turn white and she would panic, even if it was on a slippery and muddy hill. Everybody had to stop while her husband – rolling his eyes – hurried to her to clear the small black creatures away. Not surprisingly the trip took a lot longer then expected.


After spending almost two months in Thailand I felt I needed a change of scenery. So last week I crossed the border into the south of Cambodia. I took a bus to a place called Shinoukville, on the coast and one of the few big places in the south. It has a reputation of being a party town – which it lives up to - and I met a lot of cool people. Including a friend (Tette) from Leeuwarden that I didn't see for a couple of years.


The last couple of days we have been hanging around with a group of like minded individuals (Canadian, British and of course Dutch) and drink beer, hire mopeds and drive around, and in general be very lazy. Funny enough, everyone is travelling in the same direction: north. So tomorrow we're off to the capital Phomn Phen. I think I should leave at that and tell you all about Cambodia and the shenanigans of our little troupe in the next episode of the Great Escape.

Till next time!