A perfect first date

I couldn't have finished my trip around the World more perfectly if I had planned it.

Pete dropped a hungover me to the train station to catch the Amtrak to Penn Station. 10 hours, I should have gotten in at around 7.30 and had arranged to meet my friends Karl and Annamarie for some drinks and dinner. I got an entire 4 seat seat to myself and settled in. Then it came along. That thing that I dread on public transport. A child. Not old enough to be quiet but way small enough to be irritating, noisey and irrational. Kind of like me in a way. The parents plugged in their portable DVD player in the seat behind me and from then on I was subjected to 13 hours of Bugs Bunny and his various Looney Tunes companions. That music I will now forever associate with Upstate New York. The border crossing was a doddle. The lady asked me what did I do for a living, I said "I'm a lawyer." Always tell them that you are a lawyer. It works a dream and aside from flicking through my passport and asking me while grimmacing, What's this all about? Referring to my stamp ridden passport, I was through. But they still managed to hold the train up for about 2 hours. The man in the dining car, where all the drama took place, told me later that they interrogated some poor Canadian woman for the entire time, but in the end let her through.

As a result of this and about 5 breakdowns, stoppages and other excuses we arrived into Penn at about 9.50, just in time to run into a gaggle of yelling, screaming and vomiting Rangers fans coming out of Madison Square Gardens (I'd hate to see what they would be like if they lost). I got to my hotel at 10.15, checked in and got room service. I think I actually fell asleep eating.

The next morning, as much as I wanted to enjoy my €300 bed, I got up early, and got ready and packed while watching Fraiser on tv. Checked out of the hotel and promptly got lost. So I grabbed a cab, the only cab driver in New York who didn't know where the Met was. My attempt at an address didn't really help, 80 something and 5th or 6

It was like going full circle, I bumped into this guy again ...and Dali whose exhibition I had visited in London at the begining of the trip. I spent 6 hours walking around the Met taking photos and just loving it. I saw some of my favourite artists and some new ones I will have to explore further. After I had finished there and found the hidden toilets I headed out to Central Park. The sun was shining, t-shirt weather. People were laying out on the grass sunbathing or listening to ipods and reading. Othere were rowing on the lake, I would have to think a perfect first date. In fact my entire day was a perfect first date.

I toyed with the idea of just lying on the grass and chilling for a while and then had a better one.

I walked across the park, to Strawberry Fields. I hadn't been there since 2002, with my brother and on that day it was pouring rain and there was no-one there. This time it was pretty crowded. People standing around taking photos and the plaque on the ground was decorated with flowers. I sat there for a while, listening to an old guy playing Beatles songs on his acoustic guitar. It was pure bliss. After a while, I wandered over to the Dakota building and gave John and quite prayer before jumping into a cab and heading back down to Times Square where I grabbed my bag from the hotel and jumped into another cab and headed to Newark for the last leg of my journey.

My dad was at the airport to pick me up and much to my relief he didn't cry or make a scene. It's nice to be home, I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and my brother. I am looking forward to not having to plan stuff for a while or pack and repack my backpack or find a hotel or hostel to stay in or having to figure out a new currency or language or culture or religion. Or feeling compelled to go look at stuff and see stuff or do stuff. I don't regret one moment of the last 8 months. It was worth it and was way beyond my expectations.
But all I want to do now is watch TV catch up with people and relax. Oh and find a new job. Thanks for reading. That's all folks.

Well that's nearly that

Heading on the train to New York in about an hour. One night there and then I am on a big jet plane back to the land of my ancestors. Looking forward to seeing my mum and dad and my brother and my sister in law and her big bump. Looking forward to seeing my friends, Sharon, Damo, Joelle and Mary, and the rest of the gang. Not looking forward to living there, finding a job or dealing with the fuckery that comes with the real world. I knew I would get the word fuckery in somewhere.

Cosmic inbalance

There is something about me and north America that don't mix. San Fran I loose my phone, find it again but still .... then the Zephyer breaks down, I get to Denver and i break my cheek bone, then i go to the mountains and all hell breaks loose, then i get back to Denver and lose my best friend, i fly to Toronto, a basket case, jetlagged, traumatised and damaged, and words are said, that break me even further, so my friend Pam comes in from Montreal to rescue me, and the night i arrive her Husband gets sick and they think he has had a heart attack. He hasn't, praise the lord Buddha, but i am beginning to believe that me and this continent are not meant to be together, maybe like Amy Winehouse and that Blake-Civil (whatever his name is.) Pam reminded me that when she came to Ireland, maybe about 10 years ago, I was busy telling her how safe it was while each time we turned on the radio people from Kerry where stabbing each other. It was unnerving and unhinging.
Anyway, Montreal is a lovely city. Parts of it remind me of Montmarte, in Paris. Everything here is written in French, the people speak this weird dialect that i don't understand, then again the last time i spoke french was to a tuk tuk driver in Cambodia, so dialects shouldn't be a problem. But The British Queen is on all the bank notes. So it's French, but very English and stretches look like Boston. It's confusing and also even though everything is written in French the people will speak english to you but only politely if they know you are a tourist. (praise the lord Buddha for the San Francisco fleece). Me and Pam and Pete, walked around for about 3 hours today, I saw a lot of Montreal. We met up with some friends tonight and had a nice night, but i wasn't in the mood to be in a bar, i wanted to be at home, in bed with Nini. You know I am tired when there is a free bar and i am the one egging to go. So that is where I am going now.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves ...

There was a lot of tension in the car as we drove back to Denver, on that last night I am sure that some of us, me included, knew that we would never return to Colorado again. I flew out of Denver and flipped off the Rockies, I will never be there again. I was honoured to have been Ann's maid of honour. I was chuffed to be invited on the friendlymoon, but sometimes it's time to move on and up. We can't move sideways forever.

I'm in Toronto now. I felt like a damaged wounded puppy when i got here, there is only so much hurt that one can take. I lay in bed and watched TV. I didn't eat for four days. I was glad that my cheek bone was bruised because it is a phyisical manifestation of the hurt i feel inside.

But anyway, despite what i thought, Toronto is lovely. It's a quaint lovely city. It reminds me a little of San Francisco. I did a lot of sight seeing, I went up to the top of the CN tower, and walked on the glass floor. For me that was a big achievement. Being so scared of heights and all as I am. I walked around,I saw some lovley churches, it's an interesting diverse city, the people are polite and friendly.

I met one of my cousins for the first time. It was so whacky because she looks like me, gestures like me and talks like me. She has problems with virtigo, she is left handed, we have so many similarities it was uncanny. Her little boy called me Aunty Una, I smiled and told me I would tell him all about Cambodia so long as he never called me Aunty again.

My friend Pam is coming up from Montreal today. I can't wait to meet her. We are going to have a good time and put the madness of the past week behind us. But at least at last I am sleeping properly. That's a good thing. And the bruise on my cheek has gone down, that's also a good thing.

