Red wine, local transport, and spatial awareness (oh, and Geoff too).

God I love red wine. I'm in the capital of Lao (Vientiane) where it is plentiful and have just realised how much I have missed it over the past month and a half. Okay, I had my suspicions but they have now been confirmed. That's one thing you can say about the French. Get colonised by the British and you may end up with a decent infrastucture, telecommunication service and a reasonably competent police force but get colonised by the French and you get some nice red wine...oh, and some stylish villas too.

So...local transport is fun. A lot cheaper than the so called VIP coaches that run between all the main towns/cities/sights and usually less crowded. Though that wasn't the case when I went out top Buddha Park. On the way back some people were just getting it to get back into town but others were using it to transport goods there too. One woman got on and started loading up any available space with crates of Lao Beer, boxes of dried squid and sacks of chili powder and all I could think was, Wow, this would be an interesting crash should the bus go off the road...painful, but at least we wouldn't starve.

I have to say that thus far Thais and Laos have demonstrated a breathtaking lack of even the vaguest sense of spatial awareness that puts the admittedly spatially unaware folk of Britain to shame. You know how when you're walking around the streets of Brighton or wherever and someone just stops dead in the middle of the pavement without any thought to the people around them or stands and has a conversation while blocking a walkway or strolls along so slowly they start going backwards in time seemingly unaware of the fact that there might conceivably be people behind them and you get so frustrated you just want to crack them round the head with a cricket bat and keep beating them relentlessly while they are lying defenceless on the ground until they die from massive external injuries or drown internally in their own blood?
Well multiply that by a thousand and you will known what the situation is like in Southeast Asia. These people are naturally small. Do they therefore feel compelled to overcompensate by taking up more room? I haven't beaten anyone to death yet though. I'm waiting until I get Cambodia. I understand there are places you can go and pay to do that sort of thing.

I've got some great stuff for Geoff..A Half-Shark-Half-Octopus in Asia. Looking forward to starting work on that. I've already started planning out a few strips.

This place would be freaky if you were on acid..........which I WASNT.

This is Xieng Khuan (otherwise known as Buddha park) and it's about an hour outside of Vientiane. It was built in 1958 by Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat who merged Hindu and Buddhist myths and iconography into the trippy theme-park you see here. The big pumpkin-shaped thing you can see in the background of one photo has three levels inside joined by spiral stairways that are supposed to represent hell, earth and heaven. You enter through the mouth and work your way up. I was in there on my own and dont mind admitting it was a bit spooky. Everything looked like it was about to come to life in a stop-motion Clash of the Titans kind of way. The view shown is taken on top of the pumpkin. Some people are weird and/or deluded, but some people are weird and/or deluded and make bizarre places like this that others can enjoy. Nice.

Commies in disguise...

I went to the Lao National Museum in Vientiane yesterday. It was full of information on the glorious revolutionary commmunist resistance to the American capitalist lackey imperialist running dogs. I dont know who this guy is as few of the signs were in English but I believe he is going to be playing a part in the new Transformers movie coming out soon.

Did anyone else go floating down the Nam Song river yesterday with a Lao Beer in hand listening to the Dresden Dolls on their MP3 player?

I did.

Aha ha ha ha ha!

Just to make everyone envious...

This is the view from the porch of my two pound a night hut...and here is me sitting on said porch. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, life doesnt suck.

Arent these the most adorable slippers?

A man goes around wearing slippers like these, you just know he's not afraid of anything.

Big cave. Biiiiiig cave

This is Tham Phu Kham cave. The canopy above the bronze Buddha is about twice the height of a man in order to give you some sense of scale. Basically it was flipping huge.
At the base of the cliff you climb up to get there there is a stream you can swim in and a bar selling beer and food which was all good but unfortunately there was a sound system strapped to a tree blaring out crap Western music (Westlife when I arrived). Vang Vieng is like that. Really small, surrounded by stunning scenery but because of the high number of backpackers that come through on account of all the outdoor adventure activities in the area also full of TV bars with Friends and The Simpsons playing in a loop, and crappy blockbusters playing in all the restaurants (in the restaurants I tells ye!), and of course tons of traditional Lao pizza joints.
Hey ho.

I find Buddha much more approachable when he's lying down

This was taken at Phu Si, a temple on a hill in the middle of Luang Prabang that has great views over the town and surrounding countryside. I know that many of you will have been dismayed by the lack of any World War 2 references in this blog so far so the other picture is one of me with the casing for a machine gun which was mounted, rather deliciously, in the aformentioned temple. Unfortunately the gun was removed some time ago so I wasnt able to draw down a blistering bead of fire onto the town, and any noisy Australians who happened to be there.
Oh yeah, did I mention I bought and smoked some opium when I was in Lunag Prabang? Well, the guy said it was opium. It could have been hash for all I know. I dont really know what opium is supposed to look like. It didnt do much but then I was quite drunk at the time.

