Sunshine at last

Bali, agh someone asked me what did it smell like here. Well through my stuffy nose I think that it smells like a lazy sunday afternoon laying in bed listening to the rain pelting off the window while enjoying the musty afterglow of 8 hours of perfect sex. It's warm, and dank, slow really really slow, and calm. It might be raining but WTF, it doesn't matter, just wait till it stops, and if it doesn't sit inside and read a book, or just think or chat or do absolutely nothing if that is what you want to do.
I moved yesterday from Sanur in the south of the Island to Lovina in the north. Apparently it's better for snorkelling up here, although now i've been told that the surf is too rough. But i really don't care, i'm trapped here until the 3rd or 4th of March, and i can't think of anywhere i wouldn't prefer to be trapped. The scenary yesterday was fab, I'm not going to compare it with anywhere else, but it was lovely. My driver, Tommy, (I'm sure that wasn't his real name) was really informative about the local customs and religion, a mixture between Hinduism, Buddhism and ancestor worship. Every where you go you have to watch the pavement because people leave out little offerings for the gods or the spirits. For some reason my good ear is gone a bit deaf, well really deaf actually, so I might have gotten a lot of what he was telling me arseways but I don't think so.
My hotel is ok, it's only $10 a night, I did notice ants in my bed last night which freaked me out and the pool boy keeps asking me if I want to party, (at least I think that's what he's saying). I don't know what party means in Balinese but I'm not shoving any local powder up my hooter, having sex with a pool boy, or taking xtc on the beach and drowning in the ocean, all except the one in the middle I am sure would not be covered by my travel insurance. And my parents would be super pissed if they had to pay to fly me back in the cargo hold of a BA flight and with my experience with those eijets (BA not my parents) they would probably loose me somewhere over the Indian ocean.
I went to the beach earlier, and i was a little disappointed, the sand is very black and because it's low season, i was like honey to the hawkers bees. I ended up with three shell necklaces, a massages, a promise that I will come back tomorrow for a pedicure (needed), a beautiful blanket which i am going to have to mail home and a calendar which tells my Balinese horoscope, apparently I'm a very good person? Didn't mention anything about a hard worker, thank Vishnu or i would have known it was all a load of horse crap. Oh and I also agreed with a man who looked about 180 that i would meet him at my hotel at 6am tomorrow morning to go out in his boat and go swimming with the dolphins, and i wasn't even drunk. Everytime i have agreed to do anything in anyway outdoory it has turned into a disaster. But I picked him because if he is 180 years old and he hasn't drowned then that has to be a good sign? Me hopes.
I'm now hiding in the internet cafe, because pool boy said he would come back to party at 4, it's just gone 5, it should be safe for me to venture back to my hotel. My good ear is still kind of deaf, in that way where you can hear an echo in your head, it's really annoying and also i don't know from where any noise is coming. But they drive on the left here, i know that much.

Don't break my heart my acky breaky heart

6am, it's still freaking humid and dirty. I hadn't slept. Had an argument with a Singaporean girl in my dorm, "Can vo turn down vor ipod?", "yes." .... "Please can you turn down your ipod?" ... "I said yes i can!" I was being a bitch. Of course i knew she was asking me to turn down my ipod not whether it was possible for me to turn down my ipod but legally i was correct and anyway she had been getting on my nerves all day by chewing gum at a decibel level higher than AK47. Then i felt sorry for her, I mean she probably never had chewing gum before, it was probably the equivalent of the first time an Irish person goes to a coffee shop in Amsterdam and buys a joint gets all fucked up and pukes on the floor.I packed my bag the night before and left it in the hallway so that i wouldn't disturb anyone leaving. Of course deaf ear didn't hear her alarm clock so one of the ridiculously cute Swedish girls had to wake me. hmmmm.
I boarded the monorail to go to KL Sentral to get the bus to the low cost airport. Billy Ray Cyrus, don't break my heart my acky breaky heart, blasting out of the loud speakers in the carriage was this some kind of punishment? My heart was definitely not acky breaking leaving KL Everything went like clock work and i got to the airport exactly two hours before my flight was to leave. Checked in, went through security twice, they were strict; they nearly pulled off Nini's head.While i was in KL I had been looking for both a scissors and a tweezers, without any luck. I got both in duty free, after security. Note to all potential hijackers. It was weird.
My arrival in Bali couldn't have been more screwed up. First the visa guy refused to accept my dollar bills, wanting five dollar notes only or new $1 notes. I dumped out all my foreign currencies, rubles, yuan, dong, kip, some kiels and other ones that i think came from Mongolia, eventually he said ok and took my old dollars. Picky. A dollar is a dollar and legally if you don't accept legal tender then ... Then he wouldn't give me my stamp, so i had to stand in another line. Then i got my stamp, another whole page, who do these countries think they are, Germany? France, China, Jesus even the US only gives you a small stamp. Then i got my bag, my security netting was gone, all my locks were gone, holy crap i thought. Ok i acquired some Valium when i was in Siem Reap mainly so that i woudn't have a great wallesque freak out at the temples. Is valium a psychotropic drug?
Bali international is a cute airport with lots of flowers, Hindu gods, waterfalls and a big sign saying DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUG SMUGGLERS. Then this guy in a uniform came over to me. "You come from KL?" "Yip", "You go that way" ... and he pointed at another guy in uniform who looked really pissed off and had a gun. Crap i thought here we go. Nini's a gonner. But instead i got waved through, no questions.
My hotel told me that there would be a driver for me. But he wasn't there. They had asked me to confirm whether it was 13.25 AM or PM which i thought was a little strange. I walked around. Had them paged, nothing. Walked around more. Found an internet place and checked the name of the place again and then i saw what i had done, I'd told them i was arriving at 3.25. Balls. I told the lady in internet place who let me call the hotel and i waited about 35 minutes, checked my bag, everything was in it. Eventually Markus came and picked me up, a really sweet Swedish man who runs the hotel with his Balinese boyfriend.I was exhausted and decided to have a nap. I woke up 4 hours later, it was dark and i was hungry and disorientated. I went outside, nearly fell into the swimming pool. Then i bumped into Markus' boyfriend who nearly burst into tears, "we thought you were dead, you hungry?" "Starving", he took me by the hand and brought me upstairs, gave me a cold beer, and before I knew it I was tucking into my first real home cooked dinner in ages, it was so lovely beyond words.The weather's kinda shit, it's humid and cloudy. Am going to chill out for a couple of days and then find somewhere to go snorkeling. I've started reading chicklit, well i did finish Crime and Punishment and War and Peace. Now I’m in the middle of a Marian Keyes book. It's not so bad. At least I don't have to think too hard which is good because I am starting to feel Echo Skim.

