Are there Any Mines Here?

Or as they say in Khmer "mee-un meen dtay?"

I'm about to disappear in a cloud of smoke and then resurface on the other side of the world, Keyser Soze style. I've come to grips with the fact that the t-shirts I've packed will likely not come back, but will end up on the backs of little Laotian boys and girls as I slowly empty the American contents of my bag to make room for SE Asia goodies such as turmeric, gunpowder, and native headwear. Who am I to deprive a Laotian child from wearing a Chelsea Piers basketball league tshirt anyway? I've packed extremely lightly and carefully and I still believe I've overpacked. Only one way to find out and that's actually to do the damn thing.

I've received some poignant advice about traveling to SE Asia and I'm going to share some of best advice, which has come from a variety of sources. In no particular order of poignancy...

1. Stay away from the Thai prostitutes. (From my sister)
Consider it done. The Vietnamese prostitutes, clearly a different story.

2. Don't drink the water. (Every jewish woman I've encountered over the age of 40)
But I'm just a stones throw from the artesian springs of Fiji Water. Artesian! Springs! How bad can the water really be.

3. Get yourself some custom clothing. (Peers)
Yes and ma'am. I think this might be a good activity once I get off the plane. Low impact, not a lot of walking, and jetlag won't play much of a factor.

4. Be careful of thieves on motorbikes. (Guidebooks)
No worries, I'm planning on picking up a pair of nunchucks from Ho Chi Minh's Chinatown.

5. "Motivation can be physical as well as completely awesome" - Leroy Smith
You have to watch these, especially if you like Charlie Murphy.

So yeah, there you have it. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, here I come, in that particular order. No set agenda, no set plans. I'll get to the blog every once in a while I suppose. Maybe I'll post some pics of me helping a yak give birth or of me eating a tarantula. You never know, you really just never know.