A Chill in the Air

Fall has arrived in Seoul, I had to figure how to turn the heat on in my apartment, and spicy soup dinners can once again be enjoyed without sweating through all clothing. However my time in Seoul is very short now, I've got all my flights set and leave Nov. 6. For those of you interested here is a partial itinerary:

Nov. 6 leave Seoul and arrive in Chiang Mai, Thailand via Hong Kong and Bangkok. The next week will be taken up by chilling out in Chiang Mai, possibly spending a night or two in some smaller mountain town, and most certainly a two or three day trek into the hills to visit the 'hill tribes' (Karen, Hmong, Ahka, Lahu, etc.).

Nov. 14 leave Chiang Mai for the dark territory of Yangon, Myanmar. I'll spend the next two weeks in this country well off the beaten path. My schedule here will be looser, I'm sure transportation will not always be ideal, to say the least. Ideally I'd like to visit Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan, and Inle Lake or Hsipaw but we'll see what happens.

Nov. 28 leave Yangon bound for Phnom Penh and a holiday in Cambodia. My plans will probably not stray too much from Phnom Penh and Angkor/Siem Reap. I'd love to get up into Preah Vihear, but it all depends on time, cost, and road conditions.

For all of the above I will be on my own, and it should be quite an experience but on Dec. 10th all that will change. On that glorious Sunday I fly to Saigon to meet my compadre Andrew. From there we will explore Vietnam, probably focusing more on the northern regions around Hanoi before crossing into Laos and visiting Luang Prabang. As long as I'm back in Bangkok by Dec. 31st it will be a great trip.

So that's that... and the rest of the Beijing stuff is coming, really it is.