Send me a kick in the ass and a cyber hug at the same time

It's so hot here in KL and humid, in fact the place is the shit hole of all shit holes. Aside from the heat, the humidity, the traffic is terrible, the pavements are falling apart, the wahhabists just sneer and leer. Plus i have a head cold, a sore throat, a cough, i keep falling asleep during the day and being awake all night and my leg is still very very pinky blue green orange yellow purple black red turquoise brownish kind of colour. People here in the hostel keep going, yuke what the fuck happened to your leg, fairies, goblins, i crashed a motor bike trying to get some burmese monks over the border into thailand, i tripped on a paving stone, got mugged fell out of an aircraft or got hit by a tear gas cannister. And there were riots here today also,

http://images.google.com.my/imgres?imgurl=http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44260000/jpg/_44260444_cannonap416.jpg&imgrefurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ifs_news/hi/newsid_7111000/7111707.stm&h=300&w=416&sz=36&hl=en&start=11&tbnid=FIrXBHSYj2A5dM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkuala%2Blumpur%2B%2Briots%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX\

I told the lady at the pharmacy I was kicked by an elephant, i don't think that she believed me. Hmmmmm.

Today i went on the KL Monorail, now i have always been a little dubious of monorails since Lyle Lanley came to town all those years ago and almost bankrupted us, in fact I think that's what he did here but he also convinced them to build two stupid big towers in the middle of town also. I checked and there were no families of opussums living in the control boot and the driver was neither Homer nor dressed like a stormtrooper from Star Wars. Meanwhile as what happened backhome in Springfield the rest of the infrastructure in this city is still falling assunder. It's fine to have all these big flashy buildings but you have to have smooth footpaths otherwise the tourists gawping into the sky end up falling, tripping and diving unintentionally into holes, gullies and trenches in the ground. Tis all a bit silly really, and we complained about the spire.

I decided that my illness was due not just to it being 35 degrees in the shade, but also because of iron deficiency, really just a reason to go get a steak. Plus Bali is a Hindu island so the chance of getting a ribeye is probably negligible and i will never forgive myself for turning down that irish breakfast in Siem Reap. So off i went on my own, Nini is insisting on wearing a hijab and i keep telling her that she's not muslim, but she says when in rome, but ha i just left her in the room, with the air con off! That'll teach her. I got my steak, and some frys and some mud pie (because i'm worth it). On the way back i was hounded to the monorail station by baton weilding police men apparently there is another riot scheduled for this afternoon. I'm so bored I played blackjack on the computer here, I lost $75 but then won $76 back and cut my losses. It's not as bad here as i am making it out, i just don't feel well and want my mammy.
And on the up side it's so unbelieveably wonderful not to know someone who has a baseball sized tumor in their head anymore.

Guinness and bacon flavoured turkey

When i was in Chiang Mai in Thailand i met this American guy we kind of bonded, not in a sexual sense but in an intellectual sense over our mutually blossoming love of House. I left went to Laos, and the rest should have been history. but as it turned out he was in Siem Reap the same couple of days that i was there and it was a blast having someone to share the experience of visiting the temples, ruins etc withAnd yes the two day hell journey was worth it. I mean i could have sat at home on my sofa with a nice bottle of wine and some swiss chocolates and watched Tomb Raider, but seeing it in real was better. I took loads of photos over 100 a lot of which it turns out are of naked godessess. There were no naked gods. The entire place is such an anomoly, there stuck in the middle of the jungle in a Buddhist country the largest relgious shrine on the planet and it's hindu but there's no hindus, so the Buddhists just came and made it Buddhist but it is still decorated like it's Hindu. At the main temple Angkor Wat there's gazillions of tourists, the types of prats that fly in and out of Siem Reap think Cambodia is a really cute country and stay holed up in their 5* hotels. The kind of prat that i would probably be if this journey into the heart of self indulgence didn't budget for such indulgences.

But you see there's something about Cambodia, it's so poor, soo soo soo poor and the people are so amazing, i had that first couple of days of falling in love feeling. I mean that road over to Siem Reap nearly killed me. I am not deliberatly shaking my hand.

On my final day in Siem Reap myself and the American dude Shane, decided well at least i think i decided that it would be nice to go back to the temples again and see the sun set on Angkor Wat, but before doing so we needed food. Greasy spoon seemed like a great idea and where better than Molly Malone's. Nini was in her element. We actually didn't leave until they had no Guinness left and missed the sunset. but sometimes when you are travelling by yourself you start getting odd and so it's nice just to chill out and chat especially with someone who has the same dark and twisted view of humanity as I.

Well i'm in Kuala Lumpur now. I got here on a big jet plane. It's hot and steamy and really weird. Now i don't want to come across all Islamaphobic, because i am not afrad of Muslims nor do i dislike them or their religion, well no more than i dislike most religions, other than the Buddhists who just kick ass, well they would but they are not allowed to. It's just i feel so sorry for the poor women in their head scarfs, and not being able to have a cold beer at the head of a hot day, and having to pray five times a day and just well not getting any interest on your savings account or being able to get a mortgage. It must kind of suck, and everytime someone farts loudly in an airport you automatically get the blame. I'm here in KL until the 18th and then i am flying down to Bali for a couple of weeks, mainly because i can and mainly because i want to do some snorkling. but dammit i can't stop thinking about those kids in Cambodia.

Blown away

How this place is not a Wonder of the World I will never ever understand ... tis not often i will let the pictures do the talking ...

These temples better be worth it.

