Favourite Moments From Asia
June 28, 2017
I recently came home from a 4 month trip over Asia. I got this opportunity because my dad is currently travelling the world, and since I'd finished school and wasn't doing anything, he invited me to come with him for a few months.
I figured I'd talk about some of my favourite things that happened to me in those four months and show you some pictures. The list isn't in any particular order.
Waterfall in Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang is a city in the northern part of Lao. It's a very authentic and quite old city. You won't find any skyscrapers or even chain restaurants here but it was very beautiful. My favourite part from there was definitely the Kuang Si falls. It has three tiers leading to a 50 meter drop and several places where you can take a swim.
These pictures are not photoshopped at all. The colours looked exactly like that and it was probably the most beautiful and breathtaking sights on the whole trip. If you ever find yourself in Lao, it's definitely worth it to take a trip to Luang Prabang just for this.
Elephant Jungle Sanctuary - Chiang Mai
Here's a thing I didn't know before this trip: Elephant Riding is NOT OKAY!
My dad told me this while we were in Thailand and we set out to find a place that treated the elephants with respect and took good care of them. The place we found is called Elephant Jungle Sanctuary in Chiang Mai and it is just absolutely amazing.
You meet and feed them and afterwards you give the elephants a mud bath and go swimming in a waterfall with them. They are not overworked, ridden or abused; just loved and cared for.
You can really see how truly happy they are.
From their website: "Our mission is to provide as many elephants as possible with the good health, freedom, and happiness they truly deserve. "
If you are ever in Chiang Mai, this is definitely a thing you should do!
The Great Wall of China
We went to one of the less tourist-infected places (called Mutianyu) and since
it was the winter period and very early in the morning, we were pretty much
alone for the first hour or so.
We took the route to the left. It’s shorter but steeper so it was pretty
tough to walk up but wow was it worth it.
It was so beautiful and I honestly
thought I was dreaming cause it was so surrealistic.
Phare the Cambodian Circus
While this is technically called a circus, it is more of an acrobatic theatre show.
The show we saw was called Sokha and it was a true story about a girl and her haunting memories from the Khmer Rouge (under the Pol Pot regime). The emotions and the story was strong and beautiful and the acrobatics were downright insane.
I can 100% recommend that if you are every in Siem Reap, you should go see a show by Phare the Cambodian Circus.
Hot Air Balloon in Siem Reap
Filed under 'Things I never thought I should experience' and 'is this the real life, is this just fantasy'.
Flying in a hot air balloon over Siem Reap and seeing the sunset is just not something I ever thought would happen but here we are.
It has always been a thing I wanted to do but was too terrified to ever try so I was admittedly a bit unnerved when my dad suggested it. But in the end I felt super safe. It was only scary at first when we set off and then it became fun and amazing
Ha Long Bay - Vietnam
This was definitely my favourite thing from Vietnam! It's located in the Quang Ninh province in North Vietnam. It's really popular and for good reason as it is one of the seven wonders of nature.
We got a room on something called backpackers cruise via Airbnb for a pretty good price. It was a bit cheaper than some of the other cruises, but it certainly didn't feel like anything was missing (too be fair it might be more expensive than I think... My dad was the one paying so)
Every meal we got an overload of delicious fresh vietnamese food. You might have heard about how amazing vietnamese food is and I definitely agree (even though my favourite is the food from Thailand).
On top of that we got a nice looking room with private bathroom.
Now the most important thing about this, is obviously the things we saw. One of the places we visited was Sung Sot Cave which means amazing cave. It has several surprising formation, my favourite being a sloth .
We also went carjacking in the Luon Cave which was awesome! There were even a lot of monkeys running around looking at us.
All of these amazing things could have been ruined if we'd been there with a terrible group. Thankfully we were lucky to have a group of wonderful, lovely and hilarious people!
We even met up with two of them later in Siem Reap! (Shoutout to Flavia and Clancy)
All in all, it was freaking amazing
Thai Farm Cooking School - Chiang Mai
Alright fun story... We had a bit of a mixup with this... We were waiting outside our hotel for the car to come pick us up and one pulls up and asks us if we're there for the cooking class. We say 'YES' and jump in the car. We meet our instructor and all of the others and start driving for a very long time.Long story short we were on the wrong bus and after a lot of back and forth between the other cooking class we ended up switching with ..... and boy was that a good switch.
Thai Farm Cooking School is SO COOL! We made so much delicious food, learned a lot about Thai spices and ingredients they often use plus we met some cool people. We even got a cook book from there so I am definitely planning to make some stuff for my family at some point.If you decide to do this, hope that you get Was as your instructor cause she is all sorts of amazing!
Cherry Blossoms - Japan
I don't know if this seem somewhat underwhelming to you but let me be clear; I am a sucker for beautiful flowers, plants and trees and being in Japan in the Cherry Blossom season was definitely a dream come true.
Everybody kept telling us: 'oh you might be too late, it's supposed to fall in march this year so it will all be gone in april'... well those people were wrong cause everything was blooming beautifully when we were there.
Dog Cafe - Tokyo
If you ever visit a dog café and it's NOT one of the best things you've ever tried in your life, then I don't think we could ever be friends.
This specific dog café is called Dog Heart and it's placed near Yoyogi Park in Tokyo.
The dog I'm sitting with on the right, just jumped up in my lap and fell asleep and my heart basically melted.
The majority of the dogs are small poodles but there were a few other dogs. One of my favourites were a giant golden retriever. It was the only big dog and it was basically a giant teddybear.
You can come in a sit with the dogs like we did, but if you want you can also rent a dog and take them for a walk. It's slightly more expensive but still probably worth it.
North Korea
Now as I said in the beginning, this list isn’t really in order. That
being said, going to North Korea was without a doubt my
favourite thing on the trip.
favourite thing on the trip.
Now before anybody freaks out and says that going to North Korea is supporting the regime or something, then please calm down. It was more supporting our North Korean guides and learning more about the country.
Obviously everything we learned was from the North Korean perspective, which we knew before going in, but it was still interesting (and at times frightening) to learn what they truly believed was true.
We were in the capital Pyongang which is the more fortunate and rich part of the country. Without knowing it for certain, I’d say that the people there truly don’t know that their so called ‘great leader’ is truly evil. I honestly don’t think they were afraid.
However I think the people in the poorer areas are too afraid to say anything because they know at least some of the harsh truth.
Our Korean guides were honestly amazing. They were nice and one of them, a woman called Lee, was the most hilarious and sarcastic person I met on the entire trip. I was honestly kind of in love with her.
Our Australian guides were also great. They'd both been there a few times before, and one of them was actually on the trip where Otto Warmer was detained. It was truly devastating what happened to him and I feel for his family.
Our Australian guides were also great. They'd both been there a few times before, and one of them was actually on the trip where Otto Warmer was detained. It was truly devastating what happened to him and I feel for his family.
In conclusion: Interesting and a bit scary but overall an experience I wouldn’t be without. The people I met will forever be in my heart and I will never forget everything that is happening there.
If you want to know more about the trip then check out my dads podcast in your podcast app!
It's called 'The Radio Vagabond'. It's technically over the entirety of his 5 year trip but I'm in some of them.
You can also check this playlist from my youtube channel called Across Asia or my dads youtube channel
So that was all from me this time! If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.
Have you ever been in Asia or are you from Asia? I'd love to hear about your experiences from this amazing continent!
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