Grumpy Young(ish) Man...

Well, it's all over now sadly, so time to sum up. I've also started making a Rough Guide (good title that!) to RTW trips, but as it was turning into a major tome, I've parked it for the minute!

First of all, what didn't I enjoy??? (the positive, happy bunny email will follow...)

Conway's dislikes

Immigration controls

On a 6 month trip, you cross a lot of borders, nearly all of which require (outside of Europe) require you to fill in a form, with lots of irritating questions...

Race
This was asked by Brunei, Lao and Cambodia. Why? The standard smartalec response back in South African apartheid days was 'human', though I was more tempted by the slightly surreal '110m hurdles'...

Occupation
a) Why does this matter?
b) Who checks what you say anyway!
For ease of passage, I stated 'accountant' rather than 'unemployed travel bum', but if I had stated 'marxist freedom fighter', 'anti government journalist' or 'pimp' would I have been allowed in?

Employer
Not having a current employer, I stated Vantis. The idea that immigration control would phone up Vantis checking my records is laughable, but then I knew that HR would pretend for me. Well probably (and after a bribe or two)

Address in that country
Um, quite often I hadn't pre booked, so I just quoted where I might stay...anyway, as I would then be travelling around the country, I wouldn't be there anyway!

Sarawak
Part of Malaysia, but not for immigration control purposes! Having two active stamps for one country struck me as a bit silly!

Day trips
If only all border guards were as understanding as those on one of the Malaysia Thailand borders, where men crossing for a bit of, ahem, pleasure with ladies of the night are waved through with no passport stamps (to stop wives and partners finding out!)

Countries using the US$

It's bad enough trying to work out one foreign currency, but when a country (like Lao or Cambodia) uses several it gets very confusing! Having to use US$ for major expenses in Lao and Cambodia (such as hotels and visas) meant trawling around bureau de change in Thailand looking for one with a decent supply of dollar bills!

Asian Traffic

Manic motorbikes, scary bus drivers, non existant pavements, pollution, noise...

Aussie outback flies!

As annoying as everyone says they are...it's as if an Australian pied piper led all the continent's flies to the deserted centre of the country and left them there!

Logging

Mass logging is still going on in many countries, will they learn before it's too late?

Travelling to Fraser island from Brisbane

4 hours each way, sitting sideways in the back of a wallowy military style Land Cruiser. Agony!

New Zealand TV

Pretty poor really, Channel 1 news is as hard hitting and international as East Anglia today...(Australia's ABC news is a lot better) a distinct lack of home produced drama too (so they watch Coronation Street instead...)

The Ghan

So much of Australia's countryside, frankly, is really boring. A long overnight train trip like the Ghan across the outback sounded really interesting, but in practice, after a few hours of staring out at the same thorny scrub and bushes, that nice short airpane flight alternative becomes really tempting...the seats are poorly designed too, no foot room, and an annoying foot rest that gets in the way (my one was broken so they had to tie it up with string!)

Great Barrier Reef

Unless you're comfortable in water (and believe me being in the middle of an ocean, several miles from land is a lot different than the local swimming pool), stick to Australia's excellent acquariums, where you can watch the exotic fish close up without getting seasick or doing the yard of seawater!

Cambodian TV World Cup coverage

Putting adverts on during 'pauses' e.g. corners, injuries, but not short adverts you can cut back from but nice long, full length ones so you keep missing play!!! Perhaps that's why there were so many feigned injuries, they were so Camdodian tv could run a toothpaste advert for the 20th time that game.

Most annoying cancellation

The cancellation of my helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon, due to lack of numbers - it still rankles, especially when I recently spoke to someone who said how much she had enjoyed her Grand Canyon helicopter ride, a real highlight!!!
Having to get to Manly by bus, due to a ferry strike - the ferry there through Sydney Harbour, and past the Opera House is a Sydney highlight.

Worst accommodation

Poinsettia Motel, Cairns Australia - truly horrible place, yukky ancient looking room with geriatric pointless air con, permanently-on-low-and-nothing-else fan, bathroom window that didn't shut so all the hot humid air came in from outside...they never emptied my bin once in 3 days, and wouldn't let me store my luggage there on my final day. Oh, did I mention, POINSETTIA MOTEL CAIRNS

Okid Cottage, Johor Bahru Malaysia - Johor Bahru is a dull place. Staying in a business suburb 10km from town is torture...the highlight of my stay there was watching a giant game of snakes and ladders in the shopping mall!

