So I did the retreat, and I found it very difficult, but very interesting upon reflection and very rewarding. My mind cycles very very quickly, and I have been aware for a long time that I need a lot of stimulation to keep it interested, so the difficulty came when i removed all stimulation’s! Its was like trying to watch 10 movies at the same time all on fast play sometimes! Still, i did find moments where it slowed down to the speed of life and even slower. I was going to do 10 days, but since they said at the start that 7 is the recommended minimum, I bailed out after 7 days!! I feel a bit like i let myself down by that, but also I realize that there are many other ways to gain from the mind. Vipasanna is just one way.
Continue reading Vipassanā:-in the Buddhist tradition means insight into the nature of reality.
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So now I am in Nepal. There was some mild relief upon arrival as I was in India with a visa extension that I grew more and more dubious about, especially when I heard the lawyer that helped me obtain it had been arrested for making false visa extensions. On the border though they didn’t bat an eyelid, they took my forms and stamped me out of India no problem. I think the actual extension was legal, but the methods to obtain it contained a certain about of bribery and really extensions shouldn’t be handed out so easily and a 6 month extension is not just for your average tourist like me. Still, it all worked out and im happy for it. Stop the bus I want a wee wee, The wheels of the bus go round and round, Here are a few more pictures from Leh. Including some extra special night shots. Here are some of the reasons I came all this way to Leh. I have just been completed one of the most amazing journeys I have been on. It lasted 4 days, it spanned temperatures from 45c to below 0, from a few hundred meters above sea level to heights that impede breathing. However, despite all this a major highlight of the journey was the feeling that the bus was going to fall off a very high cliff at one point. The fear that it was going to fall off grew from some average vertigo as the bus casually drove along on the narrow path on the mountain side, up to when it was as close to the edge as it ever got, then it went over a rock and see-sawed on its theme-park style suspension. It was at that moment when my fear grew to a point I’d never experienced before. Before this point as my mind contemplated dying despite me not wanting it to, I thought about my family and friends and how awful it would be for them if I died, it also (notice how I refer to my mind as it and not me), strangely enough thought about how I didn’t want to die because I really wanted to see Leh again and draw some more pictures and drink Leh berry juice *takes a swig of Leh berry juice*. Some possible guilt came to mind as well, and I think I can often feel guilty and I’m sure many other people do, however I listen to this seldom and do things I want to do with more confidence and less questions, anyway, it felt guilt because I was swanning around the world on whims, going wherever I wanted to, so really I didn’t need to be in that life threatening place. And then the bus rocked, it all came to a point, in that moment I could no longer articulate situations, reasons, musings about what was going on, I think my mind was readying itself to control the body with as much accuracy as possible to avoid death, so it decided to turn off thoughts. Anyway, as you can guess, I didn’t die, and looking back on it I really don’t think there was as much danger as I thought, the road was firm and most of the bus was firmly on the ground, if it did fall off and you could have seen it from a good advantage point I’m sure it would have done a very peculiar movement, a gravity defying movement. However, my mind did what it did as it led up to that moment, and I’m very grateful for it. It was a very life affirming bus journey. After some requests I filmed myself having a juggle. Here it is! To inspire I have decided to share with you the story of how I am learning to draw. I started to draw in Goa around 4 months ago. I had dabbled in drawing sketchy things a few times in the past, but never really locked on to anything and developed a style, mainly because I had never really felt any form of evolution within my drawings, and I have never drawn anything which I have enjoyed to look at, which I think is a very important point. I’ll say that juggling has given me an eye for change and evolution within my own actions. Seeing how when I juggle, I notice an improvement from the last day, a trick feels that little bit more natural, a bit more easier. So I set out drawing with this eye for change. At first I mainly put my attention to drawing words, since I was more familiar with words than drawing. I seemed to have an aim when I drew my words, adding little flairs and a chunkyness to the letters, I would stop when I felt like it felt good. All the words and sentences I was writing were just spur of the moment ideas, one liners that, to me, were interesting sounding. Free from any intention of making sense, or having to string together sentences to make a poem, or even a story, the words came quite freely. I quickly moved on from just words, and lately I have no desire to use words in my drawings at all, im quite content with drawing, my drawing skills have improved to the point where I can kind of draw what I have in mind, with a lot of effort and time that is. Another post! Hurrah for me! Hurrah for all you people who read this site! I’m sorry for letting you all down and not posting as much as I used too. My dad left me a message displaying his disappointment at me for not posting more, something along the lines of “you let us all down again by promising some pictures and words but not delivering”. Well, I do have many pictures, and my head is always full of words, so they will come, it just takes the motivation to do it, and if i don’t feel like doing it then even if I did I wouldn’t be satisfied with what I put down. After 4 months of not writing, even totally