Luang Prabang

Loving this place. I was walking down the main street yesterday, doing about 1 kmh when this old monk overtook me, turned around and asked in perfect English if I would like to see his temple. I said yeah and he brought me to his Wat and showed me all around. 1 hour and a cup of tea later I was back walking the streets. Imagine that in the west...
Back to the guesthouse to collect some stuff and suddenly the lady of the house says sit down and have some lunch with us. I can never refuse food, so down I sat with mom, pop, granny & 2 kids and had some absolutely great food. New favourite: Spicy Papaya salad - strips of Papaya marinated in paint-strippingly hot chilli. Even the kids had tears in their eyes after it. I was downing coconut milk as if it was going out of fashion.
Then it was off to a waterfall 30km south of town. Also breathtaking, about 100m high and not a sheer drop, but rather lots of pools in between the cascades with inbuilt vines and stuff which were perfect for doing the Tarzan and flying into the water.

Oh yeah, pictures of Thailand.

Probably off tomorrow. Don't know where though...

Unsorted "R" thoughts

Roosters
A common, romantic pre-conception is that roosters (I would say cocks, but that might offend some people) only cock-a-doodle-do (or kee-kiri-kee for our German readers) at dawn, while standing on top of the farmyard barn. This is of course complete boll**ks. Roosters crow at anytime from 2am onwards. Combine this with the fact that in Asia the roosters just roam the town at will and you will suddenly find a malicious rooster sitting outside your guesthouse window waiting for you to gently slumber off before doing his cockadoodledo at 120 decibels. I am eating great loads of chicken to get rid of them.

Rituals
At home one has rituals, like going down to the shops to buy a paper on sunday morning, or gargling mouthwash after brushing your teeth. When travelling one develops rituals that seem slightly odd. One of my present ones is checking my shoes for scorpions before putting them on. Quite useful as people always leave their shoes outside the house and scorpions love nothing more than a bit of shade in the afternoon. Still haven't found one. Will notify when successful.

Religion
There are lots of taboos in Asia, like not touching peoples heads etc. which are sort of observed in Thailand, but are strictly adhered to in Laos. One strange example is that your head should not be too far above other peoples' heads. I found this out while sitting on the floor of the boat talking to someone across from me. When a Laotian came by they ducked so far that their head was at our level, which basically meant that they had to bend down to knee-height. Weird & wonderful.

The world beer review, Part #1

Singha (Thailand): 6% alcohol, drinkable. Slightly chemical.
Chang (Thailand): 6.5% alc, does the job (v. well). Recommended.
Leo (Thailand): 6% alc, doesn't taste as good as Singha and doesn't rock your socks as much as Chang.
Beerlao (Laos) : 5% alc. Excellent. Better than most German brews. Once again proving that the communists know beer.

Chiang Khong, Huay Xai (Laos), Pak Beng, Luang Prabang

Arrived in Chiang Khong from Chiang Rai on Monday afternoon after an uneventful if somewhat bumpy 4 hour ride (Think no padding on metal seats, Think no suspension left on bus, Think lots of potholes).
Chiang Khong is another 1 street town and is only there because Laos is 200m across the Mekong. Rented a moped and went bombing up to the Golden Triangle (Where Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet). The place itself is uneventful but the ride up there was out of this world, basically following the Mekong upstream through undulating hills and paddy fields. I nearly crashed a couple of times because the views were so breathtaking. On the way back we (myself and a cool english Bloke called Kam) miscalculated the distance so we ended up driving back in the dark. Street lighting is naturally unknown in these parts so it was fairly pitch black (except for 33 billion stars). To add to the excitement the fuel gauge hit empty about 20km from home and about 2km later we were waved down by some strange looking soilders / militia / policemen, but as soon as they saw we were farang (Thai for "westerners") they waved us on. Ok, so we got home in one piece with the fuel needle dangling off the edge. Beer, Bed.

The next morning we hopped across to Laos after getting stamped out of Thailand and into Laos (correct pronunciation confirmed as "Lao"). Then onto the 2 day boat ride down to Luang Prabang. The ferry was excellent, the views of the Mekong amazing and it was generally good craic being on a boat with 30 backpackers for 2 days with lots of beer and other stuff floating around. There were also only wooden benches to sit on so most of us just sprawled on the floor and played dead.

Luang Prabang / Laos makes Pai in Thailand look like London @ Rush hour. It is wonderfully chilled out, with hundreds of monks in their orange robes strolling around. Everbody (and I mean everybody) says sabaii-dii (hello), even shouting it from across the street. Add the fact that 80% of the people walk round with a beaming smile on their face and you get the impression the the Laotians know (or at least are smoking) something we in the west don't. I started playing football with some kids on the side of the road and within 10 minutes word spread around town and there were suddenly 20 kids all laughing their heads off and playing footie with the tall falang.

Welcome to Happyville.

