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Holiday Recommendations?


adanac

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At least in PP, you use USD for anything costing more than 1 USD and they give you a fistful of Riel in change. Naturally, you lose out slightly each time this happens, but for most Westerners it shouldn't be an issue. Just try to resist the urge to give cute babies stationed outside temples money - I swear the little blighters are trained to look cute from birth and it must be very lucrative for their parents. Only other time I have felt compelled to give money to a child beggar was in Jakarta, where some oxygen thief had left a little girl, all of about 2 years old, sitting out front of a shopping centre with a sign around her neck asking for money. Bare rock wall, nothing to sit on, just staring out into the distance.

 

It was getting dark, starting to rain, and there was no sign of an adult anywhere near her - my Indo companion assured me that her minders would be close by (doubtless watching their 'investment'), but I felt like total shit leaving that kid sitting there to go off to Hard Rock Cafe and 'live the high life'. It was made worse by the fact that the other little urchins who hung around outside Plaza Indonesia were straight out of 'Oliver Twist' - she was the innocent among thieves, doomed to join their ranks when the time came. Where the fuck are the NGOs when that shit is going down right in the middle of an increasingly affluent city like Jakarta ? I knew I was part of the problem when I gave her money, but I had already handed out bread rolls to the Oliver Twist crowd after they hassled me incessantly - its tough trying to save the world single-handedly. :banghead:

 

I can step straight over limbless beggars in BKK without even looking down, and I've walked past plenty of women using their kids as a begging tool, but seeing a kid alone like that was hard to handle. The bastards who put her there knew that, and I hope Buddha has something suitably unpleasant lined up for each of them further down the track. The PP babies were all with a parent, and appeared to be the apple of their mother's eye - boggles the mind that any mother could leave a child alone in Jakarta.

 

Apologies for derailing this thread - its a grey, unpleasant day here and my mood has gone south big time.

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Sure, but the new guy wanted some holiday recommendations, not a long-winded apology for my white knight syndrome. I really need to be as callous as some of the old-timers here - its clearly the secret to survival in Asia. I suspect that child abuse hits a particular nerve in those of us who had shit upbringings, but I dont recall ever being left outside a shopping centre to beg.

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Hello, I have travelled to Bangkok and Phuket as a single male 5 or 6 times but not recently. I will be in Asia for 6 weeks with my parents, aunt and uncle. They have never been to asia and im the tour guide. Where would you take them to see asia? In Thailand and possibly Cambodia, Loas, Berma, Vietnam? Specifically what citys will they enjoy?

 

Hi Adanac,

 

we haven't heard back from you. Could you specifiy, what your relatives are most interested in to do and to see?

 

If you would do a tour like yours I probably would plan a schedule like this:

 

LOS:

First: Several days in a nice resort at one of the nice beaches (near Phuket or at one of the island, BUT not Ko Samui). BKK at the beginning is IMHO to stressful, better is ease into the SEA way of life outside BKK.

BKK

Northern Thailand (Chang Mai/Chang Rai) with an easy tour into the jungle/to the hill tribes.

 

Burma:

Yangoon

river cruise to Bagan (the thousand temples of Bagan)

 

Cambo:

Angkor (at least 3 days)

PP 2-3 days

maybe a few days to a national park or to the sea (Shihanoukville, but not in August because of rain season)

Or here a river cruise on the Mekong. Must best fantastic as well.

 

Vietnam

 

Laos

 

Maybe to Japan as well, but it's a completely different experience to anything SEA. I would leave out China on this trip.

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