From Angkor to Mumbai – Thoughts on a 46-Day Trip
Any trip of this length leaves deep imprints on the brain. You come home with a host of impressions and a few shattered assumptions. For me, the biggest takeaways fell into three categories: First, cultural observations, then what I did not know about container ships, and finally, Singapore.
Small Buddhist shrine at the end of a dock.
Cultural Observations: I was struck by how active and visible religious faith remains in many of the countries we visited. While the United States feels largely secular, religion in countries shaped by Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam is impossible to miss. Temples and mosques are everywhere, along with golden Buddha statues, saffron-robed monks, incense, candles, and roadside altars that seem to appear around every corner. We happened upon more than one religious festival, but a quieter influence of belief felt visible in daily life. In Cambodia, where Buddhism is the state religion and followed by a majority of the population, people seemed noticably gentle, accepting, and relaxed.
Another thing that kept us mentally off balance was switching between left-side and right-side traffic. India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and 
the Maldives drive on the left, while Cambodia and Vietnam drive on the right. That shift affects more than driving. If a country keeps left, you soon realize that pedestrians tend to pass on the left on sidewalks as well, and even escalators in shopping malls begin to feel backward until your brain adjusts.
European travelers often joke about “another charming medieval town.” In Europe, it can feel like churches, castles, and cobblestones on repeat. In Southeast Asia, for us, it was temples, mosques, motorbikes, and street markets as far as the eye could see.
We spent the first week of our trip in Siem Reap, Cambodia, focused on Angkor Wat, the surrounding temples, and the ongoing excavations. At its height, the Khmer capital supported an enormous population, with an intricate web of reservoirs and canals, planned avenues, and a temple complex aligned with the movements of the sun and stars. Long before many of Europe’s great cities took shape, this jungle kingdom had already built what is widely regarded as the largest religious monument in the world, anchoring an empire of astonishing scale.
What has made Angkor Wat even more fascinating in recent years is lidar technology. Airborne laser scanning has allowed archaeologists to look through the jungle canopy and trace the ghostly outlines of streets, reservoirs, neighborhoods, and engineered waterways that are nearly invisible from the ground. Those surveys have shown that Angkor was not simply a temple complex but the center of a vast, low-density urban network, with linked settlements and even previously unknown cities such as Mahendraparvata extending across hundreds of square miles.
Vehicles, and the way people used them, captured my attention everywhere we went. Scooters were especially prominent in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand. Their average carrying capacity appeared to be about three people, although five did not seem out of the question.
In Cambodia and Thailand, the traffic feels chaotic at first, but there is a real logic to the way cars and scooters move together. Drivers often treat the written traffic code as more suggestive than absolute, relying instead on eye contact, speed, spacing, and a collective instinct for flow. Lane markings, red lights, and one-way signs are interpreted flexibly, especially by scooter riders slipping between cars or riding briefly the wrong way if that is the easiest path forward.
Honking is not angry; it functions more like a soft announcement: I’m here, I’m passing, pay attention. Right of way is fluid. Vehicles nose outward, others adjust, and somehow the whole system keeps moving. We learned to cross crowded streets by raising an arm and walking steadily, without hesitating. Once your movement is predictable, traffic bends around you. What looks like madness from the sidewalk is really a slow, dense choreography, with everyone making constant micro-adjustments and trusting that others will do the same.
As this post has already gotten too long, you’ll need to wait to hear about what I learned about container ships and Singapore.
Finally, this trip also gave me a rich field for photography, and I returned with more than a thousand images. In a recent newsletter, my friend Daniel Liston Keller wrote that the most underrated creative skill is not building but cutting. Michelangelo reportedly said that he simply removed everything that did not look like the final figure; the sculpture was always inside the marble, and the real work was in the subtraction. That idea feels right to me now, both for writing and for editing photographs.
So here are the photo links. One album covers Southeast Asia, with more than 100 pictures, and the other covers India, with about half that number. Give the links a little time to load. A few samples below links.
SE Asia Pics: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2BJtdOXmJqpDjJ
India Pics: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B2B5qXGF106pyK
Wonderful pictures! What a trip – I am jealous!
Beautiful pictures, my favorite part is that they are “talking”. There are some my favorite, although they are many. Also, very interesting description of the culture. So many polarities! Lidar technology is becoming very popular – South America right now is also using lidar to re-discover ancient cities in Amazon jungle and South Mexico.I always loved that Michelangelo’s quote, and admired his skill of seeing of “what is not belong..”. Very simple, right?
