Well I got up early today to visit the Cambodian embassy... two photographs, $30 US and 6 hours later I have a pretty new 30 day visa for Cambodia - all the information I'd read on the internet was a little out of date, and it appears that the border I wish to cross at is officially open, and that Vientiane does offer an express visa service of 1 day when you spend $30 US instead of $20... which is a relief, as I can now travel southwards once more towards my eventual border crossing into the land of killing fields and Angkor Wat.

After the Visa malarchy in the morning Charlotte and Myself got a tuk tuk to That Luang, basically a very large golden stupa - very picturesque - while here we also had a look at the hurrendously prolific Laos artist who had his work on display, I think I counted at least 100 works... mostly oils and acrylics, but there was also some water colours and mixed media to spice things up...

After that we headed back into the central city, killed a bit of a time, then had lunch at Joma (I think that's what it's called) - basically a Zarbo's equivalent - I got lasagne and a tastey salad.  Outside the restaurant was a lady with a cleft palate and a little baby girl of 7 months, who was very talkative, she even told me which direction I would have to walk if I needed to get to Bangkok... though it's a little far ;o)

In the afternoon I explored the Laos National Museum.. this museum starts off with a small section on dinosaurs, then the plain of jars and similar ancient sites, very briefly covers minority races in Laos and then jumps into the main attraction on the second floor (which dominates most of the building) - that being the french occupation, declaration of independence and rise / fall of communism (including the secret war obviously) in Laos - the english labels are patchy but you get a good feel, and the "artifacts" they've collected are great... it's not often you get to see a revolutionary leaders 1950's style spring "chest expander" - some of the pictures are fascinating, as you see Castro and Uncle Ho having a jolly old time with the Laos leaders.

The museum cements a view of the Laos as a progressive nation, with funny little displays of pharmaceuticals manufactured "right in Laos", as if the boxes of pills were required as proof that such a feat were possible.. and captions on pictures suggesting such wonderful things as "Disabled people are well cared for in Laos"... the "smell" of communist working class heroes and government saving face abounds, but I also could just be jaded - the people in Laos do generally seem to wish well of each other in general.

On the side.. at the guesthouse I'm staying (dragon lodge) a whole gaggle of IT students have arrived from Singapore, and are assisting the local hospital with improving their information systems and architecture over the next 2 weeks - which is interesting - I never really think that a skill set such as my own could be put to good work in an area like this... food for thought, and it does make me wonder why New Zealand IT institutions don't think of doing something like this... it would have to be great P.R, not to mention a lot of IT people would jump at the opportunity to combine study with a little travel.

Tomorrow I'll be jumping the bus to Savanaket - about 7 to 8 hours, so that will pretty much take me out for the whole day... I haven't done a lot of research on the southern destinations of my journey through Laos, guess I'll do that in transit, it's nice to have a bit of a surprise anyway.

Phonsavan

A mere 8 hour bus journey from Luang Prabang on some of the windiest roads I've encountered so far on my travels, and I arrived at the rather... umm.. Arid town of Phonsavan... Why had I come here?

Well... to see the plain of Jars of course!

At any rate, after the 8 hour bus ride and chilling to various sounds (I was feeling a little mute, so I cranked up some Neutral Milk Hotel and followed it up with some Jean Grae - I really seem to be growing fond of her hip hop while on holiday... mmmm) we arrived at the Phonsavan bus station, I quickly got friendly with 2 people.. A Lady Charlotte, Social worker from London (who I'm stilling hanging out with) and Pierce, a fun almost-uni-student from the UK as well.

We all ended up heading to the Khong Kheo guesthouse (I Think that was it's name, near the old runway) - and then after securing some rooms we went out to explore the town... of which there wasn't much, eventually having some beers and shooting the breeze - after that we went in search of a Meal, originally we had decided to find the Lao Youth Centre Restaurant, or something along those lines.. which took a while, but we eventually discovered it, though it's now called the New Wave (opposite the Maly hotel) ... sat down, got menus, went to order and was told they only had sticky rice... hmm... so we went across the road to the Maly (best food in town it says on the door, which I think was actually accurate - which also has a nice display of weaponry on the wall, actually everywhere has a nice display of weaponry on the wall in Phonsavan..heh).