neglecting emails I finally feel like writing again. I think something jarred my mind a bit which made writing not so appealing. I think it has to do with my sudden passion for juggling, and then a huge passion for drawing swept me up, I have been totally neglecting my computer. Anyway, today I felt like spending some time on it, sorting out some of the photos from the last 4 months and writing a post finally. I am you know. Last night I got back to my room around 2am, closed my windows and as I turned around I saw a snake coming in my room under the door. panic. Later I knew I panicked because I didn’t even think to take pictures of it, I just wanted it out of my room. I opened my door to at least give the snake the option to get out, and to possibly look for help dealing with it, however right outside my room was a large male monkey, so I closed the door. The snake had gone under my bed, so I moved the bed out of the way, it was coiled up in a corner very still. I checked outside the room again and the monkey had gone, so I got a stick and came back to the snake. It was quite easy to get it out of the room, just a little encouragement and it snaked along the wall and came to the door. When it was gone I closed the door and blocked the bottom so it couldn’t come back. I am now in the city of Varanasi in the north of India. After sweltering stinking noisy Jakarta, where I sheltered in my room most of the time, arriving in Yogyakarta was a relief. The temperature was much more agreable, there was less trafic, and it had some charm, something which Jakarta lacked, or maybe hid very well. I didn’t even know I was going to go to the Gili Islands, Islands that I had heard of before and nearly went to 8 years ago. They have always been on my mind as the prospect of being able to live on an island that you can walk around in about one hour seemed beautiful, maybe its the isolation that I would find comfortable, the small world aspect. In my mind was the idea of watching the sun rise on one side of the island and watching it set on the other side, and ideas of playing Robinsoe Crusoe. And no roads was a wonderful prospect as well. As you can see the islands had been on my mind for sometime. A while ago me and Jules went for a walk up a volcano, we met two young ladies from England who were also going up, so we formed a group. From Sumatra with friends to Java alone, and then onto Bali with family. As usual I have been covering ground whilst changing company, this type of living creates the most wonderful memories, segmented by the places I have been and by the company I kept. I figured it was about time I digitised some of these memories once again. Squarepusher with a drummer! Amazing stuff! (video after the click) I have a Christian friend called Brian who takes an active role in trying to do something about the situation in Israel and Palestine, he regularly sends me emails with information about the atrocities that go on in this area. Recently I have watched a few videos of some of the atrocities, and they angered me, I felt helpless, I still do really, I wanted to write some scathing remarks about Israel and whats going on there, but it doesn’t really help. I wrote back to my friend, some words about how I feel, after reading the words back I decided I will share them with the world for all that care to read. First though, here is the video that provoked them. (after the click) There is this great guest house in Malaysia, the rooms are nothing out of the ordinary, in fact they seemed to be very sauna like, but them again it is in Malaysia. The thing about this guest house seemed to be its roof top garden, it had a good view, but then again nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe the thing about this guest house was free wifi, for me this was beautiful, feeding my internet addiction nicely for an hour or so before I slept, and for an hour or so before I started my day, but not everyone there used the internet, and that leads me to the real reason it is a great guest house. The people that passed through this guest house made this guest house a great guest house. For this place is the reason why my friend Jules who came to travel with me had a really amazing time, as aposed to just an amazing time, it also points out one of the best things about traveling for me, the new friends I make along the way. I’m on a boat! I’m on a mother$*#@ing boat!! Rushed through Malaysia immigration, passport stamped out, rushed onto the boat to Indnesia, sit down, set off almost 2 hours later…classic, didn’t even get time to eat breakfast due to the implied hurry. After 1 year of working, in 3 different jobs, starting with testing sewage, onto testing gold, then on to testing pepsi, I am now back traveling again. In the middle of the last year it felt like it was never going to come, it was only a year, but sheesh it was tough, I don’t know how people work a full time job with no release from it in the near future, the monotony drives me crazy, it leaves me powerless when i am free in the evenings, and at weekends i just want to sit back and enjoy not having to do anything. I have been here for about a week now, and im not sure what day it is already, I have no desire or need to think back through the days and work out what day it is, its just not that important. This video and song really amazed me, all the sounds are actually coming from the devices, including the ’singing’. Continue reading Radiohead remix video Made me chuckle, shouldn’t laugh at others misfortune, but it tickled me! In 1985 Hesenboum Troubador finalized his collection of technological wonders that make a nice sound, he idly connected them all together, stuck a picture of Freddy Mercury on the wall and left the room they were all stored in. Last week this room was opened for the first time in 24 years, all the items had collaborated and they done this. Or something like that. So, here’s me just browsing the internet like I do, reading the updates on the pages I have book marked, finding new sites to look at, and I come across the mention of Zed Two games, a game company I knew well for a