You really get what you pay for when you fly with Bangladesh Biman Airlines. The prayer in Arabic just before take off from Bangkok didn’t inspire confidence that the plane would hold together for the few hours it took to get to Dhaka either. But it did and after receiving my hotel token and surrendering my passport to the dodgy looking customs officials I was given a five minute bus ride through the overcrowded streets to the cramped housing estate where my crappy hotel was. The next day the getting the connecting flight to India I pushed and shoved to get my passport back and when I asked about checking in my backpack I was just waved through. I could take it on as hand luggage even though it did weigh more than me. Before getting onto the place security frisked it a bit, I was afraid they were going to put me through the x-ray machinr. Then after another quick prayer we were off.

After a few days in Savannakhet everybody was disappearing and it was time for me to make a move too. Customs at the Lao border was lax to say the least, their main concern seemed to be that I pay the departure tax before I scrambled down the riverbank to where all the boats were moored. The ferry that was due to leave looked like a large cargo boat with benches on either side. The packed vessel took about half an hour to cross the mighty Mekong and dock in Mukdahan, Thailand, obviously a very different country. I missed Lao already.

Fed up with the weather in North Vietnam, I decided it was time to head for Lao and the promise of sunshine. I didn’t know much a bout Lao so I got a bus straight to capital Vientaine, a roundabout journey that took over twenty-two hours. I had no trouble at the border, but the bus was held up due to overloading, or more likely a shortage of bribes. I spent a few days looking round the city, amazed at how quiet it is compared to the other places I’ve visited in SE Asia.

After deciding I’d stayed long enough in Phnom Penh, I finally went and got my Vietnamese visa, which was faster and cheaper to get through a travel agent than through the embassy. The way I choose to get to Vietnam was a bus down to the docs and from there a boat across the border to Chau Doc. It was a pleasant cruise down the Mekong, but there seems to be a lot more red tape on the Vietnamese side of the border than on the Cambodian side. I stayed a couple of nights in Chau Doc, an ugly old French town, whose only attraction is a hill dotted with Buddhist temples called Sam Mountain. Later that night I met the pedicab driver who took me there. Telling me that I was his only customer that I day I bought him a drink. He then went on to tell me how he used to work in an office but had to go to be admitted to a mental institute after, from what I could tell, killing one of his co-workers. Thankfully the café closed soon after this and I said goodbye looking behind me to make sure he wasn’t following.

Sad to be leaving Siem Reap I boarded the bus to Phnom Penh and several hours later I found myself being assaulted by motto and tuk-tuk drivers. Each holding up a card of the guesthouse from which they get a commission for every customer they deliver safely. I got one of the quieter motto drivers to take me to the Last Home Guesthouse, which I soon realized was a short five-minute walk away. At the guesthouse I arranged (my motto driver arranged) to go to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and Toul Sleng genocide museum (S21), some of the gruesome reminders of the countries recent past. After visiting these and the national museum there doesn’t appear to be much to do, during the day at least. At night there are a seemingly endless number of bars to choose from.

I read in the Siem Reap guide of a place called Geckoo’s Nest, which has a dorm for three dollars a night. So I got on a motto and after a lot of direction asking we arrived at the “melting pot of backpackers”. After I check in I soon realize that it’s actually a melting pot of me, since I’m the only guest. It’s a nice place though, cheap and best of all has hammocks. During the next couple of weeks more people do arrive, mostly Hungarians though, since the guy who runs the place is Hungarian. To see the temples of Angkor Wat I rent a bike for three days. When the three days were over I glad not to have bought a week ticket, I don't think my ass could have taken another four days on those roads. After that I ended up visiting a floating village on a trip that some of the Hungarians had arranged. To my dismay they started doling out sweets to the kids, while the local school is in desperate need of funds for expansion. Of course I said nothing.

A freezing “we’ve got air-conditioning and we’re going to use it” overnight bus later and I’m back in Bangkok and the safety of Suk 11. From there it’s onto Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat). The guidebooks don’t carry much information on it, but being the second biggest city in Thailand I decide there must be plenty to do. I’m wrong. I do get in a day trip to Phimai, the site of a well-preserved pre-Angkorian Khmer temple. Fed up and hungry I returned to Bangkok to regroup and plan my venture into Cambodia.

The long bus Journey back to Chiang Mai followed by a night bus brought me back to Bangkok. You now you’re back in the capital when the taxi driver first drives you round the block, then tries to charge you twice what the meter clearly reads. My spirits are picked up though when a middle-aged woman on the Skytrain sees the bad mood I'm in and offers me her seat.

After a long four-hour journey the bus finally arrived in sleepy Pai, Northern Thailand. Surrounded by forestry and mountains Pai is a popular trekking destination. Warm during the day and chilly at night it seems to have a near perfect climate, at least in winter. I took me a while to settle on a guesthouse but it was worth the wait. Perched on the edge of the river, I got a room with a balcony and hammock overlooking the bridge, where I was to spend much of the next week or so. It reminded me of being at the beach, especially with the local after hours spot, the Bamboo Bar just down the road, but instead of palm trees and ocean you had mountains and forestry to look at. I rented a bike for a couple of days so as to see all the sights, the waterfall, the hot springs, the other waterfall and the ever-present temple on the hill.

It wasn’t the best of starts to my trip when my connecting flight in Copenhagen was delayed. As everything in the airport was shutting down one-by-one I began to wonder if there were any flights back to Dublin. Arriving in Bangkok three and a half hours late and in the dark I thought it best to get a taxi straight to my hostel. After a few minutes trying to explain to the taxi driver that the hostel had the same name as the street it was on, he finally gave up and just drove me there. I was having a bit of trouble trying to find the hostel in the dark, so I began to panic and booked into the first place I could for about twice the cost. Once my bags were offloaded I went for a stroll down the street only to stumble onto the hostel, and a few friendly faces to boot.