At any rate, the following day we were up at 9am to do a day of touring the plain of Jars (sites 1, 2 and 3) - our guide/trip wasn't cheap ($8 US each) - but I think in the end it was probably worth it because his interest in the sites and the Laos war was wonderful, and I learnt a great deal - the day started off with a visit to the quite large market in Phonsavan (well worth a look all on it's own) - followed by a visit to a derelict russian tank, then site 3, site 2 (with lunch) and site 1 - site 1 being the biggest.  In all there are 60 jar sites known to locals, and 50 documented so far by UNESCO.

The jars themselves are a bit of a mystery, but dating puts them at around 2,500 years old - far longer then the Laos people have been occupying Laos - and each one is cut from solid stone, some with lids, and weighing up to 2 tonnes - and dates back to the early stone age of the original south east asian people in this region.  I dont think you could describe it as an exciting place, but it's definitely quite surreal to think of just how old they are and to see them rising out of the ground like monaliths - a Laos stone henge.

The really interesting thing is that this is also a hot spot of the secret war in Laos (Laos being the most bombed country in the world, aproximately 3 million bombs dropped over a 10 year period AFAIK) - and in site 3 was the situation for a large revolutionary camp, where various Vietkong troops and supplies were smuggled from Vietnam.  Bomb craters are everywhere and UxO is a major problem, the MAG (Munitions/Mine Action Group) has done a lot of work (supported by nzaid no less..) to make safe paths to the various jars - and it's depressing to think of the damage done to this truely unique site during that conflict.

Vientiane

The following day I left Phonsavan, originally I had planned to go to Vang Vieng - but after to talking to some people I didn't really feel like it - for some odd reason I was in the mood for a city - so I skipped and got a bus straight to Vientiane.  The bus ride was quite comfy, I took VIP - which has more leg room and you get a free drink of water and biscuits, at the cost of another $1 US.  The ride was uneventful, accept for a flat tire and that one of the support crew for the bus driver carried a Kalashnikov with him everywhere he went, at one point the barrel was resting on the back of my seat (Though I didn't know).. which would've been OK till an Israeli guy pointed out that they've got a notoriously ineffective safety.. erk - while changing a tire he just left it lying on the ground outside where I could've just picked it up... Laos does have a bit of a banana republic feel at times - you just have to keep on smiling ;o)

Vientiane is pretty cool - the decaying french colonial architecture is eerily beautiful, combined with the dusty roads and really good french food.. I'm splurging while here on a very nice room, with Aircon and T.V! Which is costing a whopping $12 US a night, sometimes it's nice to remind myself that I'm not a "scratching to stay alive" backpacker ;o) but a lazy overpaid software developer after all.

The food here is great - and expensive for Laos - but still bloody cheap for home and of equivalent if not better quality - dinner with Charlotte last night was a big ice cream sundae (3 big scoops of Rum & Raisin).. a really nice Carbonara pasta and a couple of big bottles of beer.. for approximately $9 NZ... not too shabby.  I discovered that she's met Tom Waits in person, and seen him in concert - I'm rather jealous!

Probably the funiest thing today was heading to Patuxai, a large concrete monument that is very reminiscent of the Arc De Triomphe n Paris.. It was built in the 1960's with United states purchased cement that was supposed to have been used to construct a new airport..  I wonder what the states thought of that ;o)

Also interesting (and Just by the arch) are 2 rather large fountains, which are sychronised to funky Thai and Laos music that plays in the background - they're pretty cool, and donated by the Chinese government - In fact everything in this country that looks new appears to have been donated by some foreign government, even on the outskirts of town Japan is funding the construction of a weather radar station.

Yet just like China most people dont have clean water.

On the down side today I went to apply for my Cambodian visa, however it's bloody labour day here - and everything was closed... so I'll have to do it tomorrow, hopefully it can be processed quickly as it would be a shame to burn up too many days here, apparently it can take 3 days (ugh!) - though you may be able to convince them to do it on the spot.. so I might need to do some sweet talking or attempt my first bribe (I was silly not to get it done while in Chiang Mai, when I got my Laos Visa... only takes 1 day to do it in Thailand.. meh)

At any rate, I'll probably post some pictures next time I update with what I've been snapping lately and talk about my adventures with the Cambodian embassy.