Mae Hong Song, Chiang Rai

Survived the rafting which was relatively simple as there hasn't been any rain here in the last 2 months... All the same there was a fair bit of adventure in the fact that 2 of the guides only knew the words "go" and "stop". None of your "a little bit more to the left" or "people on the right shift weight slightly to the rear". No siree, "go" meant "paddle", "go go" meant "paddle like f**k" and "go go go" meant "oh shit we are going to hit that rock no matter what we do". Ditto stop, stop stop etc.
What was worth it though was the scenery, which without a word of a lie, was straight out of Jurassic park. You either expected a T-Rex to break out of the jungle or a tribe of pygmies to appear, all firing blowpipes in your general direction. Or else we were doing the Apoclypse Now remake and somewhere around the next bend in the river we expected the Viet Kong with Marlon Brando sitting there grinning.
We all (14 assorted English, Dutch & French) arrived in Mae Hong Song looking like the remnants of the Titanic and proceeded to drink ourselves silly in a bar called Butterfly which had a 50 year old Thai guy performing live music with a funky hat on, he was undoubtedly the Thai LL Cool J.
Chiang Rai today (centre of the golden triangle, i.e. Opium trading post of the world). Not much to do here, so it's probably direction Laos tomorrow.

Pai

Arrived a day late after getting waylaid in Chiang Mai. There's a bar there called La Brasserie (if you're ever passing) and the owner takes out his guitar every night and plays the most amazing covers of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Erick Clapton etc. His version of stairway had the audience nearly in tears, with every second man playing air guitar. And as he played "Cocaine" the crowd roared.
So I stayed in bed yesterday and had a hangover (after using the moat-trick to get home).

This morning was quite amusing, I took the air-conditioned van here with 11 other Thais, whereas the cheaper non air con, cramped bus was full of sweaty backpackers. The Thais have sense and I smugly arrived 30 minutes before the unwashed masses.

Due to its small size the mini-van could also motor quite fast and the road to Pai is "adventurous" to put it mildly. So that's another Disney ride I won't have to take. I'm going to start giving these drivers points soon, a bit like top trumps - categories will be:
a) Speed
b) Outragous overtaking manoeuvres
c) Disregard for road signs
d) Bad taste in music

Well anyway, Pai is what you might call "off the beaten track", not quite "off", but damn close. It is also one of the most laid-back, relaxed and generally cool places this side of Stoned, Arizona. The locals walk so slowly that they have to periodically scrub the moss from their shoes. I rented a mountain bike to visit the local waterfalls (10 km away), but what the shop owner neglected to tell me was that of the 10km, 9.7 of them were uphill. The trip back was hilarious, unpaved roads, bunny hopping over chickens, swerving around semi-wild pigs, waving back at bemused locals ("what the fuck is that muddy white dude doing up here").
I would say it was worth it all, but ask me tomorrow when the muscle pains subside.

Off River Rafting to Mae Hong Song for two days tomorrow. So unless they have WLAN equipped rafts, I'll be seeing you on Saturday... If you're lucky. Or say pretty please.

ps. Strange Native Habit of the Day (SNHotD):
It is a national pastime here for men to openly pluck their chins with a tweezers. They take no prisoners and pluck and pull for seemingly hours on end.

Chiang Mai

Even after 1 week my stomach is playing ball. Sticking something new and weird in every day and it's coming out the other end like it should. Excellent.

Chiang Mai is a breath of fresh air after Bangkok, literally. Only 100,000 people and 300,000 vehicles on the roads. City is enclosed by a giant moat beside which I am staying. This is wonderful because if you get drunk you just have to go in any direction, find moat and follow. Naturally this could mean a detour of about 6km, but hey.

Took a sawngthew (Thai for "Red japanese pick-up truck which squashes lots of people into back to make cash") up the local mountain here to gawk at another Wat (Thai for "temple"). Once you've seen one wat you've seen 'em all, a bit like icons in Russia, but that's another story. This one was rather cute though, sitting at 1000m above the smog of Chiang Mai. Driver took me on to a village where the Hmong hill tribe live. Their main sources of income are:
a) Tourism
b) Poppies
c) Marihuana
With huge big plants just sitting there (pictures to follow). And yeah, they were a most chilled-out tribe... The drive up & down was worth the 2 Euros, better than Disneyland.

Food of the day: Chicken curry with potato and coconut sauce.

Oh and if you are interested, a history of the Hash House Harriers, which Chiang Mai, like any other two horse town around the world, also has.
Off to Pai tomorrow. Mmm. Pai.

Petrol Station bar

There's a Shell petrol station here near the Khao San road. Once it closes at 8pm, two Japanese vans arrive and park on both side of the forecourts. They open up their sides, spit out some tables and chairs and hey presto, "Instant Bar". The side of the van folds down to reveal a well sorted drink selection and the driver can mix a mean Mojito. That's what I call entrepreneurialism. Must be an Asian word.

Yeah, smoking is naturally allowed!

Oh yeah and they world's most luxurious cinema is also in Bangkok: Grand Egv
The seats are better than Singapore Airlines first class, a complementary drink before the film and there is waiter service at your seat. About the only thing missing is a free blowjob foot massage.

Bangkok, yeah still!