2 days of lonely and exhausting travel. A 7 hour train journey from Nang Khai to a city called Korat. It's the second biggest city in Thailand but tourists don't go there, in fact tourists don't got to the north east of thailand at all. The reason, it's really really boring, flat boring landscape with nothing to entice you to take your nose out of your book. I was the only westerner in my train carriage and as a result i got lots of unwanted attention from the really drunk guy at the top of the carriage who tried, i think to tell me that he was the coach of the thai national football team, well he told me that and he told me that had a massive tits, now he did that by using hand gestures that would have made Benny Hill blush. I think he wanted to touch, i think he realised from the pained and embarrassed look on my face that he darn't. Oh the joy, but when i told him that i didn't drink beer and was a lesbian he seemed to loose interest. Although i think his lack of continued interest had more to do with the four school girls who alighted my carriage and sat across from him, poor innocent things.
On thursday night i fretted as i hadn't a ticket for my bus to the border. So i decided to set my alarm for 7 and be at the train station at least 1 hour before it was to leave. When we left Khorat i had the entire air con bus to myself. Now i have never seen a Jackie Chan movie, and i don't really ever want to see one, if i turned on the tv and there was one on, i would probably switch over. On the bus they put on one of the rush hour movies, dubbed into Thai and cranked up the sound. I asked lady to switch it off on the basis that i was the only passenger on the bus and i didn't understand it but she said that she wanted to watch it. Liar. The bus stopped in between explosions, gun fights, sexy girls dancing in thumping nightclubs, fist fights, more car crashes and another set of explosions and before i knew it we were almost full, i couldn't sleep because of the noise nor could i listen to my ipod. it was hot the air con didn't work and again I was the only tourist. After 5 long hours i arrived at the border town. The bus was supposed to drop me off at the border but instead it dropped me a half a mile from there, and it was hot, about 33 degrees and the humidity is a killer. I walked down the dusty road ignoring the cries of Tuk Tuk Tuk tuk lady where you go lady and i found the border.
I was immediatly surronded by cambodian children with umbrellas, nothing is for free. They are not being kind to you. And men wanting to sell cambodian visas. 1500 Baht, that's about 50 dollars, i knew it should only be $20 so i like the piped piper lead a bunch of other tourists through all of the throngs of hawkers, shisters and swindlers into immigration having assured this random bunch of strangers that i had done this 6 weeks ago and you totally could get your visa at the border. Passed thorough immigration. I think some of my charges were begining to wonder if they should trust the sweating irish lady with madness in her eyes. We got to visa control and i saw the sign, Tourist Visa$20. I sat down and took a sigh of relief, i had managed to do the impossible, to pass through immigration into Cambodia without getting robbed or ripped off.
Poor innocent thing.
i walked to immigration, my $20, my photo and my passport in hand. Elated. Smug actually. No dollar, only baht, 1000baht, i'm like, what? That's $30 the sign says $20, old sign lady, no dollar only baht, But i got a visa six weeks ago and it was $20, look, i showed him my passport. different price for Vietnam, Liar!. I passed through the $20 he passed it back and shut the window, he had the visa, i had the money it was a loose loose situation ... for me. Here's your F#^king 1000baht, asshole. He smiled, thank you lady. Balls.
The whole immigration process took about 2 hours. All the officials were open to bribery to quicken the process, but i was so pissed off that i dug my heals in a waited.
I got talking to these two americans a father and son travelling together and we agreed to hire a taxi for the ride across to Siem Reap. It was the worst 3 hours car ride i have ever experienced, there was no road for the most part, just trenches, gullies, and gravel. I had to ask the driver to stop so i could throw up. We got a puncture and were convinced that we didn't have a spare. We did, the landscape was like nothing i have seen in Asia, barren arride and desolate. nothingness expect shacks on stilts and half naked children playing with sticks. The dust was a reddish colour which covered everything giving the landscape a very otherworldly feeling, and not in a nice way. almost like the heart of the heart was bleeding into the soil. Maybe it would be how it would be like to travel across the moon on a moon buggy. My entire body tingled for about an hour after i arrived. I was tired, dirty, and convinced that every one of my organs had moved at 10mm out of place.
I slept like a baby last night and woke this morning feeling truely rested for the first time in ages. I am going to see the temples tomorrow. They better be worth it.

Back to the future

I woke up this morning in the year 2551, I was bruised and battered and had very possibly the worst hangover of this entire trip. Those darn two for one cocktail offers. But stangely enough as i washed the cut on my hand, examined the dent in my elbow and looked in the mirror i realised that 2551 is at all that unlike 2008, remarkably i look the same and i haven't any more grey hairs. Although with the trobbing pain in my head and the creaking in my bones i did feel a lot older this morning.

I'm in a town called Nang Khai just across the border with Laos, it's sort of nice to be back in Thailand, at least here you can get stuff you need. My on going battle with my camera continues, and now the charger has broken, but i was able to get a replacement one easy here, in Vientiane they don't even sell cameras. The town has more hardware shops that i have ever seen, quite strange. I mean why do they need all that copper wiring. I crossed over here via the Thai-Lao friendship bridge, built thanks to the Australians, who were probably sick of having the lug their backpacks on and off totally unseaworthy little boats at border control. I checked into a little guest house, called Mutmee, it has a lovely location right on the banks of the Mekong, a lovely dining garden area cut out of the jungle, and i have my own little room with a fan, a mosquito net and a toilet into which i have to toss water as the flusher.

Anyway that's all, really, i am heading to Khorat tomorrow on the train and from there onto the Cambodian border on Friday. Should make it to Siem Reap by then and then i promise my photos will be a lot more interesting.

Sunday Sunday

This is a photo of downtown Vientiane about 2 hours ago. Me and a stray dog wandering down the street in the pouring rain.

The weather here has been shocking for the past three days, it has dropped about 20 degrees in temperature and has not stopped raining. In a way today is just like many of my childhood memories of Sunday afternoons, sitting inside, bored, restless and wishing it would just stop raining for a little while. And here I don't even had a mammy's dinner and Top Gear to look forward to. I think that we are getting the tail end of the Chinese storm. And i digress slightly to suggest that these pictures we are seeing shall be mirrored at the beginging of August as 1.3 billion chinese try to get to Beijing for the start of the Olympics.

Anyway before Vientiane decided to do an impression of Dublin I did get the chance to do a lot of sight seeing. Now it's definitatly not the prettiest city or the most interesting city but it is a friendly slow and easy going kind of place where you can just kick back relax and enjoy the ecletic range of resturants and a couple of Beerlao. I visited the national monument it's called That Luang, it's the most holy of the Buddhest temples in all of Lao and a place of pilgramage of the Laotian people. It could be kept better but this is a very poor country. Foreginers are asked to pay 5000kip about 50 eurocents to enter and then another if you wish to make an offering.