couple of reasons…. (Press more to read the story that has really made my week possibly even made my month!) This is the house i live in now, seems Western Australia is more google street photo’d than Manchester. One of my favorite David Shrigley videos after the click. Google street view has got England! Well, not all of it, I couldn’t see in the centre of manchester, or my parents house. But I did find this! Whilst reading about the Israel/Palestine mess I found a pro-Israel site saying that while some Israelis lives are changed for the worse by all the gaza bombs, the Arabs are loving it. This one is for Vicky who just left me a whole bunch of messages! Cheers for reading Vickers!! I hear you little kid, I hear you. Hands up those who know where this little kid is coming from. What just happened to google? For about 15 minutes it reported that all sites it found may harm my computer? *Update* its doing it again, its also doing the same thing with another computer in this house, and my friend in Portugal. Sweet lordy sweet bejebus! The future is here! I’ve had a recurring theme in my dreams throughout the years, and its the mushroom known as the Fly Agaric, or its Latin name Amanita Muscaria. Last night I had one of these dreams again, I wont bore you with the details of the dream, other than the mushroom was growing all over like it normally does in this recurring theme in my dream. Its been about 5 years since I last dreamed of them. So to pay homage to this dream invading mushroom i’ve compiled a list of photos from the net.  The most perfect and beautiful Amanita Muscaria I found, and pictured! For more of this most beautiful of mushrooms, just click more. Also don’t forget you can click on each one for a full sized picture. Continue reading Amanita Muscaria aka Fly Agaric. I took some pictures this morning of a dead cockroach, and when I uploaded them to the computer I noticed that the default name that the camera gives the pictures had ticked over to 0001! Which means that I have taken 10000 pictures with my camera, so to celebrate I will upload the 10000th picture (and the 10001st) in its full size, click on the thumbnail to see it.
 me Whilst entering into “advance beginner” level (a level system of my own) of juggling in the garden, listening to Squarepusher’s song with lyrics “A Real Woman” off his new album “Just A Souvenir” I had a thought about thoughts. What do you do with your, for want of a better word “stray” thoughts. I’m sure some of them you tether in and indulge in them for a while, maybe some aggravate you, old tired thoughts. I’m sure some of the repeating thoughts lose or gain intensity, altering your path in life. And I know that some thoughts turn sour and make life grow hard and unpleasant, but these change given the chance. I often find myself on a train of thought that I feel I would like to share in the hope of the simple pleasure of sharing an experience with somebody, sometimes this fails to connect and it gives me a feeling of distance. I have shared this train of thought here in the hope that anyone else with a stray thought, about anything, anything at all, will release it for everyone else to see (I hardly think you can claim to own a thought, if you are like me you don’t really know where they come from!), and I would like to hear it. Because at the very least it will let me see what somebody else is thinking of and maybe I can relate to it, and at the most it could turn into an interesting conversation (and also that people actually read this), If you do one thing with your first stray thought after reading this, type it down in the box down there (after you push ‘more’). And I will start it off by typing down the first thing that comes into my head after posting this. Happy New Year! So, how was everybody’s 2008? Mine was pretty good. I started in Manchester and Ended in Australia, getting a good look at 5 different countries. I went to one of the highest points on Earth, to one of the lowest. And 2009 looks like its going to be pretty good fun as well, i’m sure it will be if I have anything to do about it! And thats the point, i’m in control of it, everyone has control over their lives. So if you hate something in your life, change something in your life. And for all those people who’s lives are completely out of control, like the people affected by the conflict in the Israel and Gaza at the moment, my heart goes out to you, if help doesn’t come soon then maybe your better off not being in such a selfish world. Click on more to see a list of my favorite pictures from the internet from 2008, some are pretty strange ones indeed, so be sure to have a look.(theres a lot of them!) And be sure to click on em! The full size versions show a lot more than the thumbnails most times. So Channel 4 has shown a video of the president of Iran delivering a Christmas message to “all of us”. And the British government has condemned them for doing this, saying it will cause “international offence” How does this video/message make you feel? and how do you feel about Channel 4 showing it? I think that while there are things in life that no person should see, this isn’t one of them, and since its quite relevant to all our lives, then its shown and watched. The British government has created some fictitious offense by saying it will cause offence. Whilst in India I started to build up a collection of precious and semi-precious stones. I think I have some pirate blood in me because whenever I saw a jewel shop I would gorp into the window drooling at all the shiny stones. One day I hope to buy a treasure chest (and too have enough jewels to fill it). Click more to see photo’s of some of my jewels. Hello again! Was just looking through my past photo’s and found some great pictures of Bangkok that I thought I should share. Since its nearly Christmas, i’ve made it snow on my site. Happy Christmas everbody! And please everybody, don’t forget what Christmas is all about…….hang on, I’ll just google it and find a nice apt quote. Oh, how strange! click more for some interesting information. I live East of Perth, as you go east the urban gives