The good the bad and the Queen

\Okay get 8 highly intelligent people but eccentric people, add a couple of bottles of tequila and vodka, a couple of cases of wine and a load of beer, put them in a cabin in the Rockies and with about 5 feet of snow, and let the party begin. okay so this place is so beautiful, i hate saying all these good things about Bushland but they are true. Colorado is one the most beautiful places on this planet. i am still on asia time s0 i am up when everyone else is sleeping. i am listening to Cash who by the way is god. so here in the house is Kat who is from nyc who i last met in prague but is half cambodian there is ann and james, who i last met in amsterdam, there is arron and steven who i last met in miami and matt who i last saw when we went to find jesus in rome. and of course there is nini a stuffed toy from china but she just doesn't like the cold. I am so shuffed that Ann and James invited us to go on their friendlymoon, it's the coolest thing ever. I forgot my camera today so i don't have any photos. but this is one of the most beautiful places ever. i have been here before, james got lost today so we like European Vacation drove around town three or four times, before we found the store. i refused to go in because in Bushland there is too many choices, that why i didn't order a side order today. what is wrong with just having a hamburger, i don;t want to be inntoragated,
i should me tired but i am not. which i can only assume is bad. i have sleeping pills that i bought in malaysia but i think they were designed to be infindel killer so i am not going to take one. it's four in the morning, i am tired and at this moment i would trade my sanity and my apartment to have a good night's sleep, because i swear i haven't had one in so long it actually hurts.

Friendlymoon

Gonzo has just given me the evil eye. It's 9.45 we are all heading to breckinridge for the friendlymoon and i have my bossy boots on. Kat thinks I randsacked her bag. I didn't. She is just paranoid because she drank lots of something and lemon vodka last night. Gonzo bit me twice, ann is asleep and James is checking his email. I didn't have a shiner at the wedding as I think Arron reported, but I did have a bruised cheekbone. And I didn't get anymore plastered than anyone else and as Irish wedding would go I was pretty sober.

There will be blood

I have been sequestered to the house. I fell over last night, and I currently feel like an Iraqi civilian who has been pistol whipped by an overzealous US marine. My nose may be broken. We are not sure. But it's not twisted or anything. I don't have a black eye yet but my face is throbbing. James the groom has a gash on his forehead and a black eye from his stag night. Ann is laughing about it but underneath I think she is furious. And she is wearing a plastic bag on her head.

Intellectual constipation

Scratch everything i said about not being jet lagged. I woke at 1.30 on Tuesday morning and could not get back to sleep and the only thing on TV was late night news about how black people were going to come and kill you. all very annoying. but i lay there, tossed and tumbled, swore at myself, talked to Nini, God and Buddha. Swore again and eventually at 5.45 my alarm went off and i got up and got ready and checked out of the hotel. I got a taxi to the ferry terminal and was about 25 minutes early for the bus to the train station. For some reason I decided to check my texts, and realised in a shot of horrendous panic that i had left my phone in my hotel room. So i swore at nini again and hailed a taxi, every light was red, went back to the hotel, it took the guy behind the counter ages to reformat my key. But then again I can't see how the smartest people in the world would work the night shift at a reception in a hotel. Oh did I mention that this was the Raddisson and not only did my electricity not work but my entire bathroom flooded. It was worse that the worst places I had stayed in in Laos. Anyway got my phone ran back got into the taxi and got to the station just as the bus was pulling out. If the taxi driver hadn't pulled up in front of the bus then i would have missed it.

Got the Zephyr from San Fran, it was supposed to go as far as Denver but there was a land slide somewhere outside of Glenwood springs to after wandering around there for about an hour I got a bus to Denver and arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule. The route is beautiful, you go through mountains and deserts, it's just fantastic. It was the polar opposite to the Trans-siberian, while Russia was one long empty flat boring landscape, with the odd cottage scattered maybe every 200 kms, this was spectacular. Snow capped mountains, beautiful trees coming into springtime bloom, dusty deserts, even the tree were covered in sand. I fell asleep for a while and as I nodded off there were mountains streams and beauty, i woke a while later and there was a desert outside. It reminded me of the Gobi. Without the camels. The contrast between the views in Russia and here couldn't have been more marked if i had tried to make it up. I actually couldn't make it up. I was in Idaho a couple of years ago and my uncle brought me on a road trip up to Kettering (where Ernest Hemmingway blew his brains out). It was the most beautiful place i had ever been scenary wise. I drove from Denver to South Dakota a couple of years ago to see Mount Rushmore, we drove through Wyoming and it was so boring. The thing that gets me about here is just how big it is. It's not bigger than Russia of course and one can only see so far anyway, but there is such a feeling of vastness and beauty. Whatever any of America's detractors say the one thing no one can dispute is that this is one fucking beautiful country.

And even the food wasn't too bad. At least it was burnt chicken with beetroot soup. I met some really interesting people a lady who had been visiting her son who was on an aircraft carrier home on leave and a philosophy professor who didn't really see eye to eye with the lady on the war. I just kept saying, well in Beijing, but they ignored me and had a pretty heated argument. I shut up. It's not my war. When they started to talk about abortion I excused myself. I met a guy who was in the navy during the Vietnam war and was chatted about Vietnam over a bottle of wine, so over all it was fine.

Even when we got stuck it wasn't that bad. Glenwood Springs is cute but like a thousand other small towns in the Rockies.

Something really weird always happens to me when i come to the States. It's as if my brain just turns to mush and i can't fend for myself even in the smallest way. I can't understand what anyone says to me, i constantly get lost and just sit there gormlessly trying to figure out what i am doing. It's as if I had smoked and big joint, drank 8 bottles of Sam Adams and used them to wash down some Valium. And that's the way I feel all the time. I'll give an example, I'm here in my friend Ann's house in Denver. I have been to Denver three or four times before. But I have no clue where i am. She pointed out all the directions to me last night but I haven't the foggiest idea how to get to 7 eleven. She has an espresso maker just like the one i used to have at home. It took me 20 minutes this morning to figure out should i put the coffee into the little scooper before or after the machine had been heated. . Now it is exactly the same as the espresso maker that i used maybe 800 times at home, before it diedI think it's because everything kind of looks the same, single story houses with little porches outside, the Rockies overshadowing all. You shouldn't get lost here, the streets are all numbered but I just know if I step outside the door i will probably never be seen again.

It took me all day on Monday to realise that I no longer looked like a tourist. For the first time since I crossed the border into Mongolia I didn't look like a duck out of water or an oddity with a big ass and big round eyes. It was when i noticed that no one came to me looking for a dollar except for a homeless guy who was white. I also have to keep reminding myself that the Asian people here are americans and can speak English and I am just being insulting by speaking slowly and making big hand signals. So I can't get away with being a bit of a tit or an absolute fool, i'm not given the benifit of the doubt anymore and people just expect me to understand them. Also there are just so many choices, I went to get a coffee yesterday and just got so exasporated with the number of choices the man insisted on giving me that I skipped the coffee, asked if I could use the net, and then got short changed.

I'm going to log off now and see if I can figure out how to use the TV and the DVD player without burning the house down. I'm Ann's maid of honour so i am not allowed to hurt myself, burn myself or get lost before Saturday. See this is why signs like this might actually come in handy.