Cheers...

 Alex

Well I'm back in Luang Prabang today, arrived yesterday afternoon, planning to head to Phonsavan tomorrow to go see the plain of Jars.

Originally I had planned to head south earlier, but after talking to some people coming from the north (and seeing their pictures) I decided to head to Muang Ngoi Neua with Hayley and Pauline (A dutch lady I met on the slow boat).

To get to Muang Ngoi we took a 4 hour bus ride to Nong Khiaw, then jumped on a boat for a 1 hour ride up to the village - there are no roads leading to this village you see - the boat ride was spectacular as we plied our way upstream through little sets of rapids between the mightly limestone peaks.

Once arriving at Muang Ngoi we headed to the quiet end of town and rented some Bungalows, mine cost $1 US per night, for a double bed and a couple of hammocks outside on my deck - all very plesant.  For the first day I pretty much just drank some Laos tea and slept in the hammock while the sun went down, finishing off a book (Titan, which has a daft ending IMO..).

That night we had quite a violent storm (loads of fork and sheet lightening) which was amazing to watch - thankfully my bungalow stayed upright ;o)

Second day we got up and went on a bit of a Trek, first to some nearby caves, and then off to the Huay Bo, about an hours walk away which is of mixed Laos and Khamu village people.  It was here that we got befriended by a man who runs the local guesthouse and I ended up sampling 5 or 6 shots of his home brewed Laos Laos... which was surprisingly clean compared to the crap we drank on the slow boat.. though it was still painfull.

After this we headed back to the village, chilled out and had some dinner.

Third day was lazy... a little more reading, I'm onto "American Psycho" - not something I'd normally read, but It was recommended to me by Charlotte, so I thought I'd give it a go - so far it's been pretty funny. This day I got a really dodgy stomach, cramps, the whole shebang... not sure what I've eat that's caused it - but it's no fun - didn't sleep at all.

Fourth day I got the 9:30 boat back to Nong Khiaw, then took a jumbo truck (basically a small truck with 2 bench seats running down either side of the back tray) - which wasn't the most fun I've ever had - back to Luang Prabang, and got myself a $8US (extravagance!) guesthouse room with own bathroom, where I'll stay till I feel better.

Fifth day (today) - feeling a bit better, will travel to Phonsavan tomorrow morning unless I feel really sick again - though I can probably counter that with the magical "Immodium".

anyway, here are some pictures:

The guesthouse owner who fed me up on his Laos Laos (rice wine).

The local dock at Muang Ngoi, the roofed boats are what they stuff 20 people into when negotiating the rapids up/down stream.

The view from my Hammock - not too shabby.

Some more pictures for you all, this time we have Laos - only a few as I haven't been taking many:

Kids... Laos is all about the people, all the kids are friendly, most of the sales people aren't pushy.. it's pretty good - though poverty is ever present.

Hayley, the NZ girl from Christchurch I met on the slow boat who I've been hanging out with for the past week.

Same Same, But Different - the Laos tractors are like overgrown rotary hoes - nothing here is built as heavily as the Chinese counterpart, though I still smell a soviet influence which wasn't present in Thailand.

The waterfall near Luang Prabang, truely a little piece of paradise.. all the young monks flock here from the local wats at lunchtime to swim for an hour or two - this is only the base of the last waterfall and there are multiple plateaus rising up for 200 odd feet above this point.

There a bombs in the strangest places here... Laos is all forrest and farmers, it's hard to imagine it's one of the most bombed countries on earth, though it does make you follow the well trod tracks - UXO, unexploded ordinance, is a very real problem here (like Mines in Cambodia).

Hi All,

Well I'm back from Muang Noi Neua (read a later post for info about that) - and I've had my first case of dodgy stomach... so at the moment I'm taking it easy in Luang Prabang (again) till I feel better... so today I thought I'd take the time to stick a few pictures up on my blog for you all to have a looksie at... so here goes:

China!