Dont you think this guy looks like me?

What do you reckon?

Lao is excellent

Well the bus journey passed without incident. I took enough Imodium to block up a small elephant or medium sized German and made it through okay.
I arrived in Vang Vieng and had the get-there-in-the-dark-get-to-a-guesthouse-crash-out-and-then-wake-up-and-go-fucking-hell-when-you-see-the-scenery-you-couldnt-see-the-night-before moment that seems customary for Lao. Unlike Thailand, or what I saw of Thailand anyway, Lao conforms absolutely to the idea I had in my head as to what Southeast Asia should look and be like.
Just to recap - I crossed into Lao at Huay Xai, stayed there one night and got on a slowboat down the Mekong River the next morning. Stayed overnight at a one-horse town called Pak Beng and then had another day on the boat getting to Luang Prabang that evening. Luang Prabang was beautiful with fantastic river views wherever you looked. Took it easy there for a few days, got terrible nightmarish diorrhoea as detailed previously(ventured out at one point to get some antibiotics and nearly passed out by the roadside. My vision was blurry, everything was blindingly bright, I was pouring sweat but made it back to the guesthouse bathroom on time, though it was a photo finish. Not something you would actually want to take a photo of I guess. I'm just saying it was close) and then came here to Vang Vieng.
I walked 7km out of town to a big Buddha cave the day before yesterday and went kayaking yesterday. Felt a bit stiff today so have just had a Swedish massage and am subsequently very relaxed, as well as being all shiny and smelling of petunia oil.
I shall go tubing tomorrow. God, it's a hard life. Tee hee.

Wish me luck

I've just taken some Imodium tablets and am about to take a six hour bus journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng so keep your fingers crossed.
Further bulletins as events warrant.

Oh God...I've got the squits

Well it had to happen at some time, but why did it have to happen when I'm in a guesthouse with skanky shared toilets?
I've spent the last hour coughing up blood and soiling myself (they're never going to let me back into this internet cafe).
No but seriously...it's probably Amoebic Dysentery or Dengue Fever. I doubt I shall survive the night so I'll say goodbye now.
On a unrelated note...if that fucking cockerel outside my window doesnt fucking shut up I'm going to go out and staple it's bastard fucking beak shut. The same goes for that arse-biscuit of a cat, mewing it's head off all night. Why cant it go and starve to death somewhere else? Maybe if I could grab the cat by the tail I could use it to beat the rooster to death with. Two birds with one stone so to speak.

Get your motor running.

I rented a scooter yesterday which was great fun. Considering I haven't driven one in about twelve years I think I did pretty well. I only nearly skidded off the road once and only got flagged down by a Thai policeman once after going the wrong way down a one-way street. Fortunately he let the whole thing go as he couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak Thai etc.
I drove out into the country which was good as the roads were all long and curvy and almost completely empty. I don't know how fast the bike went as the speedometer was broken but it seemed pretty fast to me. I felt like Arnold Schwarzenneger in Terminator 2. Only on a moped. And in Thailand not America. And not Austrian. Or particularly well built.

Ho hum...I'm a bit bored. I don't have any money left for Thailand and am just waiting till tomorrow when I am heading into Lao. I'm going to catch a slow-boat down the Mekong to Muang Phuang (or it's something like that). Lao is supposed to be a lot cheaper than Thailand and because of the whole colonial French thing decent wine is fairly readily available! I'm getting bored of lager.

I cant seem to upload photos at the moment. Shame as I had a nice one of the King of Thailand where he looks like a cross between Salman Rushdie and Nosferatu.

Umm..guess I'll go and eat now.

One nation under Cod..or else.

I've noticed, after going to various museums and cultural centres around Thailand that there isnt really a free media. The king is loved but it is hard to say if it's a case of 'love the king or else'. In the museums there will always be a positive spin on the end of all information posts. i.e. So-and-so, the ruler of the Eastern province came to power during a terrible famine when thousands of peasants starved to death. But, so-and-so is to be commended for opening the palace's grain supplies in an attempt to blah, blah. In one display detailing the kings who had ruled over the Chiang Mai area any good thing they did was listed. "King Philip of Lanna the Third set up schools, funded monasteries, helped pregnant transexual agrophobics improve their back-hand on the tennis court etc". but if all they did was go to war with someone and generally made a hash of things it just says, "King Bob went to war with the custard-cream biscuit tribe, now lets say no more about it shall we?"
It's a bit strange. If there was some complete shit-bag in Thailand's history you're not going to find out much about him here.
I was reading a Thai published magazine (presumably published for visitors as it was in English) and the editor was bemoaning this biasis and praising European notions of full disclosure saying that the Thai history taught in schools cuts off 100 years before the current date. How weird is that? That means it will be 2106 before Thai kids learn in school about the recent coup in Bangkok.