I promised a friend that i would say a prayer and make an offering for him. So nervously I took out my 5000kip note and gave it to the old man sitting at the entrance. He handed me a flower, a candle and two sticks of insense. I walked across to where the altar is, took off my shoes and walked up the steps. I wasn't really sure what to do but what I did know was that it is a terrible insult to the Buddha if you point your toes at him. Now i can't kneel but i managed to twist my knees around so that my feets were sticking out at weird angle but away from the Buddha so that was okay. Then I preceded to try to light my insense, and what was with the candle. I took a lighter out of my pocket and of course it had run out of fuel. I also knew that I couldn't swear even as match after match either snapped between my fingers or just lite for a moment before extinguishing. And what was with the little candle. Then a lady came along and she lit her little candle and with it ignited the insense. Aghhhh so that's what it's all about. I tried that but the candle just keep going out, more and more Laotian people came along and I felt strange and embarrassed, what was i doing, I'm not even a Buddhist. But with that the old man from whom i had purchased my offering came up behind me and with a big smile on his face and with the ease of a local, took my insense and my candle and sorted me out. Kop Chi. I hope it works.

I am heading across the border tomorrow back into Thailand, there is no sign that the weather is going to get much better here and I want to make it down to the temple in Angkor. It's not advisable to travel by "road" in Cambodia so the easiest and safest way to get there is via Thailand. So back to the land of Sawadeeka tomorrow. After Angkor I think i am going to see if I can fly to KL and from there to Manila for a couple of days, Air Asia is super cheap and while in this neck of the woods I might as well see as much of it as possible. I am also seriously considering going down to Bali. I found a flight for $73 each way from KL, WTF?

Laos: Please Don't Rush

Arrived in Vientiane yesterday evening after a very long boring and uncomfortable 11 hour bus ride. Our bus should have been in two hours previously but due to five breakdowns and heavy fog it was late late late. I hadn't booked anywhere to stay so i had to wander the streets looking for something. The tuk tuk drivers ominously told us that everywhere was full and we had a foreboding of homelessness but after wandering around for about 15 minutes i ended up at a hotel in the suite for about 33 usd a night. Expensive for Laos standards but sweet for me.

The day before i left luang pragbang it rained like i haven't seen is SEA since i was in Hoi An in Vietnam in the middle of November. It just poured. As a result my knee hurt. As a result of that i felt cranky especially since i hadn't any pain killers with me strong enough to deal with my knee pain if it gets bad. So i tried to sleep and watched some TV, and didn't do anything much. I was annoyed because the night before i had meet up with a group of people who were on my boat and we had a lovely evening, only interrupted by my discovery of a dead rat with it's guts hanging out in the toilet of the restaurant. Hmm i took a photo but for the sake of decency I'm not posting it. We tentatively arranged to meet the following night under the impression that we would just bump into each other but it was so miserable me for one didn't bump into anyone.

The bus journey to Vientiane was long and arduous, but somehow didn't wind me up as much as trying to take the 67a from Aston Quay to Celbridge in rush hour traffic. The road was incredibly windy we just went from one mountain peak to another through narrow windy roads, at least three times the bus almost crashed into on coming traffic. Beside me on the bus was a Laotian man and his daughter, she was little about five and he was cradling her in his arms. I think she had motion sickness and she started vomiting, he was so attentive and she was so good. It didn't make my journey any more comfortable but i felt for him. We went through some of the most amazing scenary i have ever had the privledge to see, and some of the most grinding poverty, villages where there was no electricty where the people lived in mud huts with bamboo walls, the children playing on the sides of the road, i had to think to myself do they go to school? It looked harsh yesterday i couldn't imagine what it would be like if it was the rainy season. I didn't take any photos because this isn't a poverty theme park with a 25$ entrance fee, like many people seem to think it is.

Vientiane is unfairly called the biggest village in South East Asia. It's not. It's a nice small city. Not a pretty city but being from Dublin l appreciate not so pretty cities. It's also one of the Frenchest places i have been to on this journey outside of Paris. It had a faux Arc de triomphe and a faux Champs Elysees all the streets are called rue this and blvd that or avenue this or rue the other. It's strange. Maybe it there was a little laostown in Paris this is what it would look like because the smell, the lack of noise and the Buddhist monks walking around remind you that this isn't Paris at all.

The other weird thing about here, and in here i mean Laos is that the demographics of the tourist has changed. Gone in general are the twenty something backpackers and they have been replaced by travellers in their thirties and forties and upwards. It's a strange change and I'm not really sure why, maybe the place is so out of the way, maybe I'm not where all the pot smokers are, and there's a lot of pot here, on the bus you could see wild cannabis plants just there on the side of the road, but whatever it is it seems just that little but off the beaten track to attract the Koh San road crew.

It's a small world ...

I got delayed leaving Chiang Mai because the other people who were on my mini-bus were too hungover to travel. I didn't mind and so I left on Tuesday morning. The people who were too hungover to travel turned out to be the most annoying threesome of gormless irritating English gap year students, who just behaved like total wankers and trailed me about for three long days. As I type this they are sitting beside me in the Internet cafe being loud obnoxious and really stupid.

The bus ride to the border was pretty uneventful other than having to listen to inane prattling behind me. I put on my ipod and that worked at dulling the pain. We got to the border the town itself was cute but empty it was as if there was no-one there. Had a lovely dinner and met a very nice English woman called Sarah who I was able to have a couple of drinks with and a chat. The setting was lovely along the Mekong with Laos just across the other side. The following morning there was mass chaos at the border, mainly due to really stupid people not being prepared. And I heard one person actually ask a befuddled Lao person was this immigration? Sometimes you just have to take deep breath and smile. Then I heard a voice behind me and for a moment I was sure that it was my friend Gina but I thought I'm sure someone would have mentioned it if she was heading to Laos. So I turned around and said, you from Cork, the girl smiled and said yes just outside Cork city. I said oh my god you sound exactly like my friend Gina, and the girl said Gina??? I said Fitzgerald, and she burst out laughing apparently they were in the same class in school and were friends. How totally random.

