Taking the fam to South East Asia

[DrYouth]

At the airport...
The troops are travel ready.
Travelling with teenagers is different than with kids... different energy, ready for responsibility.
I can see how this is going to be good for morale and discipline.
My wife and I have some good war stories from previous travel experiences to share.
Opportunities to relax and r&r but also ready to snap to attention if needed.

[DrYouth]

Got back last night.

Great trip.

Started in Cambodia which is an interesting place.
Not really over the very recent civil war... it's a one party state...
The currency is essentially US$... no one even mentions the state currency...
They love their YouTube.
Traffic is a free for all.

Checked out Angkor Wat.
People are serious about their Buddhism all over the region.
Most of the folks we met learned English in their local Pagoda and were monks for a few years. More or less an expectation of the menfolk.
Really friendly and kind folks.
Much of the tourism is Chinese and the local people are both envious and disdainful of the Chinese "gringos".
The Chinese are often dressed to the nines, taking selfies on the temple ruins.

Next we went to Laos... which was under a haze of smoke from the local slash and burn agriculture.
An ongoing environmental tragedy.
The communist party is not a functioning entity... people are basically expected to donate their services to the state in the hope of acquiring very limited paid positions.
Again the people love their social media and are proud of their access to it, unlike their Chinese neighbours.
We trekked for 3 days into the hills and visited some villages. A range of poverty... but overall folks seemed to be getting by and getting many of their kids to school. People seemed genuinely happy for the most part. The kids in particular were curious to meet us as were some of the adults. Our hosts seemed very proud of the accommodations they were able to offer us. These folks had more means. They had a few light bulbs and access to satellite data networks of very limited bandwidth.

Finally we arrived in Thailand which seemed marginally more functional.
They have created a very "tourism friendly" society... but not terribly friendly to their own folks who basically appear to be foreign workers in their own country in the tourism heavy regions. The local people are less genuinely friendly, probably as a result... few of them speak much English. Their seems to be more Islamic influence, many more headscarves.

It was good for our kids to get exposure to life outside the narrow scope of our world. They enjoyed it and I think they are somewhat less soft than when they left.

[heydaralon]

Got back last night.

Great trip.

Started in Cambodia which is an interesting place.
Not really over the very recent civil war... it's a one party state...
The currency is essentially US$... no one even mentions the state currency...
They love their YouTube.
Traffic is a free for all.

Checked out Angkor Wat.
People are serious about their Buddhism all over the region.
Most of the folks we met learned English in their local Pagoda and were monks for a few years. More or less an expectation of the menfolk.
Really friendly and kind folks.
Much of the tourism is Chinese and the local people are both envious and disdainful of the Chinese "gringos".
The Chinese are often dressed to the nines, taking selfies on the temple ruins.

Next we went to Laos... which was under a haze of smoke from the local slash and burn agriculture.
An ongoing environmental tragedy.
The communist party is not a functioning entity... people are basically expected to donate their services to the state in the hope of acquiring very limited paid positions.
Again the people love their social media and are proud of their access to it, unlike their Chinese neighbours.
We trekked for 3 days into the hills and visited some villages. A range of poverty... but overall folks seemed to be getting by and getting many of their kids to school. People seemed genuinely happy for the most part. The kids in particular were curious to meet us as were some of the adults. Our hosts seemed very proud of the accommodations they were able to offer us. These folks had more means. They had a few light bulbs and access to satellite data networks of very limited bandwidth.

Finally we arrived in Thailand which seemed marginally more functional.
They have created a very "tourism friendly" society... but not terribly friendly to their own folks who basically appear to be foreign workers in their own country in the tourism heavy regions. The local people are less genuinely friendly, probably as a result... few of them speak much English. Their seems to be more Islamic influence, many more headscarves.

It was good for our kids to get exposure to life outside the narrow scope of our world. They enjoyed it and I think they are somewhat less soft than when they left.

Big deal.

[Speaker to Animals]

Cool trip.

[heydaralon]

Cool trip.

Don't stoke his ego. He came here to gloat and act like a big man. He thinks he's better than us. Better than me. Big man and his big trip to Vietnam. I needed that money. I wanted that money but he pissed it away on some half assed spiritual journey. Un fucking believable.

[Smitty-48]

Sounds like a pain in the ass.

Just sitting on a commercial airliner for that long is a hard pass.

Note to self; just drive to Florida, play some golf, and have some cocktails, never mind Asia

[Speaker to Animals]

Yeah, flying to the other side of the planet sucks big time. Of course, I only did that in a C-5 troop pod thingy up at the top of the C-5, and there's always a bunch of Army douchebags in there talking trash about aircraft when they have no idea what they are saying (it seems to be a pattern). But still. Commercial must be like that except you get to watch some shitty Disney movie and the bathroom is designed to make it difficult to kill yourself.

[Smitty-48]

Military cargo transport is the only way to fly. Hammock, sleeping pills, wake me up when we get there.

[Smitty-48]

There's better stuff to do in America anyways.

Rather go to Big Sur than Ankor wat, rather go to Chattanooga than Cambodia. Fuck Cambodia, what a hellhole.

20 hours on a plane, to get to Cambodia? That's Kafkaesque.

[Smitty-48]

There is only one thing which could get me on a plane to Indochina, and that would be Vietnam War battlefields.

But I don't know if the Communists will let you get in to the ones I want to recce.