Least favourite places

No places were without their good points, and I managed to miss out NZ's Palmerston North (which John Cleese had a good go at -"If you wish to kill yourself but lack the courage to, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick"!) and drove through Hamilton (was everyone at Tim and April's wedding from Hamilton?)

Los Angeles - too many scary people, even when you're in the nice areas (Santa Monica and Venice are attractive coastal suburbs) to feel totally comfortable...

Canberra - Australia's pointless capital. In the middle of nowhere and ridiculously laid out, so that it takes forever to cross from one side to the other. A few good museums, so I'd get the contents moved to Sydney or Melbourne before flattening the city and returning the land to pasture!

Johor Bahru, Malaysia - deeply dull, don't stay here when Singapore is short distance away across the causeway!

Phnom Penh - just a bit horrible really, the dirt, noise, nutty motorbikes, beggars...and it floods everywhere when it rains. Like Bangkok, but worse...

And finally...

Coming Home!!!

Coming back after such a trip is horrible, especially landing at Luton Airport! I think, like Sun UV exposure, it would be have been better if I built up my Chav exposure gradually rather than having such a strong exposure on my first day

Olympian feats...then Back to Reality

Hello again
Where was I? Ah yes in Lucerne (Luzern) Switzerland.

Many places have a funicular or cable car to take you up to the top of a mountain, where you get a nice view. Lucerne has several mountains you can visit, and more than one way to get up too! I chose Mount Pilatus, as you can go up and down by two methods.

To go up, a short trolleybus ride took me to the cablecar station, where I got on my 'gondola'. I don't have a great head for heights, but was fine. As long as we stayed moving, that is. When the system stops, the gondolas do sway about in a slightly alarming manner! You do get a grand view of the countryside, and can hear the jangle of the cowbells (yes, their cows do genuinely wear them).
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Two thirds of the way up, you change onto a conventional cable car for the journey to the summit. Which we couldn't see, as it was covered in thick cloud, which at least solved any vertigo issues!
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On reaching the summit, it was covered in thick cloud, thunder was rumbling all around us, steady rain was falling and a biting gale was blowing around.
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Then suddenly the cloud cover lifted. It was still freezing and wet, but at least we could enjoy the view.
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The journey down was by the world's steepest funicular (up to 48 degrees) quite an engineering marvel in it's time. On reaching the bottom, we transferred to a boat, for a relaxing journey back across the lake to Lucerne. A very pleasant journey, basking in the sun (!) and earwigging a strange conversation between some local teenage school children and some American students. The boat had a slightly pointless first class section upstairs unless you like solitude! Mount Pilatus was naturally bathed in sunshine by this point, you can just about see the cablecar on the right hand side of this picture, and note the complete absence of clouds!!!
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Moving on the next day, my next destination was Bern, capital of Switzerland. It was made capital, as a compromise candidate (Zurich was too German, Geneva too French), but is an attractive, if provincial medievel city in it's own right. It's name has bear origins, hence the bear pits around the city....not to everyone's taste perhaps...
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Bern has one of those typically swiss historical clocks, with twirling figures on the hour. It was pretty dull actually, not a patch on the one in Leicester Square! Of more interest was Einstein's former home, and an interesting statue depicting a giant feasting on children! If I ever get caught tucking into pan fried loin of child (with a nice Bearnaise sauce perhaps), I'm blaming the statue for leading me astray!
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Bern is surprisingly lively at night, though as both Germany and Italy had won quarter finals that day, there were plenty of people up for a celebration!

The next day, I headed for Lausanne, in the French sector of Switzerland, and close to Lake Geneva. Another attractive city centre, though disappointingly the Tour de l'Ale contained no beer!
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Lausanne is the headquarters for the Olympic movement, and the Olympic museum is a highlight. Sometimes I think that athletics undersells itself. For example, the photo below isn't me practising for a penalty shootout, but rather the height of the high jump world record! Staggering, as without going on tiptoes, I can't even touch the bar!
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Inspired by the Olympian feats described in the museum, I walked back to my hotel (beers in hand) to watch the England Portugal game. I had a wide choice of channels to watch the game on; apart from French and German TV, Swiss TV has channels in all their three main languages! Not that I exactly needed commentary to describe the penalty shootout...after the game, the streets outside were FULL of Portuguese, which didn't exactly cheer me up!

The next day I took the short journey to Geneva, the final destination on my long journey. Lots more celebrating Portuguese here too, and indeed, compared with the rest of Switzerland, lots more ethnic minorities, which is fitting seeing that Geneva has the European headquarters of the UN, and headquarters of the Red Cross. It has an attractive lakeside location, though the swarms of midges over the lake are a bit offputting!