Report 1:

One of those common sentences you hear when people return from holidays is:
"it's more expensive than we thought" or "the prices are like back home" or not as bad "it's getting more expensive all the time!". I had heard the latter about Thailand from various people who seemed to come here quite regularly, so I was a bit apprehensive about my budget when I arrived here...
4 days later and I am laughing so much I could burst a lung.

For the uninitiated:
1 beer in a bar (the most important item of course): 1 Euro 20
So you are saying already, wow , dirt cheap! Indeed, but the hillarious thing is that beer is very expensive here due to high taxes. Now for the funny stuff...
1 bottle of water: 10 cents
Any delicious dinner from a street vendor: 20 - 50 cents
Taxi across Bangkok (about 8 KM): 1 Euro
Entrance to museum etc.: 40 Cents

It just goes on... I've been to "cheap" places before (Portugal (back then), Morocco, Turkey etc.), but I have never seen such a quantum price change before. So a day going to some temples (with a taxi), drinking water, having two meals and rounding the night off with 3 beers will set you back about 7 Euros.

The Thais are changing, becoming dare I say it "westernised", with the old favourites like McDonalds, KFC and Burger King are already here. Even the new guard of Dunkin' donuts, Starbucks and Haagen Dazs are turning up. Sure great, you can't stop globalisation, but the weird thing is that they have western prices - 1 single scoop of Haagen Dazs ice cream costs 2 Euros! Without any toppings !! Your choice: 10 plates of rocking Thai food or a sloppy scoop of Macadamia Nut Brittle. Even a Big Mac costs about a Euro (i've been doing my research :) ). The big problem, like any aspiring culture, is that it is COOL to eat at McDs or been seen at Starbucks so the kids are all hanging out like good teenagers around the world eating fries etc. rather than getting some good Pad Thai and a whole coconut to drink (10 cents). As a result people will have to earn more to pay for these western luxuries. ergo prices will rise etc. etc. I think that is called economics or something... Am I getting too deep? Stop me if I am.

The other side effect of eating fries & coke rather than vegetable curry & freshly squeezed pineapple juice is that future Thai generations will probably gain weight like grizzlys in salmon season. As they are, they must be the most perfectly proportioned race on the planet. Not quite European height, but they are taller than the Japanese and since I arrived I have seen a total of about 5 fat (not obese) Thais. The rest (especially the women) all look like they regularly go to the gym without looking muscular... Sorry must calm down...

Story so far:
King's temple, Wat Pho (40 meter long reclining gold buddah), Skytrain, Siam Square, Thanon Silom (Patpong is overrated), Jim Thompson's house, Thai boxing match and one of the highlights was taking public transport, ok it was a canal boat and it had a motor the size of a bathroom (half the size of the boat) and it went down this tiny canal at a speed that would ban it for under 13s at Disneyland. All that fun for 10 cents. They only stop for about 10 seconds at each stop / port so you have to be ready to jump or you will be drinking tasty brown canal water very quickly.

Spent this afternoon chilling with some beers at the hotel pool. Two middle-aged Scottish ladies discussing the meaning of life slightly soured the otherwise blissful experience.

Off to Chiang Mai tomorrow evening.

Bangkok

9pm, 30oC (in the shade), Green curry for dinner (out of this world), cool beers coming up. Slight sunburn. Lovin' it :)

Mother of all hangovers

Have mother of all hangovers... 3 hours to go... Need bed...

Well I'll be seeing you round!

Have fun kids.

2nd last night in Frankfurt...

Frankfurt is one of those cities which superficially look like they are horrible and offer nothing to their inhabitants, but after you dig a little deeper, behind the concrete fascade, you find an ugly city which really has no redeeming features other than a cheesy little square in the middle and the two highest buildings in Europe.

Frankfurt is in fact so nice that the first thing most inhabitants say is "Well you are very central and you can get away very quickly with trains, planes and automobiles". True, the biggest train station and busiest airport in Germany are in Frankfurt (not to mention the legendary Frankfurter Kreuz 4 lane Autobahn), but it is hardly a complement to say that at least you can make a quick getaway when you can't stand the city anymore. Which most people do, about 500.000 people leave Frankfurt every night to travel to more beautiful places. And on Friday most worker-bees hit the ICE or Autobahn to travel "home". It is so bad that Frankfurt on a bank holiday looks like something from a spaghetti western. You expect some tumble weed to blow down the Zeil at any second.

99% of the people are only here for a high paying job, which they will do for a couple of years before pissing off to a cooler place to live properly. A city full of nomads so to say.

The weird thing is that I am quite emotional about leaving. Ok, Ok, so I would probably also get emotional after getting out of prison, but somehow I had some great times here. Same as in Bielefeld, also one of Germany's Low lights. I suppose such crap cities basically force you to make your own amusement (which normally involves copious amounts of alcohol, small rodents and fireworks).

Off to Ireland tomorrow. Mmm Guinness. Mmm Salt and Vinegar crisps. Mmm wind and rain... Huh?

New favourite for Christmas: Ko Nang Yuan
Wow.

PopeCountdown
Straight to hell...

And now for something completely different