The long Easter sunday

Well nothing else extraordinary happened. My flight from Singapore to Taipei was fantastic. The food was superb, the choice of movies excellent, I could have watched all the Oscar movies, 3 hours of CSI or law and order. I watched the sun set over Asia for a while. I opted for Amercian Gangster on the basis that I had 11 hrs from Taipei to San Francisco and I would use that for No country for old men and Juno and three hours of CSI.
Like a drug addict getting ready to enter rehab, instead of following the signs that said transfer, in the airport in Taipei, I followed the signs that said Arrivals. You see I needed to get more stamps on my passport even if it meant lining up at immigration and emigration all in the space of 20 minutes. So I filled out the forms and got my stamp and then got luxuariously lost in the airport in Taipei, not only did I not know what terminal I was supposed to be in but I also didn't know how to get there in the event that I actually figured out where I was supposed to be. I wandered around for about an hour, ignoring taxi drivers making weird steering wheel signs at me. Information wanted to send me to the Sheraton in the city centre. I knew that taxi driver would literally take me for a ride. Eventually, I found a guy who looked like he wasn't going to lie to me and he told me to take the shuttle bus to Terminal 2 and everything would be okay. The problem was that all the signs pointed to Shuttle Bus to Terminal 2 but then when you got to where the signs said you had to be there was a sign telling you to go back in the other direction. Hence me walking around in circles for an hour. He told me to ignore the signs, they were meaning to take them down. I got the shuttle bus, alighted at terminal 2 and went to security, then the most awful thing in the world happened. I realised that I had left my bag with my books, a copy of vanity fair and Nini on the bus. I rushed back through security, thru the terminal, I even pushed two Chinese (Taiwanese) kids out of the way and ran back outside, the bus was still there, or had returned, and the bag was still there. And Nini was still there. She didn't seem to care, but then again she's a stuffed toy so why should she.

The plance from Taipei to San Fran had no tv screens and only showed cartoons in Chinese on a big screen. It was almost an hour late leaving the terminal and I was like an anti christ. I was hungry, tired and stressed and pissed off at having to face almost 11 hours of entertainment free time. I waited for dinner, took a sleeping pill and woke up about an hour outside of San Francisco.

Immigration was a doddle for the first time ever. The guy asked me the purpose of my visit. I told him that my friend was getting married and I was the maid of honour, he asked what did that mean and I said it probably meant I had to be her slave for the day. He flicked through my passport and asked where my favourite place was, I said Cambodia. We chatted and he took my hand print. We both agreed that he had never seen a hand quite like that before. I showed him where my missing knuckle actually was. He laughed stamped my passport and i picked up my bag got a taxi. He dropped me at the wrong hotel and I had to walk and he snarled when I only gave him a $4 tip.

It was still Easter Sunday when I arrived at my hotel, in fact I arrived at my hotel 2 hours before i checked onto my flight in Taipei. So I had two Easter Sundays and still no easter egg.
Today I picked up my train ticket for tomorrow, walked around fisherman's wharf, almost went out to see Alcatraz but it's too darn cold. Instead I bought a fleece had a Sam Adams and some Fish and Chips.

Tomorrow I have to be at the Ferry Terminal at 6.3o to get a bus to somewhere and then a train for two days to Denver.

Just for the record, I HATE FLYING TO THE STATES

So here I am, at Changi Airport. I got here three hours before my flight and checked in my bag the whole way to San Francisco. It'll probably never make it (miami). Or get searched again (Newark twice) The lady who checked me in said she needed to check something with her supervisor, (Heathrow). There was a problem with my passport because I have no blank pages. I snatched it from her and showed her the 6 blank pages. So all checked in I go through immigration and then I see this sign it says my favourite three words, Free Internet Access. I decide to check my mail, when I'm paged.
Will Passenger Blake, Una please report to transfer gate D.
Ok. I walked for miles, well it felt like miles. I gave the lady my boarding card and my ticket and she told me that they were refusing me permission to board the flight from Taipei to San Francisco on the basis that I didn't have a Visa or an on-ward ticket. I had shown the lady at the check in desk my onward ticket, flying out of Newark to Dublin sometime in April. The ladies behind the desk started talking Singlish to each other and nodding. They could hold you up at immigration one of them warned sternly(San Francisco, Miami). Then she asked did I have a yellow fever vacination, so I had to produce my vacination book. As far as i know they don't have yellow fever in this neck of the woods. Then she couldn't work the photocopier to photocopy my ticket. I nearly jumped over the counter to do it myself. Then she said that everything would be okay, they would get fined if they didn't check. I nodded I said I knew (Heathrow/San Francisco). At least I wasn't being bumped off my flight (Paris) or being told I had to make an unscheduled stop and change flights (Boston). Is it me, other than a couple of speeding tickets and parking fines I have never been in trouble with the police, I have always been polite to people and this morning i even told the lady in the hotel I was checking out from that they had forgotten to charge me for breakfast. Anyway going to go brouse around the shops and wait to be paged again.

There's a strange aura in the air

When i was a kid we had a dog, his name was Ricky. He was a Yorkshire Terrier and a bold little boy. Once my parents in their wisdom decided to enter him into a dog show. Well he decided there and then that he couldn't walk on a leash anymore and he peed on a Irish wolfhounds leg and decided to just more or less get in the way of everyone and everything. The poor little guy was tramatised for months. Well today in Singapore I felt how Ricky had felt that day at the dog show, and now publiclly i want to apologise to Ricky for making him go through that experience. Singapore is so regulated and so conformist that I didn't know where to stand, what to say or how to act anywhere, all the people dressed the same, walked the same and would put the Germans to shame with their complicance of traffic signals. I've come from Bangkok where you have to keep your eyes on the ground in case you accidently squash a dead rat!

Anyway if my life was a romantic novel, i would have sat in Raffells today and waited for my ex to come along. We would have had a couple of vodkas, realised that time does heal all wounds, silently internally commented on how fat/grey we had become and then with a hug and an air kiss gone our seperate ways. But today instead, I went and had my eyebrows shaped, had some lunch bought a handbag, and had a beer and people watched on Orchard Road. My life isn't a Jilly Cooper novel, or a Catherine Cookson novel, it's more like something written by Paul Auster or Ian McEwan, it doesn't really make sense, it's a little weird and there is rarely ever a happy ending, but at least now there is an ending. And it's more real.

Well the good news is that I wasn't killed by any Islamic extremists in Southern Thailand despite the dire warnings of the various goverment warnings. In fact the journey was pretty uneventful and a tad boring. Once i had settled myself in the wrong carriage on the train to Butterworth, just like I did on my first train from Paris to Berlin, and once I had re settled myself in the correct carriage, i was given a menu chose my dinner ordered from the bar sat back and just read my book. Once dinner was over and Marian Keyes had bored me into oblivion and i had had enough of being treated like a moron, I pulled my little curtain and slept my way thru the war zone. The only interesting part was the next morning when I was awoken with breakfast, plastic eggs and rubber bacon, and an english girl woke and yelled "have we crossed the border?". A dutch guy told her that we had about 30 minutes previously and she freaked out, it was hilarious. Note there were no Thais on the train. They can read the Thai dailys and had probably decided that it wasn't worth the risk. Butterworth is not worth talking about. I got a taxi driver to bring me to Penang, but only to Georgetown and he also came a picked me up at 5am the next morning to bring me back to Butterworth to catch the train to Singapore.

