THE RIOT IN THE ORIENT
The Riot in The Orient is the name I gave to my first tour of the Far East. In a span of only thirty-two days, I traveled through six cities in six different nations. I had my first port of call in Hong Kong before journeying to Kuala Lumpur, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Singapore, and wrapping up in Jakarta. It was a singular experience, not least in the quality of experiences it yielded--from the fantastic to the gloomy and downright regrettable. At the end of the tour, it felt like I had been on the road for thirty-two years; not thirty-two days. As travel destinations go, the Far East is as close to complete as one can imagine--for its contrasts if for nothing else. You have the spick-and-span metropoles of Singapore and Hong Kong as well as the rustic country of Thailand’s Chiang Mai and Cambodia’s temple-studded Siem Reap. Subway trains as well as Tuktuks , first-rate restaurants as well as streetside hole-in-the-wall food stalls, the riotous nightlife of Bangkok on the one hand...