Geneva has the world's tallest fountain, which to my surprise dated back to the 19th C - I had presumed it was a recent construction by the Ministry for Tourism! It also has the world's longest bench, which is as dull as it sounds...(though perfect for Chelsea to keep their reserves on I guess)
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Of more interest was a visit to the UN. Security was understandably tight, but once inside, the guided tour was very interesting. The building has an interesting history, as previously the ill fated League of Nations was based here. One can argue about how much the UN has achieved over the years, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

My final museum was the Red Cross Museum, a very moving and informative museum showing the origin of the Red Cross, its aim and achivements. A highlight here is the Wall of Time, which shows for every year of the Red Cross's existence (up to almost the present) the wars and natural disasters that happened during that year, simultaneously depressing and educational.
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In summary, I had a great time in Switzerland, the cities are attractive and clean (though with more graffiti than I had expected), the scenery is stunning (mountains and lakes), the trains as punctual and efficient as you'd expect, everyone speaks English and the food and drink is decent too (reflecting the different ethnic groups). And not too expensive too...well compared with London anyway!

So, it was with a heavy heart that I made my way to the airport the next morning, I had booked an early flight to get me home to my empty flat in good time. At the airport station, I saw a sign for a interesting sounding motor musuem, and regretted that I wouldn't have time to see it on this visit, which was probably tempting fate, as on checking in I found that due to a problem with the plane, the flight would be 4 hours late! The really annoying thing subsequently, was that the stupid musuem was actually shut for refurbishment!!!

After hanging around in town for a couple of hours, and doing my good deed for the day by carrying an old lady's bags to the airport, I finally boarded the Easyjet flight home (they had difficulties getting my halo though the door). The final irritation was that the plane disappeared into cloud somewhere over France, so I never got to see the coastline of England below me welcoming me home...the England football team were there to greet me though, it turns out they deliberately missed all those penalties so that they could meet me at the airport - can you think of a better explanation!

Luton Airport. A chavtastic way to come back to earth with a bump, and just as I got on the Thameslink (or whatever they're called this week) train, the heavens opened, with a massive thunderstorm (which apparently flooded and closed the airport soon after!). Still, it was dry by the time I got back to Golders Green, and I was soon back home in my flat, my RTW trip sadly at an end...

I will try and summarise the last six months. It's not easy though!

Mike

P.S. The biggest shock I've had so far on my return, is that during my absence the Golders Green McDonalds shut down! I'm fairly sure the two aren't linked in case you're wondering!

Fond(ue) memories of Switzerland

Evening again (I'm on a roll here!)

Switzerland is an interesting country. It's famously neutral, and indeed has only just joined the UN. It's not in the EU. It has 4 languages, and decides everything by referendum. It's famous for being very ordered and clean (Singapore is known as the Switzerland of Asia). Mountain railways, punctuality, chocolate, cuckoo clocks, cheese with holes in it, Roger Federer...

With these basic images in my mind, and sans guidebook I caught the train to Lugano (beloved of Intrust as you know, Maggie!). A nice journey becomes very scenic as we get near, the train crossing Lake Lugano. On arrival I take the short walk down to the town, where I find my accommodation (the Hotel Dante Lugano), a cracking hotel, one of the best I stayed in on the whole journey, and good value compared with some of the other Swiss places I stayed in. It's the little details that impress, the fruit bowl on reception, the choice of pillows, the frigobar in the room with a selection of free soft drinks, and in a really good location.

Enough of this 'Wish you were here' style hotel woffle! Lugano is a very attractive town, located by a lake and surrounded by mountains. It's in the Italian speaking zone, so all the food and wine is Italian, but being Swiss everything is clean and orderly. It's a nice place to walk around, but very quiet on a Sunday, as virtually every shop was shut!
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Annoyingly, I still couldn't buy an English language guidebook, and as there weren't any internet cafes either, couldn't look anything up there either. In Milan I used a map from the hotel (sponsored by La Tour sexy dance floor restaurant!) to find the tourist office. Here, I used another hotel map, which indicated a funicular going up one of the local mountains, Mount Bre. I took this to the top, where the view was nice but not brilliant (as you couldn't see in every direction), then hot footed it back down again to catch the England Ecuador game!
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The next day I caught the train to Zurich, a very scenic route across the Alps, using several pioneering tunnels and loops to climb and descend. Some classic chocolate box scenery, viewed from a very comfortable train!
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While on this journey, we crossed to the German speaking section, the most spoken language. Swiss German, as a spoken dialect, is significantly different to Classic German, and they use many French words such as merci for thank you (though pronounced more like the English mercy!) To prove the Swiss Germans are significantly different from the Germans, the Swiss LOST on a penalty shoot out this World Cup!