Thanks, Galina. Great insight and feedback.
Good work Steve. We miss you in the neighborhood. Like to see you experimenting and using your many talents. Linda and I covered much of that territory in 1977. Many changes since then
Thanks, Dennis. We miss you guys, too. But the move has made these travels a lot easier.
Great photos and some great insights. Religion in that part of the world does infuse every part of their daily lives and I found it fascinating. Yes, honking isn’t angry but I found it annoying and when I got back to the States after my first eight month visit to Asia, it seemed so quiet here that I thought I’d gone deaf. When you first told me you were going to SE Asia, I think I suggested not bothering to go to Singapore but after I thought about it, I figured it was worth seeing because it’s changed a lot since I was there (first in 1989 and again in 1992). You got some great photos of the people; I especially liked the picture of the ladies in Mumbai sitting on the sidewalk and the little girl with the bottle on her head.
I’ve got tons of questions but they’ll have to wait until I see you in a few weeks.
Given your time in that region of the world, I expect you’ll have tons of insights. As to Singapore, we ended up visiting it multiple times, 2-3 days at a time. We got to know it pretty well. In some ways, the approach they took and how they’ve suceeded in so many areas (no homeless, free healthcare for all, the best University system in the world (only behind Harvard), the complete lack of any government corruption, no drugs, super low crime rates and highly safe, etc. We’ll talk more.
Assuming you had local guides throughout your trip. Was there many interesting traditions/ customs / behaviors what is appropriate as well as inappropriate or taboo?
Yes, we hired local guides a lot, using a site called “Tours by locals.” They were good about filling in details and local customs and taboos. That said, there weren’t many things we needed to “know.” The biggest is dress code in certain Temples. But for that, they have signs and people (often volunteers) helping to make sure those unfamiliar know what to do, where you can take photos and where you can’t, etc. Pretty easy, actually. Overall, everyone was so happy to see people visiting their country and they wanted to engage and practice their English. The one line every one of them knows perfectly in English is “Where are you from?”
When we last visited you in February, you mentioned that you were going to visit SE Asia and India, but we didn’t realize it would be for 46 days. My first thought was: Steve Larsen went on a 46 day, multi-country trip and it wasn’t on a motorcycle? The benefit was the time you had to take those beautiful photos.
Leela visited Malaysia several years ago to track down the house/fabric store in Kuala Lumpur where she was born. Amazingly, a taxi driver had no problem finding it more than 60 years after she left the city to get educated in India. She even had the opportunity to speak with the current shop owner and to explore the rooms where she played with her sisters as children. She was quite affected seeing that house again.
You took some photos of the food and the spices used in much of Asian cooking. I hope you comment in future blogs about whether you enjoyed your meals. April is mango season in India, and Leela would kill for that local fresh fruit again.
Based on my sportbike riding days, I cringe when I see photos of people on motorbikes wearing flip flops, though. My toes curl up just looking at the images. Those are brave people!
Wow, what a trip! Amazing story and photos. Thank you for sharing and making me very jealous!
Larry, thanks for the feedback. What an amazing journey that must have been like for Leela, to find the house where she grew up so many years before. We loved the food and finding good local food because part of our mission. We would go into a city, get completely lost in the sights, museums, etc. and then, when hungry go to an AI engine and ask: “Find me the best food near me where I can find plenty of locals who love it and no tourists.” We would then eat at those places. It was amazing.
Best to Leela.
Steve
Wow, what a trip! Amazing story and photos. Thank you for sharing and making me very jealous!
Steve,
Although you’d already shared your pictures and some of your stories at lunch it was interesting reading and seeing a more finished version. Angkor Wat looks like an amazing place made even more interesting by the fact that so much of it lies unseen. I look forward to finding out all you have to say about container ships in your next installment.
Thanked, Jim.
Thanks for sharing! I love the photos. We just returned from Greece, Turkey and Georgia and can relate to a couple of things for sure. Religion is so much a part of their culture and government – much more than here. And their history goes so far back it makes me feel like we are newborns on the world scene! My favorite photo is the guy with the towl on his head . . . hints of the “Rug Seller.” Maybe Maggie will have to paint him 🙂
Thanks for the insights and photos. It was magic to be able to share the trip with you from Bangkok to Mumbai. A real feast for the senses!
Thanks, Ross. That’s great coming from you.