The trains in Malaysia are awful, by far the worst I have ever taken. But they reminded me of something. Irish trains, which then led me to a common demoninator. Built by the British. Hmmmm, my taxi driver told me I was, how do you say it in English, a fool, for catching the train through South Thailand. Agh but sure my parents brought us to Portstewart, and Portadown in the middle of the whole Northern Ireland thing, a little bit of civil war has never gotten in the way of a Blake holiday.

I had promised someone once that I would follow them to Singapore, well I'm here now and what's the point, I'm 8 years late?

Tomorrow I fly from here to Taiwan and from Taiwan to San Francisco, it's going to be a long journey and I can't see that China Airways are going to have English Language movies. But I've gotten a bit used to long monotonious journenys so I should be okay.

I'm not looking forward to leaving Asia, but i know that i can always come back. And you know I am looking forward to being somewhere where everytime i step outside the door i not long feel like I am being hit across the head with a warm wet towel. That'll be nice.

Sawadeeka

Every so often in life you meet someone that makes you really glad that you're you and not them. And I don't mean because of any medical or economic reason I mean because that person is bitter and twisted and ever so slightly deranged. Now don't get me wrong I have quite a liking for deranged people, they're fun, but the boyfriend of the lady who ran my hotel in Ayutthaya was a freak of unbelievable proportions. I can't remember his name, it began with a J. And he came from a State in the States that begins with M, but definitely not one of the New England states.

Now I had spent the day being driven around in a tuk tuk looking at the sights of Ayutthaya, and I have to say it's pretty impressive. It's sort of like what Angkor Wat would be like if they built a city around it. But it was very hot outside about 37 degrees so it was a case of snap snap ok go. And then my memory card announced that it was full, and the battery ran out in my camera so that was that. But I had spent about 3 hours and I was well impressed. And I have seen a lot of temples over the last 7 months and have visited one too many world heritage sites.

Ayuttaya is the ancient capital of thailand. Kinda like Kilkenny but nicer. Anyway apparently all was going swimmingly and then the Burmese, those of the shooting monks, came and sacked the city. I think that and a bit of dodgy architecture more or less raised it to the ground. Now the Thai King of the time, fought the Burmese invaders singlehandedly and from the top of his elephant killed the Burmese prince and sent them hitailing it back across the River Kwai. But at any rate his capital was in bits so he took all the valuable, executed some of his generals and moved to Bangkok.

They had these signs up at most of the temples, I found it mildly amusing because when I lived in Prague the Czechs did the same thing but would write the numbers out so that the tourists wouldn't know they were being ripped off.

So I walked up the desk, handed the lady 10baht and said, "I'm Thai." She looked at me and I stayed stony faced and then she cracked and said "Yeah and I'm a Frang, go on". I did it at the next temple and they made me hand over the additional 20baht, but it was still funny.

I went for lunch, had spicy chicken curry with lice. That's not a misspelling, that's how they pronounce it here. I logged onto the internet and noted that no-one not even my parents had sent me a message wishing me a happy St. Patrick's day. And it wasn't as if anyone around me was going to know that it was St. Patrick's day. And anyway I usually spend St. Patrick's day in my apartment sipping red wine, and reading. I hate Dublin on St. Patrick's day, only slightly less than I hate marmalade, coldplay and george bush. So I posted a moan on my facebook and headed back to my hotel, which by the way was a shit hole.

This is when I met whatever his name was from a state starting with the letter M. Do you like Thailand? he asked. Yeah, it's nice. I answered. I was still soar over the no Paddy's day thing. I fucking hate it he grumbled. So I asked why and he moaned that the Thais were dirty, inbred, stupid, violent people and that it was south east Asia's fault that the American family was disintegrating and US economy was in tatters. He said it all had something to do with the Vietnamese war. I told him the story about the me telling the lady I was Thai, and he screamed, fucking racist fuckers. Maybe he did have a point because if you put a sign up like that say in Dublin and an Asian person walked up and said that she was Irish, it wouldn't be questioned. But at the same time. You know that you are going to have to pay a white tax, you know that you are going to pay more than locals everywhere you go but hey I get paid more in a month than the normal family here makes in 3 years. But this guy seemed totally deranged. He said that he had developed his own philosophy, I asked if it was based on Pol Pot's little red book. He didn't even break a smile. I asked him who he thought would win the US election and he said he was going to abstain on the basis that the drug policies in the States had .... he lost me there. I finished my beer, wished him a happy saint paddy's day and told him he needed to chill out. Oh he also said that as far as he was concerned the Tibetians were a bunch of attention seeking trouble makers. You see he had been to Tibet and his Chinese government sponsored guide had enlightened him. Now he did all his bitching and complaining about Thailand and Asians while his Asian fiance was sitting next to him chopping water melons. And you know what the most racist thing I have heard since I started travelling, was when this dude said to me that he supposed he have to get drunk with me seeing and all how I was Irish and all. Now if that's not racial stereotyping I don't know what is? I think it's funny when Asian people make fun of my big eyes, or when they point at the big scars on my knees and ask what happened (they are really nosey here there was a guy from New Zealand on the train coming here and he kept glancing at the scars but never asked, it's just a cultural thing). I think it's really funny when they point and stare at me, or when they take photos of little blond kids in the same way that I take photos of Asian kids. There are things that I don't like about here, the pavements, the pestering by tuk tuk drivers and hawkers, the fact that the foreign policy of most of these countries stinks. But in general it's the things that makes it different that I like. But don't touch me, I'm Irish.

And if anyone can make out what they are trying to say here I would greatly appreciate a translation -

Oh and so I am leaving Thailand tomorrow, well starting my leaving Thailand because I have to take an overnight train to Butterworth in Malaysia, this is what the British foreign office says about this idea ... We advise against all but essential travel to, or through, the far southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat and Songkhla, where there is continuing violence due to insurgency and civil unrest. On 15 March 2008, there were two bomb attacks at the CS Pattani Hotel in Pattani. Two people were killed and 15 others injured.
Since January 2004, there have been almost daily attacks in the far south. These include arson, bombings and shootings. Targets have included civilians and members of the security forces, government office, tourist hotels, discotheques and bars, shops, marketplaces, supermarkets, schools, transport infrastructure and trains. Over 2,500 people have been killed and several thousand more injured. No British nationals have been killed in these attacks, but some other foreign nationals have been killed and injured.
There is a state of emergency in the provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat. Martial law remains in place in these provinces. Security authorities can detain suspects without charge, censor the media, conduct searches and seize documents. Martial law is also in place in the Chana and Thepha districts of Songkhla province.
If you are considering travel to, or through, the far southern provinces of Thailand, you should seriously reflect on whether or not your journey is absolutely necessary. If you do decide to go ahead with your trip you are advised to regularly review your own and your family’s security arrangements.
I hope I'll be ok.