Zurich is Switzerland's largest city, and a global banking centre (and no I don't have an account there). Finding accommodation proved to be a headache, the only vacancy the tourist board had was in a divey place above a bar! I wonder if this shortage was football related, as Zurich isn't that far from southern Germany, and is also where the headquarters of FIFA is based...
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I spend two days here, wandering around. On the first afternoon, I finally manage to find a bookshop selling an English Lonely Planet, a real relief! No longer wandering blindly around, I see some of the sights and walk along the attractive lake shore.

That evening I watch Switzerland crash out of the World Cup in a rather splendid beerkeller...the food and beer were of somewhat better quality than the Swiss football team...

For a bit of rare culture on this trip the next day I visit the Art Gallery and the Le Curbusier pavillion (the last building he designed). At the former for completing a vistor's survey I am given a brochure on the Alberto Giacometti exhibition...in german! If anyone wants to translate for me...
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That evening I watch France beat Spain on a big screen at the railway station, the French have a lot more support than the Spanish.
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Moving on the next day, I take the short journey to Lucerne (Luzern). A very attractive town, with it's lake on one side, the river through the middle crossed by several historic bridges, medieval town centre and mountainous backdrop. Definitely my favourite Swiss town from this trip.

On arrival, as my room wasn't ready, I headed off for yet another highlight of Lucerne, the Transport museum, Switzerland's most popular museum and deservedly. The sort of place you can spend hours in, with it's vast collection of trains, planes, boats, cable cars, cars and bikes, and excellent audiovisual displays, in a selection of languages. In addition, there's a space exhibition, a tv studio, a giant photo of the country you can walk over and the brilliant Tourism flipper (albeit built by someone born in Romford!)
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The queue for the flight simulator was too long but I did have a go at the (very realistic) rail simulator, succesful driving an express train to Zurich! There was also a temporary exhibition of Sauber racing cars, seeing the difference between the a 2005 GP car (with it's strange aerodynamic addons) and older ones was interesting.

One final nice touch, on entry you are given a sticker to show you've paid. On leaving, they've provided somewhere to put your used sticker!
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Back in town, the most famous image of Lucerne is the 14th century Chapel bridge, which had to be rebuilt after a terrible fire a few years ago. These days, it tends to get very crowded, especially with Japanese Tour groups!
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The next day I popped to the laundrette first (it's all hedonistic pleasure on these trips), before heading up into the mountains again.

To be continued.....

Pasta la vista baby!

Evening again
Trawling back through my memory and notes, I return to my last day in Asia, 3 weeks ago! My flight out of Bangkok took off after midnight (00:30) so naturally a full meal was served. I was quite impressed with Thai Airways, especially after the glass of Thai brandy following dinner!

The next morning (Tuesday 20th) we arrived in Zurich, Switzerland, where I connected to another flight for the short trip to Venice. We boarded the plane, sat there for a while then were informed that the plane had a fault, so were all shuttled back to the terminal! An hour and a half later we boarded a replacement plane for the spectacular journey over the Alps to Venice. It was here that I thought about spending the last part of my journey in Switzerland, a country I'd hardly visited. The plane was quite stylish too, leaving you no doubt who owned it!
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In Venice that I met my parents again, as they were renting an apartment for the week. No offence to Dartford, but Venice was a slightly more exciting and stylish place for a family reunion! It's a place we've been to several times, so for once I wasn't rushing around, guidebook in hand, trying to find some obscure statue or get to a museum before it closed. Instead, I was able to relax and mooch around. Venice is a beautiful and special place, and a very relaxing place to amble about, if you avoid the crowds. It also has the most expensive internet cafes I came across on the whole trip!

Three general tips for an enjoyable trip to Venice would be :-
1) A lot of tourists spend all their time in or around St Mark's square, hence this area is very crowded, expensive and touristy. Moving away from here and the main 'drag' to the station, you'll lose the crowds and find areas where local Venetians still live, relax and shop.
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2) Don't follow a map too religiously, wandering around and getting lost is part of the joy, as you see so much more that way. It's not as if you can get properly lost anyway, the place is so small.
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3) Food and drink are expensive, but Olive bread fresh from the baker's, and the local draft wine (bring your own bottle for a refill!) are both excellent and good value. The local box wine is also surprisingly pleasant, and at 45p a litre from memory you can't afford not to!