King of Thailand? I've shit better monarchs than that.

It's the King of Thailand's birthday today. Whilst I have nothing particularly against the man (we've never met) the constant idolising of one of the world's richest men by some of the world's poorest people is starting to grate so please just let me say...the King of Thailand is a wanker! He's a tit-bag! A complete arse-biscuit! A fuck-knuckle! A bilious small minded little screamer of a twat! A right Royal...etc.etc.
You get the general idea.

Phoebe Cates?

I was in a restaurant in Chiang Mai and on one wall there were lots of pictures of Elvis. On the other wall, along with a few pieces of Thai art, was a big framed photograph of Phoebe Cates who I'm sure everyone remembers as the girl from Gremlins.
What's that all about?

I trek..therefore I get annoyed by Australians

I have just arrived in Chang Rai. My Thai money and visa are running out so I am looking forward to getting to Lao in about four days. Chang Rai is about one hour from the border. Before Chang Rai I was in Chang Mai which was very nice. More laidback than Bangkok and much smaller so it was easier to get around. I stayed in a nice guesthouse that organizes treks (mind you, just about every guesthouse here arranges treks) and signed up for a three day one. We took a four hour songthaew (basically a truck with benches in the back..hard benches..and poor suspension) ride to Wieng Chang which is just on the border with Burma and then trekked for about four hours to Huai Ya Sai village where the Lahu tribespeople live. We stayed there overnight (in bed by 8.30pm. Once the sun goes down there's not a lot else to do as there are no lights, T.V., internet cafe or brothels there to entertain you) and then trekked for another four hours to the Mae Tang river. We then hopped on a bamboo raft and took a two hour journey downriver. That was really fun. With the jungle looming over you on either side you could imagine you were in a H.Rider Haggard story. We passed some people fishing and they yelled out to our guides that they had lost a net full of fish so there would be a number of dead or half dead fish floating down the river somewhere and to keep our eyes open. Waste not, want not and all that. So for the next half an hour whenever a fish was spotted one of the guides kept leaping off the raft and into the river in a monkey-like fashion and grabbing them (I say monkey-like because of the agility..in no way am I drawing comparisons between Asian folk and monkeys. Oh no siree). One of the other people in the group was feeling ill, either from some of the food we had been given or from the motion of the raft, and wherever she looked there were gaping mouthed bug-eyed fish staring at her which I cant imagine helped much.
The only downside of the trip was the fact that there were other people on it. One guy called Nicholas was Argentinean and he was okay, just a bit young and silly sometimes. I know! Lets rock the raft! That'll be fun and terribly clever!
The other two were a couple who were unfortunately Australian. I don't mean it was unfortunate that they were Australian. I mean they were the unfortunate type of Australian, not the okay type. Some Australians can be okay whereas almost all Americans are unfortunate. Actually to be fair the girl, Jess, was not too bad but Jean-Paul (strange name for a Ozzy I know..he entirely lacked the Gaelic style and sophistication of his moniker) was a right tit. Really dumb. Having a conversation involving him was like talking on the phone when there was a delay in the signal. It would start, go on for a minute or two and then he would suddenly switch on as if he'd only just tuned in and you would have to backtrack over what had already been said in order to bring him up to speed. He kept shouting too.
It wasn't so bad when we were on the trek as it was only us and the guides but when we got back to Chang Mai they insisted we continued to spent time together as if we had been through a profound bonding experience. Now, spending three days in close proximity with people is just about enough for me and I was looking for some solitude to restore my equilibrium but for form's sake I went along with and it was when we were out in the town that his, and to a lesser extent the other's tit-esqueness really came into effect. For a start he refused to eat Thai food so we had to go somewhere where he could get a burger or some chops. Not a problem as loads of places do Thai and Western but that's not the point. The way they treated the waiting staff left a lot to be desired and they were just generally loudly critical of people and things which I found really embarrassing. When the others were playing pool I started a conversation with Jean-Paul about films to try and find some common ground only to discover his favorite actor was Vin Diesel on account of his sterling work in such modern classics as The Fast and the Furious and XXX.
To top it all off in an unbelievable fashion Jess read the blurb on the back of a book I was reading and was criticizing it, saying it looked really corny. That was annoying in itself as it was The Star of the Sea by Joseph O' Connor and it was really good but then after Nicholas said in a really pretentious way that he grew out of fiction when he was a teenager and now only read true stuff (which made me want to smash him round the head with a bottle of Chang beer) she said, in all seriousness, "Remind me..'fiction' means?" to which Nicholas replied "Something that's made up" and to which I replied silently to myself "Jesus....Jesus fucking Christ".
Still, managed to get away from them and am now enjoying some hard earned time to myself in Chang Rai. I feel better for having got all that off my chest. Thanks.