Getting seriously lost in Auythaya

So here i am in Auythaya, it's the ancient capital of Thailand kind of is a ugly version of Siem Reap. Yesterday, I had a couple of things to do. Book hotel in Singapore. I have always had a dream of staying in Raffles in Singapore, but with it's $675 price tag, even the dollar isn't depreciating fast enough to justify that one. Anyway I have a feeling that when I am in Singapore all I really will want to do is rock slowly back and forth, and weeping silently to myself.
Anyway again I digress, I also had to put a bet on England to kick Ireland's emerald green ass in the 6 nations. My PP account has been empty ever since the night i managed to turn 14 eur into 180 eur and cut my losses and went yippee. So I logged on, clicked the button for deposit, and decided, 40eur, 25 on England and 15 for blackjack. My bank declined my request because my visa card had been cancelled. Now this was weird because I had just used it to book a hotel in Singapore and a hostel in Bangkok.
I went back to my hotel to pick up the clothes I had gotten made for the wedding, and my card was declined again. Of course there was lots of mumbling in Thai and I didn't know what was going on. So I whipped out my mobile and for the 5th time on this trip called Visa in Dublin. After listening to an automated voice for around 2 minutes, I got through to Karen, who I sure would prefer to do anything other than work the night shift in Visa and who was probably pretty sick of drunken coked up morons reporting their cards stolen after leaving them in the loo of Ron Blacks. "Hi Karen, I am standing in a tailor shop in Bangkok and my card is being declined my Mother's maiden name is Smith, I was born in 1983 and my address is a wee overpriced box in the sky in Dublin." Agh, yes Ms. Blake your card was declined because someone tried to put through a transaction, oh, yes, well it was the system, I do note that you are, oh I am sorry and your card is working again". But what about the 25eur I wanted to put on England to beat Ireland in the rugby, if they win you'll have to compensate me. She giggled and said goodbye, she shouldn't have.
Anyway then i got my clothes and went to the bus station, northern bus station, I was there faster than i thought i should have been, Bangkok is a huge city and my hotel was kind of in the South east of it. Of course he had just dropped me at the nearest station. So I went back outside and hailed a taxi. I want to go to the northern bus station. He asked me where I was going and i told him. He offered to drive me for 1000baht which is about 35$. I thought about it and said ok. But when we got here he couldn't find my hotel. I had written down the address. In Thailand each main road has a name and the side roads are called Soi, and are numbered evenly on the left and oddly on the right, so it's pretty fool proof. But not for Mr. Taxi driver. We drove around and around for about 1 and half hours. In Asian culture people done get mad they giggle. So both of us spent most of the 1 and half hours giggling like school girls at their first pop concert. Eventually I cracked and told him to just stop at another hotel, I checked in there, emailed my hotel to tell them that I would be here today, put 25eur on England to beat Ireland, turned my 15 into 40 playing blackjack.
I went to a bar for dinner. This town seems to be the Karaoke capital of Thailand. Now karaoke falls into that category along with marmalade, coldplay and George bush of things i really detest. The bar had a karaoke stage but there was no one singing. I got a table, ordered a Singha, and some rice with chicken, and then they started showing karaoke on the big screen. And it was loud. And there were lots of mosquitos. And the every time i took as much of a sip out of my beer the waitress refilled my glass, it was really annoying. I had another beer and went back to my hotel. Watched Terminator 2 dubbed into Thai, and fell asleep. England beat Ireland in the rugby. Oh and did I mention that it's like 37 degrees outside in the shade, so it's really really hot.

Turning me back into me

Got into Bangkok on Wednesday evening. The flight was totally uneventful, got a taxi at the airport, the guy wouldn't shut up and i couldn't understand a word he was saying. The effects of the pain killers i took at the airport in Cambodia were beginning to ware off and I was starting to feel sick. Not hungover sick, poisoned sick. He told me he had friends in Ireland (looking for a tip). The traffic was awful. I had booked into the Rembrandt hotel, it's a 5* but was only $110 a night. I got a bit of a windfall in euro for over paid taxes and I can almost feel the dollars depreciating in my wallet as I type. So I checked in. Went to my room. No CNN, good. Apparently there was a big storm last week and it hit the side of wales and scotland and england and caused all kinds of devastation and lots of high winds. It came from the Atlantic. CNN never mentioned the other little landmass it crossed over. The porter came and gave me my bag I gave him one of my depreciating dollars and ran to the bathroom and vomited for about 30 minutes. Now i think i was sick for three reasons. (a) because i was back in Bangkok and it's really hot and humid here and polluted and crazy. I hate it here, I love it here it just makes me nuts (b) because i have to go thru 5 countries take three trains and two flights to get to Ann's wedding (c) because i now know that this amazing adventure is coming to the end and that makes me freaky. Oh and (d) because i was still a little hungover.
I spent the rest of the evening in my 5* hotel lying in the fetal position on my bed afraid to breath. I couldn't sleep. American Idol was on the TV, I didn't have the energy to switch it off. I started texting my friend Ann in Denver, I knew she would be up. She's getting married in about 3 weeks and I am her maid of honour. I've never been a bridesmaid before so I am kind of making this up from scratch.
Get teeth whitened and cleaned. Done.
Get nice clothes for wedding. Done.
Get hair cut, coloured and normalised. Done.
Have Facial. Done.
Get tattoo of lotus leaf on foot. Hmmm I am still thinking about that one.
Post big stupid Bali blanket back to Dublin along with left over malaria tablets. Done along with the left overs of my malaria tabs.

I went to the pool in my hotel yesterday. Why is it that men get away with looking so obese and bloated with their big beer bellies falling out of there trunks at the pool while girls and gay men sit in robes feeling really inadequate? I tell you because men have no self respect or maybe they just don't care and that makes me a tad jealous. anyway in my book, anyone with a beer gut over the age of 11 should never wear speedos anywhere regardless of the temperature or the location. it's just not cool on anyone else.

I finally got my photo of monks on a motorbike

I overheard these French guys in my hotel asking for a car to the airport. They said that they wouldn't pay more than $35 as that was the price their friends had paid. For $35 i could buy a tuk tuk and drive them to the airport myself.
I'm leaving here in about 30 minutes to go to the airport. My tuk tuk guy, $4 is coming to the end of the street to pick me up. The Cambodian prime minister lives across the street so the street is blocked off to traffic.
I met these Americans last night, a couple from San Francisco, we ended up sitting on my porch drinking red wine and talking shit for hours. We drank a lot of red wine. They are also lawyers, and also packed in their jobs to go travelling. He was in real estate law, but is going to switch to bankruptcy, we all agreed that that was probably a good move. Now i feel really hungover, but a strong cup of coffee with two sugars and a hamburger have made me feel a little better. I went into the city earlier to get some money, and said goodbye to the kids i had made friends with. i got a photo of some monks on a motorbike. Air Asia have a 15kg policy, so my carry on bag is full of books. i bought a big blanket kind of thing in Bali, it's really pretty, but also really heavy. I asked in my hotel about posting it home, they said it would never make it. So i have to carry it to Bangkok.
Okay so now i am at the airport, i noticed something weird. All the announcements are in English not Khmer. My tuk tuk driver drove like he was the reincarnation of Ayrton Senna, but we got here, also saw a motorcade that had lost whatever it was it was escorting and lots of Lexus, there are a lot of Lexus in Cambodia, I don't know what the plural of Lexus is, is it Lexi? But I bet their drivers are all drug dealers. Not the small time tuk tuk pot selling type, I mean the big time gun totting heroin smuggling types. I still have a terrible headache, and the couple in front of me at check-in kept stroking each other and kissing. I deliberately kicked my rucksack and nearly knocked over the girl.