way to rural, and eventually the rural gives way to raw nature, a very hot raw nature at the moment. I live probably halfway in the urban-rural transition. there are some hills to the west of where I live and over them is the desert. We get strong easterly winds in the morning, that have been running free all night, over the obstructionless landscapes yonder. Its been a while since i last wrote for my site, I feel disappointed in myself for doing this. However I have been working a lot, waking at 5.30am and traveling to work 1 way for almost 2 hours. So I haven’t been taking too many photographs, or doing anything else really. I don’t feel like I’m i Australia, which is where I am. In January there is going to be a bus advert ran in Manchester, Birmingham and London for about 4 weeks. The advert will say “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life”. I think its a step in some right direction. It most probably will be pretty inconsequential, but the message is good, its ok to be an atheist. I did read that the Archbishop of Canterbury contributed to the cost of the adverts as well, he said he welcomes anything that gets people thinking about God, sounds like he’s just playing mind games to me, trying to out psyche us atheists, well it won’t work Canterbury boy! Times are a changing and there’s no room for God! England is one of the top least religious countries in the world, the least religious country is Sweeden with about 80% atheists. In light of the world economic crisis I have a few words to say:- The corn will still grow in the fields and the rivers will still continue to flow. The poor and starving in the world remain poor and starving. The rich will become less rich and some may even become poor, however I have no doubt that they will not starve, nor will they suffer any amount in comparison to the real suffering in the world. The exchanges taking place on the stock markets are exchanges in a virtual world, nothing real is actually changing hands, how this affects the whole world I really do not know, my knowledge of the stock market is not so good, my first impression is that its completely bollocks and uneeded, I could be very wrong, I welcome explanations that will make me believe it is needed. Here is a song and a video that seems very apt at this moment in time, Jarvis Cocker, you are beautiful. Hey there, just at work at the moment browsing the internet, and i found this spinning girl picture. During my last few weeks in Israel I was homed in the north, living with Lee’s parents in Raquefet, a beautiful modern village. The north of Israel is full of things to see, so me and Lee had lots of trips out to see things! Sorry I’ve been super slow again with letting y’all know what I’ve been up to, I mean I have been really slow!! Im now in Perth in Western Australia, before this I was in Thailand, and here I am writing about Israel! Me and Lee went on a trip around Israel to see some of the main attractions. one of them was obviously the Dead Sea! It really is rather salty, and you all float down there. I’ve found something to make a top ten about again, and its Mezuza’s, the little tube things that contain a prayer on words that Jewish people have on their doors. So here it is! I went to Jerusalem. Holiest of holy places for 2 of the 3 big guns of religion and 2nd most holy place for the other (Islam, the first for them being Mecca). There were a lot of amazing things to see, the wailing wall, the golden mosque on the hill, the crazy security and people from all over the world braving the threat of terroism to come and see it all, only the other week there was a “terrorist” attack by a Palestinian guy, who accosted a bulldozer to rampage through the streets, killing 3 people. In my eyes however this guy was just fighting the war that started when the Jewish people came to the land 60 years ago and took the land from the people living there, the Palestinians, the Israeli government however dubbed the bulldozer guy a terrorist, dirty tactics in my eyes. The guy using a bulldozer was interesting because in Gaza the Israeli army regulaly use bulldozers to destroy the current front row of buildings on the border of Gaza and Israel. Anyway, I digress, Jerusalem, a lot of the place was very touristy and at times very tacky. The Jewish area, apart from the wailing wall, was mainly full of Jewish american tourists getting fat on falafel and hummous, the Christian area was full of Italians, and the Muslim area looked kinda empty. Despite the macho image of Israel, and all its citizens having to go to the army and take part in a thouroughly macho affair, some gays do get through, I checked the facts and it turns out they have an average amount. This is their day in Tel Aviv. So far in Israel I’ve been in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem to visit the Holocaust museum, and to the north a couple of times, which is where Lee’s parents live. Hey for those of you who are worried that im in Israel, in the middle east!! Don’t worry I know its dangerous here but im an English citizen and I can come home to nice safe England any time I want………. There’s a lot of really good graphiti here in Tel Aviv, enough that it waranted its own page, so here it is! Tel Aviv isn’t the capital of Israel, but I think its the centre of most things here (apart from the religion side of it all, in that case its the capital, Jerusalem) all the money is here, things are expensive, equaling England in cost. Tel Aviv has the nickname “The Bubble” because its oblivious to all the attrocities going on around the country. Again i’ve been a bit slack on the ole writing front, also I needed to pay the people that host my site some more money, so I didn’t want to upload before this time, why…I dunno, since I knew I was gonna pay them, I should start selling something on my site, just a little bit of something to get some cash to pay for the site, it aint free you know!! After some time with rare internet visits, taking many trains and a course of antibiotics, living on a beach, staring in a Bollywood movie and leaving hot places for even hotter places, I