Thoughts on leaving SE Asia

When we left Nepal, I wrote up a list of things that had either amused us, or kept cropping up in conversation. It's really a list for ourselves, but you may find it an interesting read.

1. cambodia - pyjamas as day leisure wear (just like Liverpool but choice of design different) .
2.Cambodia and Vietnam - everything everywhere has a security guard outside. Either it's some sort of philinthropic employment or there was a big need.
3. Scooters everywhere serving the role of family car. I saw father, mother newborn babe in arms and toddler standing at from all on one back. Not a helmet between them. Started to get used to sights like this everywhere.
4. TV shows on bus videos of variety show style entertainment in a UK 1970s Saturday night kind of style. Much rehearsed talking through microphones inbetween musical interludes. Drum rols obviously sounding off a joke!
5. Some Cambodian men really had faces shaped like the ones at The Bayon (but smaller of course).
6. Lots of single Western men over 40 holidaying alone!
7. Skinny cows in Cambodia. The government were so concerned they have issued directives to get them fattened up.
8. Vietnam - skinny parents with really fat kids.
9. Vehicles - it's either a scooter or a proper drug dealer (because that's what they would be in Liverpool) SUV. Someone around here has got money!
10.Communism - what communism? If you mean one party rule and no elections with announcers on loud speakers in the streets at 6am (Vietnam and Laos).
11. "Where are you from?" question back to people not taken as a funny joke as found in Nepal.
12. Red circular marks on people's bodies. Greg thought they were former victims of torture, but it turns out that it's a local remedy (Vietnam & Cambodia) for pressing a hot cup against body if not feeling well. It expresses badness.
13. Little shrines outside houses/developments for the spirits to live in when you disturb them by building your house or making a car park etc.
14. Denomonations of money with just too many 0 numbers in for me (Liz) to comprehend. I know this won't be a surprise to you.
15.Liverpool FC shirts everywhere. They love British football here and we were great disappointments to the football fans who tried to engage us in conversations on it. Fernando who?
16. Just hot hot hot (except northern Vietnam) 30C average daytime temps.