China
Unimaginably vast, squalid and confusing, China is about the only place to go in South East Asia to really feel like you've come close to leaving the influence of the West. Utterly unapologetic for doing things precisely as it means to, being in China often feels like being at the mercy of an enormous spastic sadistic child. Go to a market and look at how the livestock is treated to get an idea of what I mean.
Naturally, in a country of over 1.3 billion people, there are some sincerely decent people too, but as we were unable to communicate with 99% of them, China often felt very cold and very xenophobic.
Almost certain to be the next global superpower, I recommend that every one go at least once, in the same way I recommend that everyone watch video footage of a person shooting themselves in the head. It's not uplifting, it's certainly not pleasant and yet somehow, by being exposed to it, you feel as though your understanding of the cosmos has slightly improved.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: A toddler chasing a cockroach around a train station while gnawing on a chicken's foot.
Vietnam
Of the many criticisms people level at Vietnam, the fact that it is quite boring features surprisingly rarely. Given the unimaginable trauma brought here by the Americans, I have few problems with the lack of dignity with which most people carry themselves in modern Vietnam, driven by desperation, hunger and perhaps a modicum of revenge.
While there are excuses for that, towns like Nha Trang and Hoi An have a lot more to answer for. The former is heralded as one of the best beach resorts in Asia. This is a lie – and the beach is pish. The latter, meanwhile, is lauded by the likes of the Lonely Planet as the place to have some fine threads personally tailored. While this is not an actual lie, someone neglected to mention that in 200 or so of these shops, the designs are all the same, largely of poor quality and frequently dull, too.
All this aside, it's still worth going to Vietnam for three reasons: the coffee, the spring rolls (both world class) and the war museum in Ho Chi Minh City, which will leave any right-minded person with serious misgivings about America's role in the world, past and present.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: The amused look on the face of a shopkeeper who skilfully diddled me when he worked out that I thought I was handing over a 50,000 dong note, when it was actually 500,000. The following day, when I unsuccessfully tried to correct the error, his amusement must have only grown.
Cambodia
A brilliant, plucky little country that is undoubtedly its own worst enemy. There's plenty of begging, but somehow people in Cambodia – perhaps because of their history – are easier to feel for than most. Lots of natural wonders, the idiotically low prices of everything and some surprisingly good food would make it worth a visit anyway, but it's also home to Temples of Angkor, easily one of the most phenomenal dollops of history anywhere in the known world. They make most other UNESCO sites look very small, silly and quite insignificant.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: Half a man begging at our lunch table, balancing on one leg, holding out one hand, looking at us with one eye.
Laos
A bizarre forgotten country that, to outsiders, has never achieved anything of note. Also little known to the foreigner is that Laos is quite possibly the most beautiful country in the region: it has all the geographic highlights of south west China, without having to travel thousands of miles or pay exorbitant entrance fees to enjoy them.
Laotians are said to be very laid back; in truth they just don't give as much of a ravenous fuck about money as their neighbours. Walk into a restaurant and you can expect the waiter to be so “laid back” that you have to get up and get your own menu. There's no reason they should jump up and down and send the weans out into the street to wave at the White Man; and of course if a Laotian found their way to the UK, it's unlikely they'd have people overcome with glee at their sheer presence. But, because folk are like that in Cambodia, Thailand and even in Vietnam, it's hard not to feel a little unliked. Which, naturally, is fair enough.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: The genuinely staggering limestone valleys that part and plateau on the way to Konglor cave, like some inexplicably unused set piece from Lord of the Rings.
Thailand
A once possibly OK country that has long since had large territories transformed into a student union for the University of Tiresome Arseholes. Some of the older alumni give back to the community by paying cash to mate with locals many generations their junior.
Despite this, people remain friendly and the food is generally outstanding.