suddenly feel like sitting in front of my computer and writing for a while. Continue reading Varanasi to Goa to Mumbai and a part in a Bollywood movie, to Jodpur. Hoorah! I finally left Delhi, and sheesh I was getting a bit sick of it. Its very high pressure, so much pestering. I spent a lot of time in my room reading, playing on my Nintendo DS and watching movies. It was just so much hassle to walk around getting….hassled, for pleasant reasons (asking where im from, what my name is) or business reasons (”come into my shop, just looking no buying, just come and look”). Some days its amusing if you can be bothered to amuse yourself with jovial replies, but sometimes you just don’t want it. So as soon as my tooth was done I started to arrange getting out of there. The trains were all full! For a long time! It was Friday, and the first possibility of a train was Wednesday! I say possibility because they have some system where you can get a ticket on the reserve list in case someone cancels, oh yeah, I wanted to get to Varanasi. I was gonna go to Mumbai, but that again was a big city, and I found out my good friends Johan and Tobi were in Varanasi, these are the guys I lived up the hill with last year. So I was very excited to go to Varanasi. The travel agent suggested flying, at first I thought noooo no no no, but in the end I did! The ticket was £65, by train it would have taken about 12 hours, by plane it was 1 hour, and I so wanted to get out of Delhi, so thats what I did, ho hum. From now on for sure i’ll step up my scrimping and saving. Funny things from Delhi? I can’t quite recall any more, my birthday came and went, I was in the dentist in the evening for it, I ate similar food to what I was eating that week, Lee phoned me up (Thank you Lee!! So now im in Varanasi, its one of the best places in the world! I can see myself hunkering down here for some time, exploring, socializing, taking photo’s, writing stories about the place. So many cows here! Such small alleyways! Many scruffy dogs, many goats, many monkeys, many Sadhu’s, many people from all walks of life. I met my sweedish friends Johan and Tobi, and a friend of theirs called Tomer, a nice guy from Israel. The other night me and Johan walked over to the burning ghats where they continually burn the dead, there are tiers the bodies are burned on, each one a different price, and using a different grade of wood. Its a sight to be seen for sure. New bodies being brought in all the time, many greiving families all mixing in amongst each other, many fires burning out and the ashes being shoved into the Ganga, and new piles of wood being aranged for the fresh bodies. If you look into the fires you can sometimes make out feet of hands, or the round of a head, the area around the fires is as you’d expect very smokey, strange smelling smoke. For sure I will be staying in Varanasi till the start of March, as there is a large religious festival then, called Shivaratri, all the guesthouses are filling up with people coming for this festival. I will see what its all about, i’ve been told its not like Holi, the festival where they pelt you with dye…..good. And now some pictures. After the click. Woooo!! The mighty mighty half monkey half man god Hanuman!! Wooo!!! Kneel before the great one!! And quite contraversial one, the upper caste Hindu’s don’t count him as a god, I think its because he’s half animal, and that does imply some promiscuity twixt man and beast, whereas the lower caste Hindu’s do count him as a god. Either way he is here to stay and the mighty Hanuman Mandir in Delhi is testament to that (although it does look like its made of paper mache, so he might not be in Delhi so long). I went for a big ole walk yesterday, got lots of attention, some quite annoying. A kid no older than 16 followed me around for ages, saying things in Hindu and laughing like a buffoon, people follow me quite a lot, im sure its not just me either, I think its any foreigner. Anyway this buffoon kid laughed at anything I said even though he didn’t speak any English, I would say the few Hindu words that I know to him and laugh myself, then he would laugh a whole bunch more. He did know how to say money though, he kept saying money and pointing to my money pouch, he wanted no less than 100 ruppees, about £1.25! I didn’t give him anything, he didn’t help me or sell me anything so meh, he didn’t leave me alone for ages, after a while he took to prodding me and laughing, quite quite annoying. I quickly made my way to an internet cafe, ducked inside knowing he wouldn’t follow, and he didn’t! Very good! This morning I went in to the dentist for my penultimate visit, this time they scrapped and smoothed out the 3 root canals this tooth had, dragging out any remenents of nerve in them, squirting some kind of caustic solution to kill the nerves, more dragging and scraping, then they smoothed out the sides of the canals and filled them in with some kind of cement, then sealed it all in with some kind of soldering iron, quite a lot of some kind of’s eh! I guessed this is all what they were doing since I couldn’t see what they were doing, just the usual switching of tools and the exchange of dentist jargon….in hindi! All this one done in the 3 canals this tooth had. So after a quick rinse I tounged the tooth to see what was going on, it felt like a little cup, its really wierd to have things changed inside your gob, it being a familiar and personal place, one which we all know very well what with our tounges lolling around in there probing every nook and cranny. Anyway, the cup tooth was then filled in all the way to the top with more cement, then shaped into a nice little dome with a dum dum bullet style cross top on it, I guess to increase the surface area for when they glue on a cap, which they will do on friday! As they took a cast of my upper and lower toothy woothys to craft a perfectly sized tooth! They also colour matched my teeth against a tooth colour chart, a bit like a carpet colour chart you get from Carpet World, sheesh what am I blathering about. How about some photographs. Some, a click away, Im back in India! Im