Once we got through immigration myself and Sarah tried to loose the English threesome, but failed and we boarded the mini-bus to head to the boat. The boat was much nicer and bigger than the one that i was on in Vietnam, it carried about 140 people all tourists, although it is the regular taxi ferry for the locals. The scenery along the route was gobsmackingly beautiful. High jungle covered mountains, sandy beaches with children playing and fishermen at work. The river was narrower than it was in Vietnam, windier and rougher. The boat wasn't so comfortable but i didn't really notice the numbness of my bum as I was just so enthralled with the surroundings. There was a little shop at the back with two little girls making baguettes, and serving Beer Lao and water. I don't think I have ever bought beer from anyone so young. In the back of the boat where there were no seats was where the Lao people were, on the second day I headed back there and we had so much fun, they were sharing their local delicacies, (i refused the deep fried rat,) with us and we were giving them beer. It was so funny. Always smiling and always laughing while the most fabulous scenery passed us by outside and as the sun began to set and lower in the sky the river turned a glistening golden colour i was entranced.

We got into Luang Phrabang yesterday evening at around 6.30. and found a lovely guesthouse with a restaurant beside it. So far i have managed to short circuit the electricity and flood my bedroom. Not a good start.

Luang Phrabang lies on the banks of the Mekong it's a protected world heritage site and a very pretty town. The money here is called the Kip but they'll take everything for payment if you have it. The people here as so poor. Their clothes are old and tattered and many are either barefoot of wearing falling apart shoes. The is a devoutly Buddhist country and the people are very very gentle and very timid. It's just lovely to be here and spend some money and help their people. I am going to stay here for a couple of days to see it properly and then I'll probably head down south.

Back to Black

I'm finally feeling up about Thailand. Am still here in beautiful Chiang mai. This city is just super. It has all the attractions of a big city without the freaky weirdness and chaos of Bangkok. If I ever come back to Thailand again I am going to come here first and then down to Bangkok. I've been alternating my days between laying around in the hostel watching House on DVD and going out and doing stuff. Yesterday was my going out and doing stuff day.
We did go to play crazy golf the other night that was a blast, it was actually drunken crazy golf and the drunkest person won, and no that wasn't me. I came fourth. Which wasn't bad. The next morning I woke up all hungover and elated at my near victory, don't Irish people always come fourth, (unless they are on drugs, you Waterford Crystal, you equine junkie you!)? Then I fumbled to my pocket to check my messages/ overnight communications and couldn't find my phone. Empty bag and searched hostel later I resigned myself to the fact that I was now one of the great unwashed a phoneless person. Maybe all my gloating about my near victory had clouded me and damaged my karma, it was time to visit some temples.
Chiang Mai has over one thousand temples, the same number almost as Bangkok and it's about 1/10th

the size of Bangkok. So it's got full temple saturation. You can't really throw an empty Singha bottle over a wall or down a street without whacking a monk on the head, and the upside is that it's against Monk rules to retaliate. Most of the temples here are fab. And I got to do a Monk chat. This is where Monks sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for earnest but ultimately stupid tourists to ask them inane questions about Buddhism and Thailand. Why has my mother cancer? If I'm not good will i come from Fermoy next time round? Is Richard Gere your favourite movie star? I thought that I could at least not do that.
The moment I sat down I totally lost the ability to speak in coherent sentences, it was like the cat had got my tongue and given it Novocaine. My chat with the monk wasn't too successful, I might go back tomorrow and try another one.
Well he told me that the path to nirvana was to forgo all desires, which I think personally is pretty good. We talked for a while about the difference about needing and wanting things. i.e. a person with bad burns needs plastic surgery and woman with small tits wants plastic surgery. Then I asked him was the desire to become a monk to attain nirvana not a desire and hence bad all by itself or even the desire to rid oneself of desire. It was like that moment in Father Ted when Dougal talks the Bishop out of being a Catholic, now I don't think that I talked him out of being a Monk and I am sure he will stay being a monk until he is happy to come out to his family, or get married, but with my experience of the clergy it would have to be the former. But I definitely made him uncomfortable and I didn't mean to. But I did find my phone in the makeup compartment of my bag 10 minutes later so maybe my karma wasn't that badly damaged by being a smart ass.
Anyway as I was walking around even another temple, I was thinking about how maybe it would be really good for me to go and live in a monastery and learn how to meditate and stuff. Really clear my mind, find out what makes me tick, what is the cause of all my inner angst, I sat down for a while to decide and then a mosquito bite me. And cleared my mind. Who was i kidding? 10 days with no TV, alcohol or fun. No internet access and no swearing and eating donations and having to hang out with a bunch of US college grads who's too wealthy parents had given them too much money to find themselves in Europe and Asia and in order to try to negate their guilt for spending most of the $50000 on ecstasy, hookers/cocaine and pot are now going ommmmmmh in a monastery somewhere in northern Thailand for a week with their laptops tucked in under their arms. "Lindsey make sure you get a photo of me with the Monk before I leave". Poke my eyes out with chopsticks and gouge my heart out with rusty spoon. I am not a trekking person and I am not a sitting around in a monastery trying to find myself for 10 days kind of person either.
I'm a touring around curious kind of person that is going on a two day boat, bus ride to Laos on Monday. That'll be cool, just hope Lindsey, Chuck and Shannon aren't on my boat.

And on an aside can someone please do something about Amy Winehouse's hair, Back to Black lady, Back to Black.