Above, the 3 gorges as seen from the back of the domestic "cruise" ship I was on - it was freezing as it had snowed that morning.

The 3 gorges dam project - a huge piece of work, it still wasn't complete when I was there.

The ultimate crusing experience in the 3 gorges, the soviet built (or so I was told) Meteor - you see a few of these round the Chinese waterways - noisey feckers.

The mist covered Karts of Yanshou, though not a good picture (it was raining all the time) the scenery is very dramatic.

Night time in Shanghai, very vegas.

A group shot in China (Putuoshan Island I think) - from left to right we have: Colin from NZ ('tron), Myself, Charlotte (UK), Jarrad (NZ, Wellington), Ed, Scarlet, Desmond (all UK), Christy & Anthony (Australia) and also Tony Chen our amazing Chinese guide

It's funny - I had some weird proconceptions about monks in China, like they wouldn't use technology, wouldn't secretely have girlfriends and aren't prone to mood swings, grumpiness or fits of being irrational... silly me.

The centre of Xi'an - a very cool (and well preserved) city west of Beijing.

The "courtyard" near Xian, a cool but desolate spot.

The above two shots are of the hanging monestary and just to the left of the monestary the frozen stream - which gives you an idea of what the temperature was like then -  did end up climbing over the whole of the monestary - I'm not sure it was particularly safe... heh

A shot from the great wall, it's um... great

One of the people we were travelling with (Sally) looked quite ill when I hung over the edge like this ;o) the water down below is where you have to walk from to get up to the wall, it's a bit of a haul.. get your fatty developer sweat on.

I actually was in a T-Shirt by the time I got to Beijing, this was a really nice 20 degree day at the Summer Palace.

And last of all, I could've spent gigabytes collecting chinglish signs - but you very quickly reach saturation, however I did like this one that was on the Xi'an wall..  I wasn't sure if it was forbidding the carnal pleasures of madamme palm and her five lovely daughters, or merely suggesting that jumping off the wall was a bad idea? *shrug*

Well, new country.. my third since going on holiday, Beautiful Laos, and so far it's been great - it's such a beauiful laid back place... and any rate I'll try to keep this brief as the internet here is absoloutely bollix - the less content I post the better for it ;o)

So, since my last post I have moved on from Chiang Mai.. basically it went like this:

19th - Jumped the bus to Chiang Khong (Thailand border town to Laos) from Chiang Mai.. that took six hours, and I was stuck in the back of a minivan with 4 grumpy smoking Israeli cyborgs - the bus did have air con, but it only work when you were going down hill... I'm guessing the van was too underpowered with it turned on to run at all unless coasting... mighty ;o)

At chiang khong I stayed the night, ready to cross into Laos (Huay Xai, the sister border town) - this proved a most interesting evening as I ended up meeting a guy from the DPNS (democratic party for a new system I believe?) - who was from Burma/Myanmar, and hasn't been home since he was 10 years old (because they will arrest him at the border) - he's now 24 I do believe.

The border crossing was easy, got the stamps and jumped the slow boat to Luang Prabang - a two day affair, with the first day leaving you in a little place called Pak Beng... there's not much there but guest houses, but it was alright - the second day we jumped onto the slow boat again (well a different boat, but I digress) and headed for Luang Prabang.

These trips are a lot of fun, the boat ride lasts about 8 to 10 hours depending on how you count it - and is full of locals, you generally just end up drinking beer laos, laos laos (rice wine) or laos caos (said "l-ow cow") ? which I think is thai/laos whisky (tastes like Sangsom), singing songs and talking rubbish with fellow travellers.  However, I did make a minor miscalculation on the second day as I was talking to an old Laos lady who handed me some "tea leaves" which they stick salt in and roll up and chew/eat - well when in rome.. or Laos..

