One Day in Southeast Asia

Left: Psaa Chaa in Cambodia through my room window

Waking up, and thinking hey, im actually in (insert country name), and looking out of the window, first thing in the morning, taking in the fresh morning air and looking at the locals who have already awoken before you going about their lives.


This is then followed by washing up with the really cold tap water, and then packing for the day's activities. You then go out of your room, making sure its locked securely behind you (occassionally turning back midway down the stairs just to give the padlock another pull), and reach the streets you saw from your window and so many months ago in that guidebook or website, instantly hit by an assortment of new scents in the air, the inevitable moto drivers that camp in front of your guesthouse, touting their services, the stream of people passing by and the sound of motos and people going about their daily lives.

The immediate priority is then breakfast. Hunting it down (in an almost neanderthal cave-man analogy) is a joy. Following your nose through the labyrinthine local markets, walking down alleys, avoiding stray dogs foraging through last night's trash and going in coffee shops with men in jackets sitting out front sipping tea and staring at you while you enter, and looking forward to a great, authentic local breakfast is one of the small, sweet joys of travelling.

Breakfast is the time when you see a nation on the move, workers having that quiet, introspective cup of coffee before heading off to work, housewives shopping for groceries at local wet markets, and children going to school. Waking up and smelling the coffee, literally, is an amazing start to the day, especially on those cold, chilly mornings.



After downing that hot steaming cup of coffee - sometimes it doesn't matter what you order, coffee seems to be the rule in Southeast Asia, from the Super 3-in-1 mixes you get in Burma to authentic Vietnamese coffee. The exception, of course, is Malaysia, where protocol dictates you start the day with a hot glass of teh tarik (pulled tea literally, ie tea with condensed milk poured form mug to mug at sometimes spectacular heights) with your roti chanai or nasi lemak.

Finishing that warming mug of coffee and settling the bill, you then hoist your daypack over your back, well fed, warm and looking forward to what adventures the day will bring. From the little coffeeshop or stall nestled in a row of colonial buildings, you then walk, cycle or hail a moto to bring you to your next destination, might it be a museum, a monument you've seen countless times on postcards, or just the riverside for a slow walk to collect your thoughts, as is often the case in Indochina with the lovely French colonial cities that line the mighty Mekong.