Dedicated to Jessica Fletcher

It was so nice to trundle out of Bangkok on the 19.35 to Chiang mai. I got a second class, air con lower bunk ticket. When i got on the train i was in an open carriage on a seat. I developed an onset of torettes syndrome and mumbled obscenities directed at the lady who sold me the ticket, myself, Bangkok and any random passengers who passed by me. 17 hours sitting upright on a train through the night and I was already tired. And I was just waiting until the person came to occupy the seat in opposite me. No one came and the train moved off. Then I overheard some passenger saying that the beds were really comfortable and that it was good for your back. so I decided to investigate and managed to pull my chair apart and with the opposite chair make a really comfy bed. About 20 minutes later our carriage attendant a very dexterous man unlocked the overhead compartments to reveal bunks with mattresses and sheets and pillows, he made us stand up one by one while he in almost Harry Potteresque style transformed the uncomfortable seated compartment into a really comfortable sleeping one. I tried to send out positive waves of apology to all those I had cursed. Sorry.
Chiang Mai is such a relief after Bangkok, it's still busy but gone is the pure madness of Bangkok. I don't feel unhinged here and I feel that I can relax. One of the main reasons why people come here is to go trekking. I am not going trekking again. I nearly killed myself in Sapa and there's no point in me kidding myself that it would be any different this time. So I am just chilling out visiting temples and relaxing.
I keep feeling like I have to keep moving to justify what I am doing here and that I shouldn't relax and take time out but I also think that it was me who saved up the money to come here and had the balls to do it, so I should be able to relax if I really want to. Why am I even justifying any of this?
I got my camera fixed. No thanks to the people in my hostel who although helpful sent me off in a wild goose chase. I went to about five places which all told me either they couldn't fix it or if they could it would take about 3 weeks. I went for lunch, and over my spicy Thai curry i reconciled myself to the fact that I was going to have to fork out to buy another camera. To get one like the broken one was going to cost me about 300eur. I went into an internet place to research digital camera shops in Chiang Mai. I got distracted reading about Britney Spears' kiddy problems and the dangers of drinking water out of plastic bottles. Mitt Romney's chances against McCain and some story about some cop in the States who murdered his wife. Then I ended up looking at a recipe for cheesecake, read some movie reviews and then that little voice in my head yelled at me to FOCUS. I found a chat room page thing discussing where to buy cameras in Chiang Mai, a couple of people mentioned Chiang Klang road, so I looked on my map and headed off. I found it eventually I went for a coffee and contemplated going for a beer but the little voice in my head told me to FOCUS, no beer or massage until you have gotten the camera.
Thai people don't walk, so when you asked them for directions they usually get confused and send you in the direction a car would go in rather than walking. I found this shopping plaza full of camera shops and electronics stores. The first one I went into I was talking to the guy, looking at cameras, I settled on one that was about 340eur and I was bargaining with him and I was telling him that my camera was stolen in Vietnam and now this one was broken and I needed him to... he stopped me and asked did I have the broken camera on me, I said yeah and I showed it to him. He asked why I wouldn't just get it repaired.
D'oh.
He wrote down the address of a camera repair shop. I got a tuk tuk. They fixed it in 3 hours and charged me about 34eur. Nice.
I treated myself to a massage and a big beer to celebrate and a yummy sushi dinner last night.
I am staying in a hostel called the Spiceythai, it's nice, clean and the people are really friendly. I find myself getting bored listening to other people's travel plans all the time, it's so repetitive and why do i care? Most of the people here are on a short journey and I feel like a real hard core traveller when I tell people that I have been on the road since the beginning of September and I get a big gasp when I tell them that i don't have round the world ticket because I travelled over land to get here. It's probably selfish of me to be like this but it's all you hear from people. Where are you from? What is your name? Where have you travelled? Where are you going to next? And people really play my travels are cooler than yours in the same way as pubescent boys play ... And I invariably win because my travels are usually a bigger dick than theirs.
I have met some nice people and a couple of folks I may head into Laos with. I can't really decide what to do next, where to go and what to see. Thailand isn't really doing it for me. It's lovely and the people are nice but it's like a big theme park and there are way too many tourists. I think that over tourism has spoiled it and the nation of smiles has become pretty cynical which is a real shame. I think I am going to head to Laos maybe next week. It should be a bit of a rest from the constant noise in Thailand. And then maybe back into Thailand, I really just don't know?

Typing, sleeping and eating pad thai with chicken

There seems to be no getting away from this place. I tried to get a train from Kanchanaburi to Chiang Mai but all trains run through Bangkok and there was no train until tonight, so i had to stay here for another two nights. It actually wasn't too bad. Bangkok is a great city, so diverse and strange and quirky. An elephant tapped me on the shoulder the other night and there is constant struggle to figure out if the cute girls are really girls at all. I head out of Bangkok tonight on the over night train. Second class which was all that was available and I have been assured is okay. Apparently Chiang Mai is a lot cooler than Bangkok and that will be no bad thing, I just hope that I don't regret telling Sharon at the airport to give my sweater to a homeless person.
If you do come to Thailand, don't go to the Tiger Temple, well go but don't give them any money, IT IS ANIMAL CRUELTY, sanctuary for cynical pseudo-monks. There are lots of tigers, all sitting around in the scorching sun not moving while tourist get to pat them, put their heads (the tiger's heads) on their laps, and generally do things that are totally unnatural to the way a normal tiger should behave. I felt very uncomfortable about the whole thing and left after 15 minutes. There's something rotten there and I'm not sure what it is, there's lots of other stuff on the net you can google about it. I just found the place repulsive.
So I am spending today wandering around Bangkok, waiting for my train, oh and also trying to find somewhere where I can get my camera fixed. I used it the other night, put it back in my bag and then next morning went to use it again and it looks like I am shooting under water, the lens appears to have moved or something. I don't really want to have to buy another new camera, but I could be in a worse place i suppose.
Sorry things are kind of dull at the moment, I think it's the heat is just dissuading me from doing anything more energetic than typing, sleeping and eating pad Thai with chicken.

Tis hot hot hot

Kanchanaburi is about 2 hours from Bangkok by bus and is the hottest place that I have visited since I left Dublin in September. And I mean hot in the temperature sense and not in the Paris Hilton sense, in fact in the Paris Hilton sense it is probably one of the kitschiest places I have ever seen.

Kanchanaburi is on the river Kwai, and this is where the movie about the bridge was erroneously placed, that movie was actually about a bridge being built across the Mekong, and when you are here the size and scope of the bridge can disappoint. It's definitely not the grand structure that Alex Guinness and his men blew up at the end of that movie. Before going to the bridge I visited the war cemetery where there are the graves of about 50000 British and Dutch servicemen who died during the construction of the Burma to Siam railway. As with all overseas British museums this cemetery is a oasis of pure good taste, immaculately kept and understated. The bridge is not.

There is the much flaunted Jeath museum, which shame on you lonely planet is a disgrace, i didn't know whether i could laugh or cry. The Japanese built the bridge? Really the dead guys down the road that was just an accident? You see the big problem that the Thais have here is that they collaborated with the Japanese during the war and they also get a lot of Japanese tourists and they are trying to keep everyone happy but with the tacky toy train that now goes over the bridge, the t-shirt sellers and the really crappy museum you leave thinking, shit this place is awful. Imagine going to the poppy fields in Belgium and them having pretend trenches you could get your photo taken in? It's just weird.