back taking photo’s! And im back posting to my website! For some of you this is more communication with me than it was when i was in England! So yeah, im back, back to the stink and the filth, back to the con men and the cows, back to the rickshaws and errr did I say filth already? (i know i did, i can read it just above this). I got ripped off straight away! A joint effort by the taxi guy from the airport and the hotel owner, he said he took me to the main bazar where are the cheap hotels are, and he didnt! He took me to the overpriced hotel area, where he would get a cut from wherever i stayed. It was 3 in the morning, the streets were empty, it was cold (!!??) and starting to rain, so after a while i just took the overpriced hotel, with a tv and room service and a bath tub and air conditioning, which i didn’t need! I did take a bath though. I didn’t want to stay too long in Delhi, just long enough to get some more dental work done, im now in the process of getting a root canal done, they make the offending tooth hollow and then fill it in and then put a cap on it, it will all be done by friday, then im off to Mumbai I think. I had a strange day the other day, I couldn’t find a rickshaw driver for a while, well I found some but they didn’t want to take me anywhere!? Very strange, then i got hustled into some craft shop by a guy who would get commision if i bought something, and when i went into the shop i pretty much got told to get out! They said there was nothing in there that I would want! Maybe it was something i was wearing, or maybe i had bad breath or something, whatever it was i would like to know, it would save me a lot of pestering over these next few months Its been cold here, during the day the sun is out and its hot if you sit in it, but there is a chill in the wind, and at night it gets really cold! Many blankets are needed! I will head south soon, im sure its silly hot down there, just what i want. Oh yeah, I got me an Indian sim card for my phone, was cheap, about £2.50, and its cheap for me to txt uk phones, anyone want to add me my number is 00919899548206, do you think its a bit stupid to put my number on the net? I can’t see why not. Indian sim cards are pretty crazy, as soon as I put the thing in my phone im getting phone spam! Silly texts about getting my love horroscope sent to me, also phone calls! Recorded messages in Hindi with silly sound effects all over the place, dunno what they’re all about. Anyway, send me a text if you know me, and if you don’t send me one anyway! Prizes for the first text I get from someone i don’t know, and a mention on my site! Come on don’t be shy! Some pictures after you click on the title of the post. Continue reading 6 months or so of england then back here again! Hoorah! I have a need for other people to like and admire me, and yet I tend to be critical of myself. While I have some personality weaknesses I am generally able to compensate for them. I have a considerable unused capacity that I have not turned to my advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, I tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times I have serious doubts as to whether I have made the right decision or done the right thing. I prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. I also pride myself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof. But I have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing myself to others. At times I am extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times I am introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of my aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic. Hello, my name is Indie and im from Manchester, in England, the United Kingdom of Great Britain. This site of mine has lots of photos on, and words from my very own hands and mind and memories. I’ve only recently come back to Manchester after traveling around for some months, having a lovely ole time as you can probably find out from reading more here. So yeah, i’m back in Manchester, only for a few months like, then im off to Oz (Australia) to work. I’ve not put a post up since being back, and also I didn’t do one for ages anyway, cos my computer was all messed up so I couldn’t write (thats right, without a computer I can’t write). Anyway, the places I was before coming back to England were some of the most amazing places i’ve seen in my life, all in the Himalayas, the scenery up there is constantly changing as you move around, from deserts to green valleys, from sand dunes to snow peaked mountains, I really really really really liked it. Massive amount of pictures follows! I’m now back down from the hill, soon everyone will be moving down, the two Swedish guys come down soon as well, one goes to Zimbabwe and the other has plans to come for a little jaunt with me, Dave and Rory. Which will be I don’t know where really. Had a lovely last few days up the hill, Dave and Rory (a friend from Manchester as well) came up the hill and we all had a silly ole time, exploring the area, and climbing up to the top of the ridge and feeling like kings of the world. Its true, im living up the top of a very high hill, you could call it a mountain really. There’s a shepards village up there, that they only use in the monsoon time, at the moment they just sleep outside wherever they are. There’s no electricity or running water, there is a spring near by, comes right out of the mountain, we wash in it and drink from it. The two Sweedish guys have been living up there for 2 months or something, and me and a couple of others joined in. I’ve been up there for over a week now, and today I took a trip down to use the interwaz and all that jazz. Also to eat cakes and have things cooked for me for a bit. Its very very beautiful up there as you can see below I was going to write something poignant about how everyone is searching for love and comfort, and how whilst traveling I find a sense of comfort, and a feeling of love for the people I meet and the scenery I see, and how even though im not working, and mainly just hanging out eating, chatting, and generally relaxing im still doing