It is the only nearby country to never have had a colonial mandate, and therefore lacks many of the comparatively opulent sewage facilities of its neighbours. Despite this, as a US ally, Thailand has an economy – and road network – that puts Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to shame. So whoopdy-fucking-do for that.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: The broken, haunted look in the eyes of countless sex workers that said far more than their diseased mouths ever could.
Malaysia
“Malaysia: Truly Asia!” Thus screams the ubiquitous advertising campaign, which, for once, is not really an exaggeration. Malaysia, the peninsula and Borneo, has all of the best and worst things you'll find on the continent. There are colours and creatures so beautiful you'll feel ashamed to look at them; there's also filth, religious tension and terrible food in abundance.
The real problem is that while there are lots of things to enjoy in Malaysia, they're mostly separated by large areas of mediocrity. Even Kuala Lumpur is a pretty boring capital, although less so than Vientiane and Bandar Seri Begawan, it should be noted.
Also, I couldn't quite get a feeling that something was always on the brink of going terribly wrong; something about the countenance of many Malaysians seems to carry a vague threat.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: A sausage and egg McMuffin, the morning reward for enduring nights spent sleeping on the floor of Kuala Lumpur's Low Cost City Terminal. Three times we roughed it, three times we got inaboot McDonalds. And it felt good. Really good.
Singapore
Make no mistake about it: assuming Dubai survives its sickly childhood, it wants to be Singapore when it grows up. Huge, bland and resolutely focussed on prosperity, it somehow simultaneously achieves so much and so little. It's the kind of place that would draw the ire of Arcade Fire: hotels, shops, celebrities. Whoop.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: Marina Bay Sands – a titanic, obscene building that I want to ridicule but can't help but admire.
Philippines
Dangerous, dirty and hilariously corrupt, I imagine it'd be quite easy to have a terrible time in the Philippines. However, if you pick your spots carefully and have a bit of money to spend (it is absolutely not a backpacker destination) there is a very good chance you could find yourself having the best holiday of your hitherto boring life.
There are over 7,000 islands to choose from – visit some and there's a very real chance you won't live to tell their tale – but it's hard to imagine going very far wrong in the Visayas where you can do an awful lot without having to try particularly hard. There are sights, sounds and experiences here that will sear onto your brain and never leave you.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: Literally hundreds of spinner dolphins treating us to the aquatic equivalent of a West End stage show.
Brunei
If this were a town in Scotland, it'd be Irvine: a place that no one really knows much about, and rarely bothers to explore. On doing so, they are unanimously disappointed. Absolutely no reason for anyone other than recovering alcoholics and/or junkies to visit. Avoid.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: Nothing springs to mind.
Indonesia
I can't really speak for Indonesia, but I can give a brief review of Bali, which I was warned beforehand was the Australian equivalent of Mallorca. This, then, would make it a normal person's equivalent of the fourth layer of hell. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with Australians, it's just that they tend to be 110% of themselves i.e. if they have a sweet tooth, they will be gargantuan fat bastard; if they have a tolerance for booze, they will be raging alcoholics; if they are narcissistic, expect literally every conversation they ever have to be turned back to them and the fact that their experience was better than yours, you inferior worm. What this mean is, if Bali is where the Aussies go to drink and hump each other, then it is not unreasonable to expect it to be an endless, drunken shagfest.
Mercifully, 99% of Bali is nothing like that. In fact, despite it being entirely dependent on the White Man's dollar (and therefore home to some of the most relentless touts on the continent) it somehow has retained buckets of charm, character and even a sliver of class. Added to that, there are volcanoes, bugs that look like flying plums and the brilliant, almost overwhelming kecak.
The Australians, frankly, are lucky to have it.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |
The enduring image: Smiles. Hundreds and thousands of smiles, ranging from gormless, to sincere, to anguished, to beautiful.
A final thought on Asia:
I'll leave that to Philip Larkin, who probably did not have had the hideous overpopulation of modern Asia in mind when he wrote:
Man hands misery onto man
It deepens like a coastal shelf
Get out early as you can
And don't have kids yourself.
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| Photo: Wee Mo |