On Saturday, my parents departed to the airport, while I made my way to the railway station, a beautiful journey in itself by water bus along the Grand Canal, especially as I had a lovely view at the front.
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Everything is transported my boat here, even McDonalds have to use them!
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My plan was to spend the next week and a half travelling by rail around Switzerland. Before getting there though, I caught a train to Milan, the fashion capital of Italy (they always treasure my advice). While not the most touristy city in Italy, there are things to see, and I could have spent longer than the one day I stayed. Milan is quite a pleasant place to wander around, you feel the prosperity compared with many Italian cities further south. The main highlight is visting the enormous gothic Il Duomo, the 3rd largest cathedral in the world, and exploring it's roof where you get a fine view, not only of Milan but also of the spires and buttresses.
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On a less pleasant note, seeing several posters featuring Italian footballers, including Gattuso and Cannivaro in their pants to advertise underwear was less attractive, though clearly they were lucky pants judging from the penalty shoot out!

I had hoped to buy a guidebook to Switzerland here, as I really was unsure where to go, and what highlights I had to see, but they only had ones in Italian...after a bit of checking on the internet, I decided on Lugano as my first destination and booked a hotel...

Noodle Doodles

Safely back home now, Asia seems a long time ago, though I'm still on the Malaria tablets as a reminder!

As per NZ and Aus, I've made some notes to summarise my time in SE Asia (any typos will be because of tennis distractions!)

Things I liked

Value
A bit of a no brainer really, but Asia is very good value, coming back to Europe was a bit of a shock!

Food and Drink
I do like Asian food, Chinese and Thai were the main dishes I ate, though I also sampled Malay, Cambodian and Lao food too. I ate in all sorts of places, and enjoyed nearly everything I sampled. Also, no serious intestinal problems either (years of abusing my guts help here!)
The local fruits are tempting too. Starfruit, Lychees, Rambutans, Mangos, Pineapple, and beautifully fresh too!
Beer is very cheap too, and many of the local brews are decent and very good value. Further, they come in decent sized bottles too (none of the silly stubbies). Malaysia doesn't have any indigenous brews, but brews the excellent 8% FES Guinness instead...

Traveller Infrastructure
Plenty of English speaking people, plentiful accommodation of all types, it's easy to travel around

Air Asia
Asia's largest low cost airline. I ended up using them several times, and found them a very good way of getting around. They're very good value, and most of the passengers are locals.

Off season travel
Cheap and plentiful accommodation (no real need to book ahead) and less crowded tourist sites, so you feel more of a traveller than part of some great tourist wave

Geylang Singapore
The seedy side of Singapore. For those who think Singapore is all shopping malls and squeaky clean streets, Geylang is a surprise to the system. It's lively and seedy (it's where Singapore's massage parlours and 'ladies of the night' are based) and as a result makes a nice contrast to the ruthless efficiency of the rest of Singapore.

Kuching, Malaysian Sarawak in Borneo
One of my favourite Asian Cities, with a nice mix of Colonial and Chinese past, and moderm infrastructure.
It's a fine gateway to the jungles of Borneo, with their Iban Longhouses and Orangutans
An attractive and pedestrian friendly 1km riverside terrace linking the old town and the modern area
The massive rooftop food court with it's stalls serving excellent fish
The Harbourview hotel, a fine location, and great value (fine comfort for £18 a night)
The Cat museum, one of the rare offbeat museums in Asia

Borneo long boats
A great way to travel, you feel like a real explorer!

Gunung Mulu National Park Sarawak
Gigantic caves full of stunning formations and millions of bats, accommodation in the middle of the jungle, incessant jungle noises...

Death railway, Kanchanaburi Thailand
The emotion of the cemetries and the terrible history, the lovely scenery, the joy of the journey there with the clattering train and it's open windows allowing full absorption of the sights and smells of the countryside

Laos
The gentle people, quiet traffic, slow way of life, a nice antidote to the urban madness of many SE Asian cities.

Elephant Art Chiang Mai
Touristy, undoubtably. Spellbinding, Yes!!!

Angkor Temples Cambodia
Staggering temple complexes, 800-1000 years old, a real highlight of any SE Asian trip. A guide is essential for deeper understanding, but I was glad I also walked around by myself, as you need time to absorb the scenery and atmosphere away from the crowds.