Anyway I was glad to get out of Bangkok, and I was going to knock it out of my top 10 favourite cities but it wasn't it's fault that I was sick when I was there. So I will give it another chance. I went down to visit Khao San road the other night. A tourist hub, the best place is SE Asia to get started on your travels or a human zoo, a ghetto for Alex Garland readers. It wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be, to my disappointment on-one shouted titty titty at me and no-one tried to sell me drugs. Instead I saw families with children, bewildered tourists, one guy with his entire face tattooed and lots of Thai people making a quick baht. It was great. Fun and enough.

Tomorrow I head to the tiger temple where apparently the tigers aren't drugged but you can put your hand in their mouth??? We will see.

I asked the lady at the train station to get me accommodation somewhere on the river, now in Irish speak on the river means beside the river, but in Thai speak it means on the river. I have a little hut on stilts on the river, it's cute, and pretty but has lots of bugs and reptiles. I have my repellent so I should be okay.

I checked the drugs that the doctor gave me for my vertigo and the side effects include drowsiness and dizziness (what the F#$k, that's what they are supposed to be stopping). I felt like I was walking around stoned out of my head and not in a good way, and I am supposed to take one 3 times a day. I also had the problem that my sleeping pattern has gone completely out of kilter, so I have decided to use the pills as sleeping tablets also and only take them at night just before I go to bed, hopefully that will cure all my ills. Talking of pills, Britney Spears would love this place i have never seen so many pharmacies in my life, and they all have names like, Happy Drug, Funny Drug, Boots, Crazy Drug, Family Drug, I don't know, oh I got served my morning coffee by a lady boy. I didn't guess until (s)he asked me in a husky George Clooney type voice was that hot or cold I like ...

A trip to emergency and other fun outings in Bangkok

Yesterday at the end of my post I said that I wasn't feeling too well. Last night I spent the night vomiting, and suffering from severe vertigo, a problem I first encountered about 18 months ago which my doctor said may be related to my tinnitus. I haven't suffered a vertigo attack in about 16 months so I didn't think that there was any reason to bring my tablets with me, na, get tablets and bring them with me.
But I had been getting pretty bad tinnitus when I was back in Dublin, which should have alerted me, but then again after such a long time i thought that the first attack was an anomaly and my specialist thought so too (quack). It wasn't. I lay in bed last night and today for about 16 hours. I didn't know what to do, could I even go to the doctor? Could i just go to the pharmacy and get my meds? Should i go home? was this going to stop? Was this the end of my travels; so quickly after coming back? I decided to go to the doctor, I staggered like a stoned up drunk to reception in my hotel and said that I needed to see a doctor,
Before I could say copkunka, I was whisked into a taxi and brought to Bangkok Christian hospital, there they gave me a number and I sat in casualty as the walls around me spun in an anti clockwise direction. A free acid trip, I arrived at 3.15 and I had to wait until 3.23 to be seen to and I was out of there with my vertigo tablets at 3.45. Beat that first world country Ireland!
I'm okay now and ready to go onwards and upwards but it wasn't nice to be ill in a far away country with no one for company except Nini who after all is a drug addled stuff toy and crack whore who can only speak Mandarin.


This is my third time in Bangkok, I am counting the 15 hour lay-over just before Christmas, so okay my second. It's just crazy, it makes a trip to Amsterdam feel like a trip to Sunday school. There is I have to say, and I hope I am not coming across as being prudish, a tonne of sleaziness that is just hard to stomach. I don't care at all what people want to do in there private lives, but the optimal word here is private, here everything is just so out there, and the Thai ladies even in there late 20s look so young one can't but believe that that's the real reason a lot of the tourists are here. And I wonder how would the King, so loved by his people really feel if he came down here and saw his subjects prostituting themselves for a couple of baht? But I am in a quandary, because another part of myself thinks that this is all okay, isn't it better to be out in the open than hidden away and illegal like in lots of western places, I don't know but it makes for great people watching.

I think i may need an umbrella

It was snowing as left Dublin.

Arrived back in Bangkok about 26hrs ago. It was nice to once more feel the sunshine on my skin, the warm breeze on my face and the nagging notion that I was being ripped off my everyone I came across in my soul.

Oh,Bangkok, I always fall for your scams. After leaving the airport with my bag, now 8kgs lighter than when I flew out. I ditched my winter clothes and most of the 30 pairs of underwear I had been hauling around. I was immediately surrounded by a group of taxi drivers who told me that it was impossible to get to my hotel. right, but they kept it up, I walked back into the terminal and one of them came after me, he said that he could bring me for 600 baht which I knew was too much, and then he brought me to the car park. are you sure you're a taxi driver, yes mad'am , whatever. I made sure that the lady at the toll booth saw me and off I went. He found my hotel fine and I checked in.

In the intervening hours i managed to blow up my aircon unit and lock my passport in the room safe being totally unable to reopen it. The management showed me twice how to do it and twice I fucked it up. Now all my dollars most of my baht and my passport are locked in the safe and I am just way too embarrassed to tell the staff that I have yet again locked myself out of the safe, and I will let them find out about the aircon when I check out.

My flight back was pretty unimpressive. I had a pretty large Australian lady beside me who really should have washed her feet before taking off her trainers but other than that and the pouring water out of the ceiling as we came into land in Bangkok all was fine. The flight attendant told me that it was perfectly normal, maybe but it has never happened to me before, anyway I didn't care I was about to land. Hope the rest of the passengers enjoyed their onward trip to Sydney.

Christmas at home was lovely. And worth every penny.

Think I will stay in Bangkok for another couple of days, I have terrible jet lag and feel like shit. Then I will start to head north, slowly ending up in Chaing Mai and Chang Rai, and then across into Laos and Cambodia again to see Angkor Wat. Will take Bangkok photos tomorrow and post them, if I wake up tomorrow, this is why travelling by rail is just so much better!

Being Charmed in Cambodia and turning pink in Bangkok

The boarder crossing into Cambodia was the prettiest boarder crossing i have ever made. It was just a garden full of flowers and some huts, the boarder guard was hilarious. He looked at my passport photo and with a mischievous smile on his face said, "So young so pretty .... is the you?" And then he laughed and laughed. I told him the photo was only taken four years ago and he looked up at me looking said and shook his head and again, but this time mumbled, "so young, so pretty."

