Dawn Punter

The morning after New Year’s Eve in Phnom Penh arrived quietly. The park outside the Royal Palace had returned to normal, the ice-cream cartons gone, the kites replaced by traffic and dust. The night before already felt oddly distant, as if it belonged to another version of us. We woke to the sound of horns, voices, engines, and life resuming at full volume.
Cambodia revealed itself more gently in daylight. Phnom Penh was busy, warm, and unapologetically alive, carrying its past openly in ways that were impossible to ignore. Grand buildings stood beside scarred ones, cafés and markets unfolding against a backdrop of memory. We wandered without urgency, learning when to cross the road by instinct rather than logic, stopping often for iced ginger tea and shade. Travel was starting to feel ordinary. Not dull, just normal.
We stayed longer than expected. Cambodia has a way of slowing you without asking permission. Days filled themselves with long bus journeys that swallowed daylight, small guesthouses run by humble local families, and meals that were simple, and occasionally misleading. We moved between towns and coast, rivers and dusty pot-holed roads, settling briefly before moving on again.
On the road to Angkor, we were stopped by an unexpected spectacle: the young king leaning out of a limousine window to his waist, waving enthusiastically at locals lining the street, flags fluttering back in response. It was one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

Angkor itself did not disappoint, best experienced over several days and with a certain resilience to being elbowed by selfie-stick-wielding tourists. Somewhere between riverside evenings and quiet shoreline mornings, Cambodia stopped feeling like a country we were travelling through and began to feel like somewhere we were simply living. Or living simply.
My most magical memory came quietly. Sitting cross-legged in a bamboo shelter in the middle of a rice field, with Ben and Nanna cooking spring rolls, amok curry, and pumpkin pudding over an open fire, using the simplest of utensils. Nothing planned, nothing staged. Just village life unfolding.

Crossing into Vietnam required little more than paperwork, patience, and an old, creaking ferry. A queue, a stamp, a pause, and a slow crossing of the mighty Mekong. Then we were somewhere else again.
Vietnam felt sharper. Louder. More insistent. Modern cities buzzed with momentum, streets thick with motorbikes, people moving with purpose and confidence. We arrived in Hanoi the day before Tet, sharing a crowded six-bunk overnight carriage with local families and a lovely girl called Tan, who insisted on sharing her food while we taught each other a handful of words in our respective languages. The neighbouring carriage was filled with people, food, luggage and several crates of live chickens.
The city transformed for the Vietnamese New Year. Chrysanthemums and tangerines appeared everywhere. Doorways filled, streets softened, little red envelopes carrying money and hope for the coming lunar year passed from hand to hand. Unable to get anywhere near the fireworks in the park because of the vast crowds, we drifted into the backstreets instead. We were hungry, but the cafés were closed.
“Come join us,” someone called from behind a shuttered restaurant.
A Vietnamese family who owned the café ushered us inside, fed us generously, and pressed red envelopes into our hands. They refused to let us pay, despite our attempts to insist. We had nothing to offer in return except New Year wishes and gratitude. It remains one of the most generous gestures I have ever experienced.
We stayed, and then stayed some more. Days blurred into each other with train journeys, bus rides, early mornings and late evenings.

Coastal towns offered space, heat, and salt air before the pull of cities returned again. We ate wherever we landed, learned how to read menus by familiarity rather than language, and grew comfortable with repetition. Somewhere along the way, we realised we weren’t counting days anymore.
Leaving Vietnam felt unremarkable, which in itself felt like a small victory. No big emotions, no sense of departure. Just another border, another stamp, another line on the map quietly erased behind us.
Laos arrived like an exhale.
We flew into Luang Prabang on a small plane, its wings uncomfortably close to rugged mountains on one side and miles above open meadowland on the other. The pace slowed immediately. Mornings unfolded gently. Monks moved through the streets, brooms swept doorways, days began without urgency.
We taught English at a small charity. My husband worked with the young monks, while I taught boys from the Hmong community. Only later did I learn more about their history, the persecution they had endured. If there was time, I was sometimes allowed to speak with the girls. Often there wasn’t. I offered to host girls-only classes, but they were never taken up.
Time loosened further. We sat more, walked less, spoke quietly, wandered along the Mekong. In Nong Khiaw, limestone mountains rose around us and the river slipped past with no interest in schedules. Days passed without shape, marked only by light, spicey meals, and the decision to stay one night longer.
Even Vang Vieng, once known for excess, felt subdued. We lingered. Watched afternoons drift. Let evenings arrive without plans. Travel no longer felt exciting in the way it once had. It felt calming, grounding, and unexpectedly peaceful.
For the first time, I noticed the absence of questions. I wasn’t wondering what came next or how long I would stay. There was no urgency to decide. The road had stopped asking for answers, and I was content to leave it that way.
One evening, sitting quietly as the light faded and insects began their steady chorus, it struck me that I hadn’t thought about home in weeks, months even. Where was home now, anyway. Not with longing. Not with guilt. Simply not at all.
Travel was no longer something I was doing.
It was simply how I was living.

As we lingered in Laos, it became clear that not every route we’d imagined would remain open, and a different path was beginning to take shape.