Cambodia

I woke up this morning with a start. For a moment I didn't know where I was. I'd had a dream about my dog, Ricky and he was having gay sex with another dog. I had that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, like the one you get when you can't really remember what you did last night, but whatever it was it wasn't good. Drunk dialing? Falling over? Drunk texting, maybe making a pass at someone that you shouldn't have had. I went over the events of last night. I napped in the afternoon. Sent an email to my friend Pam to ensure that she wasn't really pissed at me for me telling her that she didn't look like Portia De Rossi, went for dinner, had two glasses of red wine, read my book. Met some street kids and taught them the names of capital cities. Tourists give more money when the kids know the name of their capital city. Now there's a bunch of kids in Phenom Pehn that know that Ulan Baatar is the capital of Mongolia. That should get them some brownie points. I then went back to my suite. Watched CSI NY on AXN, a little CNN, the Obama v. Clinton thing sent me to sleep. So I hadn't done anything wrong. Then I thought maybe I'm just depressed. I haven't really spoken to anyone in ages. I've been sleeping a lot, but it is 36 degrees outside. And as much as i love Cambodia it's so depressing.

Cambodia comes in at 185 out of 230 in the CIA world fact book GDP per capita, the average wage here is less that $1800 a year. That's less than all it's South East Asian neighbours. Ireland comes in 10th with an average wage of $45000 per year. Life expectancy is 58 for a man and 61 for a woman. In Ireland life expectancy is over 80 for both genders. 35% percent of the population live under the poverty line and most of the people live a hand to mouth rural existance. Literacy is at 73%, most of the country doesn't have tarred roads, there's no real rail system and the entire place is rancidly impoverished. It comes in 38th out of 168th in the percentage of people infected with HIV, and it has no real health card system to care for those infected. In fact when I crossed over into here the first time I was given a notice saying more or less if I got sick I was to leave and go to Bangkok. While the kids on the street sell you postcards of Angkor and happy peasants plowing rice paddies, they don't selling you post cards of this ...

I got up and had breakfast, I was determined not to spend another day laying in bed asleep, dreaming of dogs having gay sex, so I went outside got a tuk tuk and went to the National museum. It's amazing. I'm glad that I visited there after being in Siem Reap, it sort of put it in perspective. The building itself is impressive. Red brick turrets, and a beautiful garden , with ponds filled with gold fish and water lillie's. It was so pretty. The entire museum was filled with relics from Angkor, statues, carving and paintings showing ancient Khmer fairy tails.

How could a nation so rich in it's own History, the keeper of these wonders be so gravely ill?

The Jews can blame the Germans for the Holocaust, the Irish the British for the Famine, the Blacks the Whites for apartheid , but here the people have no one really to blame for this terrible mess but themselves, and it wasn't even tribal like in Rwanda or Iraq (although they can easily blame the Americans or Saddam either) and that somehow makes it even sadder. Over 50% of the population is under the age of 20, they have to come to terms with a history so ugly, so nasty and so traumatic. I really really don't know how they are going to do it. And the heart wrenching part is that they are doing it with a smile on their faces and an optimism which, although not misplaced, certainly belies the reality of the fix they have gotten themselves into.

After the museum, I went to the shooting range and shot off an AK-47 and a colt 45, for a few moments I felt better but only for a few moment.

I have never in my life felt so desperately and utterly useless. Phnom Penh is a much prettier city than both Bangkok or Ho Chi minh, it has long impressive boulevards, beautiful villas and finely manicured lawns. I'm leaving here in two days to go to Bangkok. I want to stay and help, really do something useful with my life. But I have to go home, and get a job and get paid a ridiculous amount of money to talk shit to some morons on the phone, have the same argument with the same solicitor about the same contract every Thursday. Maybe I'll write a couple of memos which will never be read and chair a meeting about a meeting that in the end amounts to fuck all. Give a seminar to a bunch of people who would rather not be there and in the end on Friday go out and get pissed with my friends and really wake up on Saturday morning with a start in my fancy apartment in the IFSC because I really did do something stupid the night before.

2 very strange nights.

I was only in KL for less than 24 hours, fly in go to anonymous airport hotel and go back to the airport in the morning and fly out. First i had my bag totally searched by customs which i have to say was humiliating for reasons i won't go into here. Then I couldn't find a working ATM to get any stupid Malaysian Ringits, hand to change some Thai Baht I found in my bag. Then i got yelled at by a taxi driver and stopped by security again. Eventually i got into a taxi, the guy was blaring hardcore techno music at me. And yelling over it. I asked him to turn it down, he just ignored me. I got to my hotel, they couldn't find my reservation, I had to get my email, then they couldn't print it, and then after kicking up a fit at reception, I realised it was because i had spelt my name wrong on the reservation form. Crap. Then it started to rain, I had to carry my bag across this tiled concourse and slipped and fell flat on my ass, have big bruise. And I was soaked. Ordered room service, watched some CNN and fell asleep. Knock knock knock, WHAT I yelled. What time was it, 4,30, I opened the door, with the safety chain on. It was some guy in a suit, drunk, what you do in my room lady. This isn't your fucking room, 624 my room, get out of my room, this is 724 now fuck off. And he did. But of course i couldn't get back to sleep. So i watched, My name is Earl, the Simpsons, the Ellen show and some CNN.

My hotel in Phenom Pehn is a building site, i went out for dinner the other night and when i came back my room was flooded, they were full i asked them to just flip the mattress, they did, then it started to rain again. Chinese Water torture, on my forehead, they came back and moved the bed. I fell asleep. Didn't sleep too well and spent much this morning just laying on my new bed in the suite staring at the ceiling listening to my ipod.
The main reason I came here was so that i could go some charity work, but the Irish police won't give me a reference of good character, they say that it's not something that they do. Well actually what they said was "Please refer to the FAQ section of our website." So I am here and i don't know what to do. Maybe i will go to Siem Reap, maybe I will go to Bangkok or maybe I will stay here. I don't know.

Okay now i do. I am flying back to Bangkok on the 12th and am going to get some clothes made for the wedding in Denver, then i am going to go to the ancient capital of Thailand for a couple of days, before catching my train to Singapore on the 19th. I like to have some kind of plan that I can abide by otherwise my days just rush into each other unnecessarily.

I went out for a walk and bumped into this girl.

Her name is Gia, and she was selling postcards, that what the kids here do, I didn't have any small dollars but she did kindly offer to exchange 1000 thai baht for 20 dollars for me. The real exchange rate would be at least $33. But she sighed and explained that the dollar wasn't doing too well at the moment and times were tough in the US economy.
Phenom Pehn is not a safe city but it isn't as scary as the locals would like you to think it is. I wouldn't go walking around at night by myself and I wouldn't like to mess with the ruling clans. But the people are just fantastic and that's what makes me want to come back here over and over and over again.