Cambodian Tuk Tuks
Basically motorbikes with detachable carriages behind them. A great way to see the world, more comfortable and quieter than the Thai ones, and with full weather protection for the tropical downpours!

Religion
After NZ and Aus, it was a good cultural contrast to spend time in a region where religion plays a major part in people's life, whether Buddhism, Islam or Animism. (Kiwis worshipping the All Blacks isn't the same!)

Communications
Plenty of internet cafes, decent mobile signals virtually everywhere, the modern day traveller is rarely out of touch!

Things I didn't like

SE Asia as a pedestrian
Many of the cities are deeply unpleasant for pedestrians, the terrible traffic and pollution, the blocked or non existant pavements, the open drains in Malaysia waiting to swallow you up. There seems to be a problem with many of the cities going from bicycles to cars and motorbikes yet still expecting pedestrians to walk in the road. Singapore shows how it should be done, with decent pavements and pedestrian crossings where the traffic can be relied on to stop!

Bangkok
Crowded, dirty and polluted, terrible traffic, not a pleasant city to travel around, there are elevated railways and a metro, but they don't go into the very centre where you want to go!

Motorbikes
The bain of my life. In many cities (e.g. Georgetown, Phnom Penh) they make crossing the road a nightmare, as they disregard traffic laws, going through red lights and travelling the wrong way down roads...I had fantasies of being a traffic policeman. booking and arresting motorbike riders and throwing their machines into the river!

Off season travel
There are downsides as well as advantages. The heat was terrible, and when it rained it was torrential! It was often very hard to get on tours (such as to the Longhouses) as they need a minimum number of people, so you end up hanging around waiting for the numbers to arrive. Finally, the lack of tourists was a bit embarrassing, the empty restaurants, tourist markets and shows making you feel a bit uncomfortable.

Backpacker areas
Parts of Bangkok and Chiang Mai are excessively dominated by backpackers, you lose the essential culture of the country. There was something irritating about the long term travel bums you find there too, white men with dreadlocks bring out the Grumpy Old Man in me!

Buddha Overload
I guess you can have too much of a good thing...but you can only see so many Buddhas, wherever reclining, sitting ot whatever before the enthusiam starts waning. The desire to have the largest Buddha is a bit childish too...

Poor Safety
Manic bus drivers, lack of seat belts in vehicles, overloaded boats, safety standards are not what they are in the West, unsurprisingly

It probably should be pointed out that none of the above applies to Singapore, which doesn't have the excitement perhaps of the rest of Asia, but also doesn't have the negatives either...

A few Asian asides

Malaria
Many parts of SE Asia are Malarial, but it's not always clear cut whether to take the tablets or not, as it's generally regions of countries that are risky, rather than countries as a whole. The internet is a good source of information on which regions are risky, and what tablets to take. I ended up taking a calculated risk in not taking tablets in Borneo, as I knew I would need to take tablets later on in Indochina, and didn't want the courses of tablets overlapping.

Colonialiam and communism
All the countries I visited, apart from Thailand, were former Western colonies. After World War II when the Japanese invaded them with embarrassing ease, one wonders of the arrogance of the western powers, that they could immediately resume control after the war as if nothing had happened. Maybe if the independence handover had been quicker and more realistic, the tragedies of the various Indochina wars and subsequent communist takeover could have been avoided. Thailand was affected too, the vast number of American troops based there definitely changing the culture of the country. It is worth noting that Malaysia had it's communist insurgency too, but this was defeated as the majority Malays fought with the Britain and it's allies against the communists.

Airport Control Towers
When Kuala Lumpur opened it's new airport a few years ago, it proudly boasted the world's tallest Control tower. Bangkok is about to open a new airport, which will have an even taller Control tower. Does anyone outside SE Asia actually care about the height of control towers!?!

Pale skin
Especially in Indochina, pale skinned girls are popular. The guide showing me around Angkor Wat mentioned that her parents were worried about her taking the job, as it meant her spending all her time outside, getting a tan and thus not finding a husband! You see girls riding bicycles or motorbikes with an parasol in one hand. Skin cancer would be non existent if other countries had the same attitude...

And finally...
SE Asia is a great place to travel. It's good to keep your travel plans as open as possible, and go with the flow. A pan country guidebook is useful in this respect, as it enables you to window shop places you might otherwise have passed. My travel plans changed completely from what I had originally planned, and my favourite countries Malysian Borneo and Laos weren't in my original plans at all!