Well, I arrived in Hong Kong last night and will be spending the next two weeks or so with family before heading back to mainland China to wrap up the last part of my summer. As much as I love Hong Kong, I am a little sad to be here. It’s hard to imagine that my backpacking trip is over. Six weeks of swapping hotels for hostels, buses and trains for flights, hauling around a backpack that was getting progressively more and more full with dirty laundry… it was, to be sure, a once in a lifetime experience. And if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a single thing.

These are the places I went to, as I feel like I never clarified where, exactly, I was at:

• Yunnan (province in southwestern China): Kunming, Lijiang, Shangri-la, Jinghong
• Laos: Luang Namtha, Luang Prabang, Phonsavanh
• Vietnam: Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
• Cambodia: Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Angkor
• Thailand: Bangkok, Phuket

I miss my friends that I was traveling with, I miss the spontaneity of our traveling lifestyle, and I miss the independence that comes with traveling. It’s typical post-travel nostalgia, I guess. But I’ll get over it. After all, I am in Hong Kong, the greatest city in the world. And I get to see my mom and brother in a week! I haven’t seen them since I left the US last August, so I’m really excited!

(I will be posting a much more in depth travel recap for each country with photos, but that won’t be till… well, probably at some point in the very distant future. My track record with these travel recaps leaves a lot to be desired with the rate at which I post them!)

Tags: southeast asia