The slow boat continued up the Mekong, the further into Cambodia we got the wider the river seemed to get. On the banks you could see wooden tree houses and just about make out Children running up and down waving and shouting, ladies out washing clothes and men fishing. I was listening to my ipod, Johnny Cash was singing, you can run on for a long time, run on for a long time but sooner or later God's going to take you down. Sublime.

Phnom Penh was not at all as I expected. The city is majestic, filled with beautiful building and the prettiest flowers sparkling in the sunshine. The Royal palace is one of the most majestic places I have ever visited. But in a way Phnom Penh was also exactly what I expected. Filth, grinding grinding poverty like the type I have never seen before. Naked children begging on the streets, markets that smelt like rancid corpses and shit, and I mean real shit I'm not speaking metaphorically here.

But now I am, it's almost as if it is a microcosm of what the world is like. Tremendous poverty with a small and lucky few driving around in SUVs. Friendly open people but you daren't go out at night in case you would be mugged or held up at gun point. It's nothing personal but desperate times call for desperate measures. But what I really couldn't get over was the beauty of the people, a kind, good humoured and gentle people. Always smiling, always welcoming. It's hard to leave Cambodia not feeling that you have been blessed to be in the company of such people. On the night that I arrived my tuk tuk driver asked me did I want to go to the Killing Fields and to shoot gun. I said to him that I wasn't really sure but maybe on Saturday, maybe? I told him that if I went I would meet him at 10 outside the hotel but I wasn't sure. I was tired after my long boat journey and didn't really want to do anything but sleep. But on Saturday morning at 10 I walked out of the hotel and there he was, saying "hello lady" and with the most illuminating smile on his face.

Like after visiting Auschwitz, I have nothing to say about the killing fields or S-21. It's just so difficult to believe that such a tragedy could befall such a kind and gentle people.








pehn
I flew out of Phenom Pehn early and arrived into Bangkok, with a 15 hour layover, my flight doesn't leave till midnight. At the airport I went to the pharmacy and asked did they have caffeine pills and I might as well have asked them for cocaine, the look I got. And there's an election on in Thailand today and tourists have been asked not to go into the city, so I have just been wandering the airport. I got my hair done, cut and colour. I thought red would be seasonal, it was pink when they washed it, baby pink. I just smiled and the lady just asked, "you have more time?" now I wasn't cursing my long layover, my hair's now red. I had a massage, a foot massage and a pedicure. Before I started typing i decided to go for a drink in the bar, hmmmmm under Thai law it is illegal to sell alcohol on election day .... it's going to be a long long evening.

Glad or Sad

After spending 40 days in Vietnam and seeing more of the country than most Vietnamese people ever will I lay in bed the other night and wondered was I glad or sad to be leaving. I can't wax lyrically about it like i did about China, it was different. The longer I was there the less I liked it. But please don't get me wrong, it's a lovely place and for everything that happens to make it annoying something just a little better happens to make it worth it. It's just that maybe too many of the little annoying things happen and then it starts making you feel crazy.

Took my three day journey from Saigon to Phnom Penh, through the Mekong Delta and then on the slllooooooooooow boat to Phnom Penh, and with almost everything else i did in Vietnam I was not given the full story by the travel agents. But focus on the positive.

The Mekong Delta is one of the most fascinating places i have ever been to. It really is the lifeblood for entire communities. They reside on, live on and die on those waters, they rely on the murky waters for everything, somewhere to catch fish, tourists, somewhere to bathe, and to wash your clothes, somewhere to play and to poop. We border a small boat and did a tour through the canals that make up so much of this area, one lady sat at the top of the boat and rowed as 4 tourist sat in the back taking photos. We were told by our guide to give her a tip when we were finished.

That's fine, but in true Vietnamese style as we were going through the canals and as each boat passed us coming in the other direct we were met me a chorus of "tip money, tip money." not that's just not cool. But then when we landed we were met by the most adorable children and this somehow mitigates the annoyance of being harassed by the paddlers.

The Children in Vietnam are the most adorable children I have ever come across, naughty, playful and so cute. Everywhere you go you are met with a refrain of little voices shouting haloo haloo, it is adorable, always smiling and always playing. At the border with Cambodia and little boy came up to me a gave me a flower. It was just incredible.

After visiting a couple of rice making plants and other not so interesting places, (as you can see from the photos i spent most of my time outside playing with the kids), I got to combat another of my fears. The message on my t-shirt more accurately conveys my feeling than the forced smile on my face. We visited loads of places, being herded on and off the boat like children. Almost collectively, except for our guide to the Cambodian boarder, the guides were rude, and flustered. I think that the problem is that they get themselves worked up and then just let go by shouting at everyone. On the first night when I had checked into the hotel. I was lying on the bed just relaxing when someone came banging on my door. "open door. open door," I opened it, and there was my guide with hotel security, who just stood in the corner giggling and making faces at the guide behind his back. Apparently i hadn't paid the full price for my room and I had to move out. But move out to where, well i could share with a French guy who also hadn't paid for his room. I didn't want to share with a stranger and as far as I was aware I had paid. A mobile was pushed in my face and an angry a voice was yelling at me for telling lies and not paying, All the time my guide just yelled at me. I asked them how much money it would cost to pay the extra, and they said 3$, okay I'll pay now piss off. Of course when all got resolved and the guide calmed down I got my three dollars back. But it's a sort of a shoot first as questions later mentality.

The next day we again were herded onto a bus and driven for a while to a another boat and we went to see a crocodile farm, a floating market and a village built entirely on stilts.

The group went on to visit a ethnic village but I stayed behind and watched life in the village. The people here are so strong and so hard working. From the little children to the elderly. There's no sitting around here waiting for the man to come to fix stuff, you get out there and do it yourself. I watched this elderly lady and the young boy at work, they were trying, I think, to move this raft and it had become stuck in the mud. It was with brute force that they were working and that's how all the work is done here. although the Vietnamese are incredibly industrious, and would connect an engine to anything, most of the work done along the Mekong delta is done by manual labour. Long, hard and slow work, back breaking work, always done with a smile. You see, dammit, they piss me off but then they make me admire them so much in the same minute. No wonder this country makes forgieners go nuts after a while.

Sad or glad .... sad.