Summary of Asia

Asia is a sharp contrast to camping in New Zealand or backpacking in South America. It was an eye opening, exciting leg of our trip.

-Fresh Fruit (Pineapples, Mangos, Papaya…list goes on) everywhere you look. Absolutely delicious!!

-Don’t need to mention the food anymore, wow!

-The local people in all of the countries (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand) were very very friendly and helpful. Renee and I had a hard time with people approaching us as it felt like a sales pitch for a tour or souvenir, but usually they just want to visit and practice their English.

-In South America the roads were sometimes scary but the drivers were good. In Asia it is the opposite, the roads are good but the drivers are terrible. It goes like this:

Question - “We need a driver for our bus, can you drive?”

Answer - “Nope”

Reply - “Good enough, you start tomorrow.”

-If you are on a tight budget, Asia is the place to go. Outside the tourist towns, some meals would be so cheap, we truly felt terrible paying only $1 for an amazing meal. You almost want to give them more money because they are hardly making $0.10 profit on the sale.

-In most places the locals eat rice or rice noodles 3 meals per day. Renee and I found it funny that they would buy “White WonderBread” for the tourist to eat at breakfast. They assumed all tourists liked toast in the morning, but that’s NOT toast…It’s Cardboard! Please give me what you are having for breakfast…breakfast curry on rice, yum.

We are now in Europe visiting some family for a week, then off we go to Belgium and France followed by several countries in Eastern Europe starting with Croatia!

COLIN