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I’ve never (yet, anyway) properly done the South East Asia backpacking thing. But I’ve heard so much about it from British gap-year veterans, American hippies and Canadian ESL teachers that I feel as though I know it well. In fact, I used to figure I’d heard about it so many times that I had lost interest; it had become a cliche. I was thrilled to be proven wrong when I found Noelle Tankard’s blogs, over at Matador Travel, from her seven-month South East Asia stint.
Noelle’s an 18-year-old Los Angeles native with an eye for telling details and a way with words. Her travels so far have taken her from a vegetarian cooking school in Northern Thailand to a dash over the Burmese border, and from a dentist’s chair in Chiang Mai to a slow boat ride down the Laotian Mekong. They all make great reads, whether you’ve been to Luang Prabang and Bangkok, you’re planning a trip there, or you just want an armchair travel experience. Start from the beginning and read them all, or try some of my favourites: “Here we are now! Entertain us!“, “Who are you with? Are you a journalist? Why are you here?“, “Common Denominators: Soy Sauce and Chillies“, and “The Slow Boat of Archetypes“.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:44 am
WORD! I love Noelle’s blogs and she absolutely deserves the shout-out. Keep it up, Noelle!
April 24th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Nice read. I am headed to the region in the coming months and am excited. I never determine a place to be cliche if I’ve never been there. Usually, after I’ve gone, I find it never is.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Wow! She sure writes well, and she’s young for such an astute vagabond. One of my favorites was “Just Remember Not to Smile”; it’s surprising how honest she is, even when she’s not very flattering to herself. It’s fun to keep up with her progress, she’s absolutely delightful.
April 28th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Eh, I found her comments a little boring and trite. I much preferred the guy who wrote http://www.yeuthanasia.blogspot.com. It falls into the hedonism aspect of it a little too much,and he’s a bit self centered and whiny at points, but he’s witty, un-pc, and full of shenanigans. It’s nice to read a piece in that perspective that’s not written by a moron.