Melasti

Whatever about the rest of us, I was pretty dam sure that the duck was not going to make it out alive.
I woke early this morning, well 9ish, i'm paranoid now because the dude comes and meekly knocks on my door anytime between 9.30 and 10.30 to clean my room, and I think he is afraid of me. I would be afraid of me also, haven't had a good hair day in a long while. I look like a Gorgon first thing in the morning my hair is everywhere, I eyes are bleary, my skin dehydrated.
In our hotel, in the lobby, which is just an extension of the car park, there is a sign saying that the beach was closed to swimming on the 4th due to the Melasti ceremony. Whatever, so after I had watched Anderson Cooper on CNN (Clinton and Obama should just shag and get it over and done with, they'd make such a sweet couple).
I put on my long trousers (dress respectfully the sign said), and I headed to the beach. They're combats I got made in Vietnam, they are made of military grade material, warm and durable. They have been great, but not beach attire.
I got what i had been looking for all over Vietnam, Thailand and here, a little bit of peace and quiet, to be able to sit on a deserted beach and stare out at the ocean, to watch the waves rise up to their crest and then crash onto the sand. There were a couple of other people around but not too many. I must have sat there for about 2 hours, just thinking. Not about anything in particular. Maybe about how really beautiful this planet of ours really is, and the long journey I have taken and the places i have been and the fabulous people that i have met, too many to mention. The types of people who come into your life for only maybe 2 minutes or 2 days or 2 weeks make an impression, do or say something sweet and then disappear. The Steppes of Russia, the Ho Chi Minh trail, the Gobi Desert, the killing Fields of Cambodia, the Temple of Angkor and the heat and angst of Bangkok, the sun setting on the Mekong and getting to hug a panda in China.
I left the beach and decided to have some lunch and head back to my hotel, i reckoned that i had missed the ceremony. It was probably in the morning. For some reason, there was a little bar across the street from the beach, and I decided to have my lunch there. I keep making these decisions and going against myself, it's worrying, but at least I haven't resorted to having stand up arguments with myself yet, well in public anyway.
Sitting there with my head stuck in my book, I'm trying not to read too fast, I have been devouring books at an alarming rate, I only have one left, and btw I didn't like the Kite Runner, but I gave it to Giday back in Lovina as a parting gift, it'll probably make him cry, it made me cringe. I was sipping a diet coke having finished yet another Chicken Curry with steamed rice, when I heard little bells jingling and a humming noise. I thought at first it was my Menieres acting up, but my tinnitus is never quite what one would call melodic. I lifted my head and immediately started flailing around looking for my waiter, i had to pay, get out of there and get to the beach. ASAP.A procession of people was filing down the beach, the men dressed in white tunics and different coloured sarongs, the women is brightly coloured dresses and sarongs carrying baskets of flowers and fruit on their heads. The beach was decorated into sections, marked out by spears in the sand, as the procession went by there was a constant hum of low tonal chanting against the shooshnig of the waves behind. As one procession ended little bells would ring and drums would be banged. This went on for about an hour. Each group going to one of the sectioned off areas on the beach. Of course like any big party of parade the children were making the most of it, laughing and joking and posing for photos.

At last when everyone had arrived, the security guards, dressed in dark tunics and grey sarongs, and carrying large swords ushered all of the tourists over the the right hand end of the cordoned off section, it stank, it smelt of body odour and sunscreen, and it was hot. The sun came out in all it's blazing glory and the tide continued to come in, encroaching on the already tight space all the whities were cramped into trying and jostling to take photos of this extraordinary event. In my combats and my trainer the tide was not being nice to me, it was so so so warm, and the waves had destroyed my shoes and made my already heavy trousers feel oppressive.
It was then that i saw the duck. I just knew that it wasn't going to end well for the poor thing sitting there on the sand surrounded by flowers and garlands and fruits. Every so often a lady would walk down to the waters edge and leave an offering, all the time through the loud speaker the priest chanted. It didn't sound like christian monk chant more like the Islamic call to prayer. This continued for about 2 hours, many of the tourist who at first had been excitedly dashing around like gormless fools (I was one) got either bored or too sun burnt and wandered off, but I was sticking around I wanted to see what happened to the duck.
As the parades had been coming in earlier I noticed that there was one group of girls in gold and orange sarongs, with highly stylized make-up and head dresses. They came forward with insense burning from their headdresses and stood in two groups and started a synchronised dance, all the time the chanting continued and all the time this one man, dressed like a demon or a monster danced amongst the girls with a burning dish of incense in his hands. And all the time the chanting continued. The locals sat down the sides of the area and asked that the tourists also sit. I mentioned the tide. Well the priest may have been able to control the weather, but not the tide, one big wave and about half of the sitting tourists were drenched. The dance continued and the devil was joined by a man in a white cloak who also danced around the girls. Eventually this ended with the girls throwing their headdresses into the sea and the demon falling to the ground.
There then was a type of a blessing ceremony where the participants where sprinkled with what I think was water and given rice, some of which they ate and some of which they rubbed into their foreheads. At this point the largest garlands were brought out and duck was dragged across the sand and placed beside a man with a big spear, he chanted and then the priests got up and danced in a circle around the duck, chanting got louder and louder and the dancing faster and faster, the tourist broke the security line and pushed forward, everyone wanted to see what would happen to the duck. The high priest lifted the duck and took a large knife from his belt, the ladies gathered behind him and with the duck hanging upside down and the ladies holding bowls of fruit and flowers they walked to the waters edge, it was getting dark by now, the priest lifted his knife and brought it down toward the duck, slicing the rope that bound it's feet together and tossing it free into the crashing waves.

Kuta - where rejected x factor contestants come to die

I went for a long walk on the beach today. I wore my ipod and listened to Gnarles Barkley and Lilly Allen, in that way i couldn't hear the constant offers for massages, manicures or pedicures.
It's lovely here, the water is super warm, it's like stepping into a warm bath or maybe a jacuzzi, i have never experienced a sea water so warm. Charming. As I walked on the beach I really did ask myself could it get any better than this? Of course it could, I could stay and never go home? I could fall in love and have someone to share this experience with? I could learn how to surf and kick my addiction to coffee. But in general I don't really think that things can get much better than today. As I walked, ner, limped home. (I have a burst blister on little toe, and it's so sore. I aggravated it thru good intention. I went swimming in the salt water on the basis that it would help clean it out but then had to put my shoes and socks on and to say that the sand irritated, and altogether worsened the situation is an understatement of enormous proportions. My little toe is now twice it's original size and walking is painful). Anyway i digress. It started to piss rain. Like any good Irish person i can sense an on coming rain shower with amazing accuracy. But due to damaged toe I limped home in the rain and when it rains here it really does pour, I still thought that all things being equal, things can't really get any better than this.
Unfortunately i can't really say the same about the restaurant in my hotel. I wish i could download the singers outside so that you also could share in my torment. All I wanted was some dinner. So i dressed my toe, limped to the restaurant only to be confronted by what i can only imagine Simon Cowell would muse,"if your lifeguard duties were as good as your singing, a lot of people would be drowning." To make matters worse because it's pissing rain there's no one here except me, Nini and a couple of locals drinking beer, and a white drunk guy at the bar who keeps raising his glass to me and winking. I paid my bill and left when they dedicated their next song to the only lady in the restaurant, Madonna's like a virgin. I couldn't pay fast enough. I can now hear them but am out of eye contact with my admirer who has major beer goggles on. Thank goodness my room has TV. And I really wanted desert. Darn. Last night they showed the first 5 ever episodes of the Sopranos on HBO I was in TV heaven.
I had to rush back and add that i just spoke to the lady who works here, she says that yes the band are awful she has to listen to them every night and they sing the same songs in the same order and make the same jokes, she looked genuinely pained. I suggested ear plugs, but she said management wouldn't allow them, ipod? too expensive. Poor thing. I should have given her my left over valium.
For amusement i have been setting my mobile number as 086 66666666, In one hotel i registered myself as Mrs. B. Obama and in another I put my occupation down as an Assassin, in others a writer, professional heroin addict, music producer, rock star, fugitive, sports star, Gymnast, money spender and waster and my home address as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Lovre and St. Peters Square, Roma Italy. I lived in Buckingham palace for a short time and in Thailand for one night i was from Kabul. Oh the ways one can amuse themselves when they are away from home.