So I chewed away on these leaves... tasted like salty spinach, and then swallowed it.. and at that point twigged to the fact that they were coca leaves... arse!.. about half an hour later I felt like I'd had 3 beers in quick succession, very wooly headed, but the feeling ebbed away after half an hour thankfully - silly boy ;o) should of spat it out after chewing, like all the other falang did ;o)

At any rate, during the trip on the slow boat I actually met New Zealanders! First time so far in my travels... 3 girls, 1 from Auckland and 2 from Christchurch - it's nice to be able to talk and have people understand my bad NZ english!  The slow boat was a great place to meet travelling friends, and our little group of 10'ish people that as semi-constructed over those 2 days is a lot of fun .. And I've still been hanging out with some of them since arriving in Luang Prabang. 

The first night I arrived in Luang Prabang (21st) I went out to dinner and then drinks at a bar called "hi-ve" - not a bad little spot, and the following day we get our "temple on" and visited the Wat on the hill (I forget it's name) and Wat Xieng Thong, which has a great tree of life mural on it's side.  However I did get attacked by wasps (nasty buggers) and then stubbed my toe while trying to escape.. thankfully the bites hurt but didn't swell up.

Today we got a group of 10 together to hire a minivan, which we took to Pak Ou caves (basically a cave on the waters edge, where thousands of unwanted buddah images are discarded... something I'd never thought about till today... I mean you can't just "dump" a buddah image, if your a buddhist at least) and after that we headed to the Tad Kouang Si, a beautiful waterfall... where we spent the rest of the day escaping the heat - it truely is a beautiful spot, and hopefully I can post a few of the pictures I took soon - as it's close to a monastery, and all the young monks head up there to play at lunch time... very cool, if a little surreal...

Probably the coolest thing though is that my guesthouse (Chaliny I think it's called) is about 10 foot away from the mighty Mekong river, so I can scratch that one of the list of things to see (along with the Yangtze of course from last month) - though I'll no doubt see more of the Mekong as I approach vietnam.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and get a local bus in the morning to Nong Khiaw, where I'll spend a night/day/night then head back to Luang Prabang, and off to Phonsavan the following day (to see the plain of jars) after that I do believe it's going to be Vang Vieng, Vientiane and eventually Si Phan Don (way down the bottom of Laos, where I can cross over to Cambodia).

I may not be updating as frequently over the next 2 weeks though as some of these places have no internet, and often the power is run off generators which they turn on and off at funny hours (they get up early and go to bed early) - when they say this is one of the most underdeveloped countries in the whole of asia, they do mean it... in a funny way, bits of it remind me of the bush up north in NZ.

Well I had my first Thai cooking lesson today, one of two before I leave for my slow boat to Laos - I decided on the oldest cooking school in Chiang Mai, which has a very good reputation - downside being it's a couple of hundred baht more expensive ie. $10 NZ, but what the hell says I?) and the head tutor/chef is a popular TV personality... he popped in to show us how to make a few dishes before handing the show over to a couple of ladies, both very funny - you spend most of your time laughing, when your not fretting about burning your curry paste.

Loads of fun and quite interesting, I got to make a few dishes.. from fish, pork, chicken, vegetable salads, noodles, papaya salad, steamed banana, soups.. all sorts, tomorrow I'm not sure what I'll be making, but no doubt it'll be fun and educational...though I'll have probably forgotten half the stuff I learnt today by the time I get home, so I wont be making any cullinary delights without alot of practice (and a decent wok 'n gas burner) - I still find it hard to get used to the fact that a lot of food here isn't eaten with chop sticks.. they just work so well that your frustrated when they aren't available!

Last night I had some pahd thai at a local streetside restaurant (yummiest I've had so far, probably had msg in it ;o) and then was going to walk home when I heard ninja tunes playing in the rooftop bar, kid koala in fact, so I stopped in and had a beer and a gander at the stars while enjoying a bit of quality scratching seldom heard elsewhere on my travels (hardly anyone I meet even knows the label, let alone the DJ's signed to it... or Tom Waits... meh) - ended up talking to some people and scooted off to a disco (Bubbles, pretty tragic joint and it closes at 2am?) with some Canadian girls to do some dancing - which provided some entertainment for the evening, one was a therapeutic massage student studying Thai massage and the other a personal trainer - odd company for someone such as myself now that I think about it... ended up spending most of the time watching the locals dancing away and making merry with their bottles of thai whiskey.

