Our longtime friend, a Canadian who has spent most of his life outside the home country and toured the world, warned us a few years ago when we were planning our first trip to South East Asia: »Once you stay a little bit in that part of the world, "get the taste" of that culture, feel the way tourists are treated, get to know the cuisine of those countries, enjoy the smiling faces and smile yourselves a lot to the strangers, you'll never feel like visiting any "civilized" country in Europe.«
So it happed!
In a while we are leave for Asia for the third time and certainly not for the last time. After a stay in Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, and Cambodia, we still have a hunger for this part of the world, and a feeling that there still is so much to see. It is not our intention to prove the superiority of trips to Asia over those to Europe or other continents. It is a matter of an individual choice. We would like to show how fascinating the countries of Southeast Asia are, how wonderful and beautiful the people are, how delicious the food looks (since you can’t taste it!) and how well one can relax there.
And one more thing. Europeans should learn some humility realizing that Europe is not the navel of the world and see that the East is doing very well without worrying about the problems of that distant continent. For us, staying there world means getting away from our local Polish little hell and it confirms that experiencing the daily problems and issues at home does do any good and has no use.
We're going to Burma (Myanmar)! Naturally, Bangkok where we feel at home, is always on the way, and every time we are there we find new fascinating places.
