We visited South-East Asia in 2024, but were very limited by the weather at the time of year we were there. We had always intended to travel through Laos, into northern Vietnam , then all the way south to the Mekong delta and finally across to Cambodia before going home. In the event we were limited to northern Laos and northern Vietnam, and promised ourselves that we would go back to finish the journey.
Two years later, and we have done just that. This time we had a very short stay in KL before flying to Vientiane. We only visited one other place in Laos before going to Vietnam, then making our way into Cambodia. We flew home with a one-night stopover in Singapore. The trip took just under six weeks.
I've divided the trip into sections:
Each section has its own story and pictures.
There is no section for Singapore. We arrived late in the afternoon, took the MRT into a station near our hotel, ate nearby, slept, then went back to the airport in the morning for our flight home. Nothing to see here.
We were really happy to get into Perth twenty minutes early - gave us lots of time to get out to Oakford, where we were to spend the night. The plane pulled into its bay, the seatbelt sign went off, and people stood up and started to get their luggage out of the lockers when the captain announced that due to a security problem at the terminal we were unable to disembark. No details.
I texted our relatives in Oakford and discovered that there was a bomb scare. A man had screamed abuse and thrown down a bag onto the outside concourse before running off. The airport was evacuated where possible and locked down for everyone else, and the bomb squad had been called. We spent an hour and a half waiting on the plane, before being permitted to leave. To give the staff their due, they were very quick in getting us through once we were off the plane. It was an interesting way to finish the trip.
Overall we managed to visit most of the places we thought we might go to. The weather was appallingly hot most of the time - the local people complained that it was hotter then they expected, and they fled to air conditioning too. We normally explore places on foot, and the heat meant that we generally went out early, walked around until a late lunch, then went back to the hotel to cool down before emerging around sunset, when it started to cool down a bit. Amazingly, Singapore was the coolest place we stopped in!