At any rate, tonight will be a rather quiet night in.. reading a book I do believe while I digest all the food I made..and then consumed today. Mmmm.. :)

Alone again, again.  Or perhaps for the first time, who knows?

I must say I'm relieved as well (to be alone, that is) - the problem I've found so far with the random people I meet travelling is that you often have common interests when it comes to talking about future plans and swapping a few yarns over a drink, but in essence they are people I would never develop a friendship with, basically it's like going to a party and talking to random individuals.. and then meeting them for 3 days in a row, very much rinse and repeat.

And so today I'm back by myself as Anna, Allan and Kerryn are all off on the slow boat to Laos (which I'm also doing, but not till the 19th, I still need to pack a day or two of Thai cooking school in and maybe some sight seeing :) - I must say it's a relief, as I dont really feel like I've been by myself for more then a day or two in the last month and half since I started travelling, and well it's been fucking me off to put it bluntly - I may live in a flat, but my work, the job at the council (where their aren't too many young people) and my hour's meander too and from work on public transport offer me a lot of time to just mull things over by myself, I dont think I've been getting enough of that time so far while travelling - like a cat needs sleep, I need time alone.

Good songkran...

Anyway, Songrkan just got better and better, the second day was great - had loads of fun, and the expressions on some of the kids faces were priceless, indellible memories (but alas no photographs, too much water to take me camera out) though as the sun goes down you get a little bitter about being hit with a high pressure blast of freezing cold water (they love filling 44 gallon drums with big blocks of ice, and topping it up with water.... brrrr!) - that night we settled in with a bit of a meal then headed out to the roof top bar, which is close to the city gate on Chongklan road - full of idiots, but amusing.. I left here with Anna however when a band started up down on the stage by the gate, "silly fool", who are apparently very well known (i.e. big!) in Thailand.. they seemed like a linkin park crossed with creed type combination, but it wasn't that bad ;o) watching the Thai teenagers getting right into it was highly amsing, though they dont seem to do encores.. maybe it was just because it was a festival thing.

After that I headed back up to the roof top bar, had a rather pointless coversation with a drunken air brush artist hippy who just imigrated from Perth, Australia - though he was particularly harmless, at one point he seemed like he was about to burst into tears - It just reminded me of too many conversations I'd had with drunk people back when I lived in the Tomarata with my parents... heh

...and um.. oh yes, then another longer conversation with a girl from Brazil, who had been travelling for over a year and couldn't wait to get home and see her maid... interesting, I couldn't quite figure out if her maid was her best friend, or just a mother substitue - probably both, she was an only child with both parents being rather busy private doctors - having the financial hardships of Brazillian locals explained was a rather sobering experience, much like learning the details of China's working class - it generally just makes me bitter when you're sitting in some stupid tourist bar full of idiotic twenty somethings trying to give their end away, alot of people come away to see "Thailand" and then go out of their way to avoid it at every turn... What I really dont like about tourist bars though is that they seem inherantly unsafe, I really dont trust young white people drinking to excess... I'd far rather sit down and have a few beers with the locals.

On the third day we headed out a bit later, there were less people (I suspect alot of the domestic tourists head home to get back to work after the second day) but every was really into the swing of things.. lots of people drinking, dancing in the streets.. and a massive parade that took about 3 hours to go past through the town gates - loads of fun, and I spent quite a bit of time perusing the various food stalls and trying different random things.. most good but not great (all the fruit juices are too sweet that I've tried so far)

Bad Songkran...

We did see some strange (bad) things happen during Songkran too though, and it offered a little insight into something you dont see very often - Thai people getting angry.  The main incident happened on the second day, wandering around the square.. then suddenly there's yelling and running, then somebody throwing a bottle (which instead of hitting the person in question went through a ute window and hit a little girl on the noggin, she was alright but did have a bit of a lump and graze on her head...  and then a guy legging it off up the road through all the traffic... persued by 5 or 6 young Thai guys (from 2 different utes)... at which point you get an appreciation for just how fit these little guys are, in jandals they were sprinting after eachother through a foot of water at break neck speed (faster then I could probably run down a hill, but that's not saying much hehe!) - deadly serious looks on their faces... we were walking in the opposite direction and after a couple of minutes everything resumed as per usual... but I would imagine they metered out justice in a fairly "practical" way on this guy once they got him, I certainly wasn't going to hang around and watch.