something important, which is keeping myself happy, which in turn makes other people happy when they see my happy face and hear my happy banter, increasing the overall happiness of the world. But im not going to, instead im going to say that I have a amoebic dysentery, which causes my toilets to be full of gas and noise and many different colours and textures. Im taking antibiotics for it though, its quite common and i’ve been assured it will go in a few days so don’t y’all worry about my toilets now. Im now in Bagsu, near Daram Sala in the north of India. All very very nice here, it more than offsets the greif I felt when I found out that my Australian visa…well I don’t have an Australian visa anymore thats the thing. Got an email saying I don’t fulfil the criteria, ho hum, they said I can apply again, which I will do in the Australian Embassy in Delhi, in hot hot 45c heat Delhi, nice! Failing that theres always New Zeland, and I think there are some other countries in this world. Im in the Himalaya’s!!!! Feels like ive not done a post in a long time, I guess I havn’t. I’m now in Varanasi, in the north, but still in the heat, gotta go further up vertical ways for cooler air. Ive updated my site so now i have to approve all comments before you can see them, i have a spam filter, but i notice now and then one gets through that i have to delete. So when you write a comment it will only appear after i have approved it. Im now in Gokarna with Dave, on the east coast this time, its much much more picturesque than Puri, its a little more hipper, as in a more younger scene, there’s more touristy shops than Puri, but it is very very beautiful. Its a very small place, and a very religous place. As usual lots of cows walking around, i’ve taken to stroking them now, the fur on their necks has a lovely soft velvety feel. Its getting hotter and more humid, its hard to do things during the day, ive been on my bed midday mostly, with the fan on, on my computer. If I sleep in late then I have to wait to the evening to really go out and about, so i’ve been aiming to wake up as early as I can. Think were gonna stick around here for a week or so, it will be like a week long sauna. Then were gonna go north north north to Varanasi, reputedly the most crazy city in India, then after that to the foothills of the himalaya’s for that longed after fresh mountain breeze!! Hoorah! I am now in Bangalore, in the south. Its the most modern city in India, higher wages, higher prices, richer people, less poverty. Standing on the main shopping street you really could be in any major city in any country, there’s nothing really to distinguish it from the others. Lots of western people, lots of oriental people, lots of central asian people, I still stand out from the crowd though, getting the usual starrings and pointings. I have finally left Puri, I was there for 3 weeks!! Didn’t think I was there for that long, very strange it was. So now im in Bubaneswar, the closest city to Puri, it aint so good here, dirty as hell as usual, busy streets, wild drivers. There are however lots of things to see around the city, the first thing I went to see were some caves, caves that were excavated in the first century BC no less, pretty god damn old. So I went to check em out. Continue reading Monkey Business On Top Of Udyagiri and Khandagiri Hill. I went to the fishing village the other day, its a little up the coast from where I am. Going there is a look into a different way of life, a way of life surrounding fishing. There’s lots of low straw roofed houses, many families all living close together. The beach is a hive of activity, they fish pretty much at all times, different times for different fish. The fish is sold directly on the beach as soon as it comes in, so people from all over come down at all times to buy the fish. I saw quite a few different types of fish, from eels to sharks. In the lonely planet guide book it says that the fishermen use the beach as a toilet, and its true to a shocking degree, as you walk along the beach you have to play dodge poo, also whilst playing dodge pooer with your eyes, grown men squating all around you, its pretty dirty really, as they fish in that sea, although it probably doesnt make a difference to the fish, but for sure it does when they bring the catch in and lay it right on the beach, the very beach they have soiled on many many times. Cows! There’s cows everywhere here in Puri, so here is a much nicer top ten, its the “Top Ten Cows Of Puri”. Check out these cows! Namaste to you all, thats a Hindu greeting, if you didn’t know. Im still in Puri, 10 days ive been here! I worked it out today, and I was a bit shocked, i would have said 7 days max, but no! 10! Its really nice here, really relaxing, ive been having a bit of a holiday (like ive not been on holiday for the past 5 months There’s an awful lot of dead turtles here on the beach, as you walk up along you constantly coming across another one, i’ve taken a lot of pictures of them and have decided to do a top ten dead turtles. So without further a do here’s “The Top Ten Dead Turtles of Puri!” Im now in Puri, south of Calcutta on the coast, quite a popular seaside resort for Indian people. The train journey here was horrible, caught a sleeper train, the bed was a bit narrow and not long enough for me, but since i wasn’t in it that much it didn’t really matter. I was in the toilet most of the time purging from all orifices. As soon as I lay my head down to go to sleep I felt some wierd goings on in the ole digestive system, and I was getting to hot, then to cold rather to quickly. I finally admited to myself that im gonna throw at some point, so i slowely gathered up my important things to take with me, then i calmly clambored off the bunk bed, my mouth flooding with saliva as I went. I made it in time and sure enough lots of vomit. Up and down all night I was, finally pulling into my destination after vomiting one last time. Its my birthday today, ive not really done much to celebrate it, well ive done anything really, I guess I should get drunk later on. Im leaving Calcutta tommorow, i bought a train