So I just returned to Guangzhou after a grand total of 22 days traveling around Southeast Asia for Chinese New Year. It was an incredible time. I visited Hanoi, Moc Chau, and Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon in Vietnam, Vientiane and Vang Vieng in Laos, and Kamphong Cham, Siem Reap, and Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Along the way, I met up and traveling with over half of the current Luce Scholars class, saw some amazing sights, and had plenty of delicious food.
Highlights of the trip include: having a run in with the Lao police after relaxing along the banks of the Mekong River in Vientiane, spending two hours drinking beer and eating snails with four random Vietnamese men (then subsequently adding them on Facebook) on the side of the road in Saigon, having some pre-Tet (the Vietnamese name for Chinese New Year) celebrations with the some friends of my friends in both Hanoi and Moc Chau, boiling all of my clothes, spending a day biking around the temples of the Angkor temple complex, being confronted with the horrors of the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnam War, motoing around the Lao countryside and venturing into a cave, drinking coconuts while having a conversation with a 13-year-old Cambodian girl (whose parents were so proud of her English) who wants to be a doctor when she grows up, drinking absurd amounts of coffee in cafe after cafe in Hanoi...
More details and pictures will follow, but now I really need to go get me some dumplings and peanuts. Because the food in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia was absolutely delicious, don't get me wrong, but Chinese food is still superior.
中国（菜）万岁！Long live China (/Chinese food)!
Highlights of the trip include: having a run in with the Lao police after relaxing along the banks of the Mekong River in Vientiane, spending two hours drinking beer and eating snails with four random Vietnamese men (then subsequently adding them on Facebook) on the side of the road in Saigon, having some pre-Tet (the Vietnamese name for Chinese New Year) celebrations with the some friends of my friends in both Hanoi and Moc Chau, boiling all of my clothes, spending a day biking around the temples of the Angkor temple complex, being confronted with the horrors of the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnam War, motoing around the Lao countryside and venturing into a cave, drinking coconuts while having a conversation with a 13-year-old Cambodian girl (whose parents were so proud of her English) who wants to be a doctor when she grows up, drinking absurd amounts of coffee in cafe after cafe in Hanoi...
More details and pictures will follow, but now I really need to go get me some dumplings and peanuts. Because the food in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia was absolutely delicious, don't get me wrong, but Chinese food is still superior.
中国（菜）万岁！Long live China (/Chinese food)!