Leaping for joy at an extra day in Bali

Made it to Kuta this afternoon despite the best efforts of my mini-bus, jokingly referred to as a shuttle bus, driver. It's not so far it's just that you have to go over the central mountains and the road is insanely windy and steep. Thanks goodness that I don't get car sick, and praise the lord for the ipod, it saved me having to listen to the constant, and i mean constant tittering of the Danish (I think) girls beside. One of whom by the way had the worst tattoo I have ever seen, she is so going to regret this ...

Checked into my hotel and went for a walk. It's so commercial and having not seen any real shops for a while I had a blast wandering around the aircon shopping malls. This town is bigger than i expected it to be. What i expected I don't know. But it's way bigger. And i have never seen so many places to get tattoos. It's just like any other big holiday resort I suppose. Brash tacky but with cheap food and beer. My hotel room is the biggest I have stayed in other than that wacky place in Shanghai. I got a discount and an upgrade because I complained that one of the other rooms I saw smelt of cigarette smoke.

I stumbled across the bomb memorial. It would leave a lump in your throat, the only word I can think of to describe the bombers rhymes with shunts. I was a little surprised to read that there were no Irish killed, usually no matter where I have been there's always been a disproportionate number of paddies wandering around usually a little drunk and sun burnt.

R.I.P

Bono should come here

Giday and I, he calls himself G'day mate, despite my pleas to the contrary. Giday is the poolboy, well that's kind of disparaging because he's more of the pool man, seeing that he's 38 has a 16 year old son and stuff. I also found out that party in Balinese means going to the the beach to drink the local moonshine, Balinese ricewine. I asked in my innocence, is it like vodka, but of course it's not, for a start off it comes in an old coke bottle. It's 60 proof. I'm steering wide of Giday especially at night when he seems all too eager for me to join him for a drink or two. I am still nursing my wounds of my night out in Thailand and still suspect a small broken bone in my foot. We will see. I only hurts when i swim.
I don't really have that much to report as i have spent most of my time laying by the pool reading books and trying to avoid a rather annoying Belgium man and his wife who insisted in telling me his life story in Dutch the other day; well up until he told his boss he was a donkey and then i was able to break in a explain that even though the staff call me Lula the funny lady from Holland, i speak not a word of Dutch. He's been staying in the resort for the past 4 months and wants to make friends with everyone which is fine, until his voice is the last voice you hear at night and the first each morning. He did tell me the story in English, I should have kept my trap shut.
My ipod has been of particular fascination to the locals, they can't really understand how you can fit 960 songs on something so small, and when i showed it to Giday he wanted to buy one straight away so that he could listen to Bob Marley on his motorbike.
I made special friends with this lady above, her name is Rene. She was so sweet, I tore my pants the other day (jumping onto the back of a motorbike) and she sowed them, she also gave me a massage, and tracked me down when i missed our 1 o'clock appointment. She kept hugging me and telling me i was the funniest Holland lady ever, I tried telling her I was from Ireland but it didn't work. That this is where I get to Bono.

Usually unlike people from more famous or infamous nations like the US, England or Germany, you have to do a little explaining sometimes to ensure that people understand that you are from Ireland. Up until recently, and in Vietnam and Thailand on occasion, Roy Keane came to the rescue. But not too many times. Well if Roy Keane doesn't work well who hasn't heard of U2, I'll tell you the Balinese. Giday went through my ipod, and didn't recognise, Blur, Oasis, U2, Amy Winehouse etc, or U2, he did however recognise both Madonna and Britney and some of the older stuff like the Beatles and the Stones, but that was about it. I asked did he know Bono? no, George Clooney, no or maybe Jack Nicholson, agh yes no that's the man he likes the ladies ....

Lula: the funny lady from Holland

I kept my word with the 180 year old man and was up and ready when he came knocking at my door at 5.45, we took a motorcycle to the beach and waited for the other two people, Dutch, i think, every foreginer here is Dutch to arrive. It was dark and there was a full moon in the sky, tourists arriving along the beach, all like me going out to see the dolphins. I stood beside the boat and waited, it was a nice morning, cool, dry and warmish. The dolphins don't like it when it's rainy. Heck who does? The other tourists didn't arrive. My boat man told me that i was his first job since the begining of the month. He was disappointed, I paid him 2 hundred thousand rupiah for the morning, he was happy with that. I thought about the other people assholes.

We got on the little boat, at first i was worried about my camera, but then my mind just drifted. We floated around in circles it seemed, a little floatilla of boats for about two hours. Maybe it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, after all the ocean looked kind of grey and i was trying to spot a grey animal in it. But then i just didn't care the moon sank in the sky in front of me, I could feel the sun rising behind me, , this was beautiful, here i was the luckiest person on the planet, on a little boat in off the coast of paradise early in the morning trying to spot a dolphin. When does life get better than this? The sea was so calm, not a wave, dolphins like this weather, the man shouted to me over the buzz of the engine. I still can't really hear properly but that is what he told me, then i realised he wasn't really 180. The boat turned and we turned into the glare, laser like stare of the morning rising sun. It was blinding, my skin felt like it was being cortorised. Why hadn't i brought sunscreen? I looked around and the little floatilla was gone, i was thinking does this guy know what he's doing and then there they were. I burst into tears. I'd never seen a dolphin before for real in the ocean, they were so beautiful, skipping across the water. making hooting noises. Like the day in Chengdu with the panda, I was gobsmacked, lost for words and happy. I tried to take photos but they moved so fast, I don't know if the video really worked. We moved around and saw more, they would disappear, tease the tourists? They were smaller than i thought they would be and moved so fast. Some of them came so close to our little boat that i thought they were going to jump in and say hello.

We turned back and headed towards the reef, I had paid for dolphins and snorkelling, but the water looked so dark and I was on my own and I had only snorkelled once before, in Hondurous. I said to the boat man that i wasn't sure, he looked sad, he would have to give me back a hundred thousand. I looked at the water, pulled off my shorts and my t-shirt and jumped into the water before that little man in my head had anymore time to diswade me. Wait wait wait he shouted (the boat man not the voice in my head), i had already bobbed to the top and was looking up at him. The water was beautiful, warm and fresh. Your snorkelling gear? I am sure he probably called me the Balinese word for idiot. I never realised how difficult it is to put on flippers, a mask and a snorkel while also trying to stay afloat in the ocean. I saw little yellow fish, and one that was purple and green, it was like finding nemo, the boat man also got in, i think at the begining he thought i was going to drown. I did that for about 45 minutes and then we headed back to shore. I was back at my hotel by 11, oh I also got my pedicure. I suppose sometimes it is worth getting up in the morning.

oh and this little girl forced me to buy even more braclets ... I wish they weren't so darn cute.