Though I didn't see it on the 3rd night, some western guy who Kerryn (the Aussie we were travelling with on the Trek) bumped into, fell down the stairs from the rooftop bar and hit against a door in hallway, which was the entrance to someones room we suspect.. the guy came out really angry and started squabling, then another guy (I may be getting the story wrong..?) turned up and pulled a knife... all a bit scary, Kerryn managed to calm them down and walk the drunk out of the bar... but then when on the street the drunk guy was set on by another Thai guy who punched him right across the cheek, laying him out for 6 - some other Thai people came over and appologised and Kerryn left it at that, the guy was too drunk to know where he was staying, and had lost his keys and wallet... There really isn't much you can do for some people, apparently he'd lost his keys the night before as well too... he's probably been doing similar things everywhere he's travelled.

Really it's no worse then any other new years at home, I'm sure my brothers seen worse up the mount ;o) it's just we don't normally mix kids, teenagers, parents and grandparents into the same spaces - so it just seems worse.

At any rate, I can't say enough good things about this holiday, bad things included, I'm really glad I came here when I did, but I'll also be just as glad to get away and move onto a new place.

Well what can I say... this place is amazing (at this time of year), Songkran, is without a doubt, the most friendly and pleasant festival ever -... I'm absoloutely soaked from head to foot and just sat my big black 45 baht bucket-with-string next to me in the internet cafe - brilliant, I cant really describe the atmosphere here, but I wish we had anywhere near as much fun and energy on a public holiday at home.

At any rate, lets cover what I've been up to... My trek for 3 days was really fun - my first night in Chiang Mai I met 2 of my fellow trekers, A girl from Finland (Anna) and a guy from England (Paul) - Paul is great, a very very interesting fellow who in his 30 years has a great deal of life experiences to share, not all of them pleasant, but all the more interesting... Anna has a wonderful command of the english language, and has studied psychology and is a transient..and vid people watcher (like myself) - so we get on quite well, we even got up to a bit of drunken urban exploration as we wandered home last night.

First night of the trek we headed out and stayed a night with a Karren (sp?) hill tribe - they dont speak standard Thai in these regions, and as part of the "eco" tourism push they have been oddly converted (no feed lines, but the tribes have solar panels, T.V. aerials and catholic churches - catholicism in Thailand is very interesting, I still haven't quite got the "measure" of it, as they still celebrate budhist events such as Songkran and generally are a little.. umm.. Odd.  Missionaries have a bit of answer for ;o)

Second night we headed to a little village that had a waterfall, very scenic... just kicking back and having a few drinks with our trainee guide, Mr Bad Boy.. who's birthday apparently it was, but wether it was true we're not quite sure.  Mr Ken (our main guide), was hungover (among other things... hehe) from the night before and let us be.

The last day we went bamboo rafting (and it was the first proper day of Songkran) so we got very wet.. and then went for a half hour ride on elephants at the elephant camp, which was definitely an experience.. riding on an elephant is really quite something, especially when they start scrambling up an eighty degree incline..

My Trek was great, but the variety and amusement derived from the people I met on the trek was even better - the social dynamics are hilarious (the group consisted of a bunch of british girls ranging from 18 through 22 and one english lad (Tom) who had been teaching english in Thailand for the last 3 months, 2 Australians (both pretty cool), Paul, Anna and Myself being the solo travellers.  I can't really be bother putting it down into words right now, but it's been a lot of fun, and the food was great.

Today I had a lazy start, as we went out to the riverside bar and grill for drinks and food last night and I was felling a little run down (Honey coated pork spare ribs with spicey papaya salad with prawns and a 2 litre pitcher of chang beer, so good!) - so I had breakfast at 10:30 then read a book till 12 (Trigger by Arthur.C.Clarke, which isn't a bad load of bollix) - and went wandering with Paul.

Since then I've just been getting sprayed with water by kids and old people alike (it's good luck to wet westerners :) almost continually... there are people everywhere, and they're all smiling... it's just amazing - you really have to be here to understand, but you're very greatful for your Typhoid shot!!  Everything is covered in the local water out of the ping river and surrounding areas, deli belly central I'm sure...

Tonight I'm meeting up for drinks with the Trek'ing gang again at 8pm, which should be fun - I have the advantage of not really having plans till after Songkran, so I can have a bit of a fun without worrying about needing to move again the next day.

Once Songkran is over I'll book a thai cooking class for a couple of days and arrange my slow boat to Luang Prabang in Laos (I've already got my Visa being processed now) - and I take back what I said about Chiang Mai weather, it's miles better then Bangkok because the nights are a lovely 20 degrees.. just dont get out of bed till lunch time and you have a 5 hours heat and then the temperature eases off, I actually wore a pair of jeans last night comfortably.. first time in Thailand.

Hope everyones doing swell, whats the weather back home like :?

 - Alex

Well my hope that Chiang Mai would be any cooler then Bangkok were perhaps a little overzealous.. a couple of degrees less heat in the shade makes no difference, I'm still dying... and it seems even more humid here, but at least the polution is a little less (to be honest, it's non-existent on my scale, China really prepares you for dirty air... My throat seems to be better today as well, which is probably directly related, I've had a sore throat and phlegm since I got sick in China - which Ian, our resident doctor suspected might just be a bad reaction to Air pollution.

I got my train from Hualonpong station (I was a bit stressed about the whole affair.. as you're never too sure if your TAT office is reputable, even with a valid license, as they all have dodgy looking business cards with yahoo and hotmail addresses...

My ticket was a second class sleeper with air conditioning - lower bunk.  It was very comfy and clean, you're oriented the other way to sleeper trains in China, as your head/feet are paralell with the train, and the top bunk folds down and the bottom two sets become the lower bunk.  Really nice, though I couldn't see much out of my window (they cover them with a semi-transparent black mesh print to cut down the sun pouring in from outside) - took my sleep in 1 hour portions, and dont feel too bad today - like a couple of trips in China I've been on, it's quite hard to sleep when their pulling into stations every half hour to hour during the night.

After I got off the train, the guesthouse that I booked the Trek with picked me up... because It was early morning (about 10 by the time I got to the guesthouse) - my room wasn't empty, so I dumped my pack in a locker room and went for an "orientation" walk - first away from town, till the dogs looked like they would bit me, and then into town - at the same time I arranged for them to do my Laos 30 day visa - though it always makes me nervous when people need my passport... however it's a necessary evil, and better then pissing about at the border - Laos being my next planned port of call (I've heard of a slow boat you can take to Luang Prabang? sounds fun...) 

Chiang Mai has a biggish river running down one side, and an inner square of city surrounded by walls and gates next to it, not to Chinas standard - more like something you'd see created in a medium sized New Zealand town to "beautify" a city... it even has fountains, no doubt it will be a focal point during Sohkran (sp?).  All the buildings aren't particularly tall, from 1 to 3 or 4 stories.  When you first arrive you hardly notice it, but when looking away from Town there's a great sodding green mountain range rearing up high above the city - I imagine that's where I'm off too tomorrow on my Trek - assuming they steer clear of the bandits (all the TAT licensed operators are pretty cautious) everything should be peachy keen, though It'll probably be a bit strenuous in places... I think I ride an elephant too, which will be a novelty... heh

At any rate thats all for now - my next 3 days will be fairly busy (and strenuous, I'll probably regret the beers I've had in bangkok - though I'm sure they just get sweated out ;o) - after that I plan to do not very much as I'll be around for the last 2/3 days of Sohkran.. which, from what I've been reading thismornin' has such grand hilights as the "beautiful girl on bicycle" competition... and of course water fights.

First impressions of Chiang Mai?  Pretty nice.. but I still find the heat brutal, it really does slow you down - though I might tire of it before long, so I may try and only do a few days of cooking school before I'm off toward Laos.