ticket to go to a placed called Puri, south of here on the coast. As i was buying the ticket in a small narrow travel shop a guy came to the door with a round wicker tub, he opened it up and there was a god damn cobra in there! The guy then agitated the god damn thing, it reared up and flared its neck and all the people in the shop ran to the back, I became a little scared as well, the thing was spitting at passer-bys, its no light thing to fool around with a snake. I noticed some coins in the basket with the snake, the people in the shop said it would be good luck for me to give the guy some coins, i saw the logic in it, it really would be good luck if i gave him coins and he went away. I held some coins up some distance from the snake, the guy took em, closed his box and went away. Madness, i wondered if the snake had been de-toothed or anything, if such a thing is possible, it sure was spitting though, and that stuff can blind a man in seconds! Been out and about a bit these last 2 days. Yesterday I went to the Botanical Gardens here in Colcutta, pretty nice they were, there’s some pictures of them in this post. A good thing about the gardens was i didn’t get mobbed everytime i took a picture, anywhere else and as soon as I get out my camera I have a crowd of people watching, and getting in the way of the picture. Today I went to a lake, as soon as I approaced the edge, loads of kids swarmed around me, and just stood around looking up at me and smiling, then some adults joined in, although they didn’t have to look up as much. I got my camera out and the kids jumped around like monkeys, and then the adults edged into the photo. I got some good pictures of them, but i really wanted to just sit next to the lake in peace for a bit, no chance. Continue reading Some Colcutta (Kalcutta, kulcatta, kitcaller whatever). Im in India! I love it! I love it more than the sound of babies crying! More than the sound of puppies in pain! More than the sound of bones breaking! (20 points to whoever knows what film I plagerised these laments from, which despite sounding negative im using to portray a positive). On the way from the airport the shanty towns had more character, the traffic was more wiley, there were cows everywhere and most best of all were all the relics from the English empire, all the old cars and the old buildings. The old buildings in particular give me this strange pleasant meloncholy feeling. Continue reading India, oh India, how do you operate with no traffic lights. This is nothing to do with my travels, but since ive been spending a lot of time on the internet these past few days I found this its about Lik-Sang. Im sure theres a few out there that knew this online shop, and maybe even used them, i certainly did. And now big bad Sony has put them out of business, and for what? For selling Japanese PSP’s in England, whoopdy doo. They put a whole business out of business for that, took away peoples jobs. I say from now on Boycott Sony, never buy another Sony product, and smash up all your existing ones, or even better return them if you can. Do it for the little people!! Playstation 3!! pah!! Give me Wii all the way! Well, my time here in South East Asia is nearly over, the little yellow people of South East Asia have a big place in my heart; I love the food, the religion, and all the other stuff I can’t quite think of right now. For those of you who know me this may come as a bit of a surprise, but its time you all know, i have a small tooth. I’m back in Chiang Mai, amidst girly bars and guesthouses, markets and mopeds, hippies and harpies. It’s got it all! I quite like it here, when i was arriving here on the bus I could smell the cities smells wafting in through the window, spice and hot rubbish, and my heart beat like it was beating to the beat of love, I really do like it here! (You do know that if you click on the pictures you get a bigger one don’t you?) Hello, its me again, writing away on my laptop in a guesthouse. Im in a room looking over the mighty Mekhong river, a river that starts somewhere in the Himalayas, then flows through several countries to get to where it is now, then it goes on through another 2 countries and before it realises its too late it hits the ocean and is turned into, well the ocean, maybe though this is the pinnacle of existence for a river, the ultimate goal, and they’re more than happy to hit the ocean. Anyway, i last wrote when i had just left Don Det, an island in the south on the very river i was just blathering about. I am now in Thailand, having had my passport stamped out of Laos and into Thailand this morning. As soon as we got into Thailand we caught a taxi to the bus station then Jonathon realised he left one of his bags on the taxi. The bag has his notebook in, which has all his writings and drawings from a lot of traveling. So we’re hanging around in this town now and he’s gonna enquire around to see if he can locate the taxi driver to get it back. So with this time ive decided to write a big big post, with lots of lovely photographs and heartfelt stories about my time in Laos. Continue reading The Whole Length Of Laos In Words and Pictures. *WARNING CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT* Sorry for the extreme description here, but i figure if your a meat eater like me then you have to think that this thing goes on behind a lot of the meaty meals you eat, if you really can’t face it then maybe you shouldn’t be a meat eater. As for the vegetarians i guess you can not read it and keep your conscience clean. Continue reading A pig is not just for Christmas, its for my belly. Its been some time since i wrote here, and even then the last time i did it there was no photographs. So i promised myself that i would write a nice big post, with all ive been doing in this patch of silence, and with lots of photographs. Whilst on Ko Pha Ngan, an island in the south of Thailand, me and the two people im still traveling with (April and Jonathon), got talking to a woman from Canada who told us about a wonderful place where there will be a group of westeners who have all come together with the same aim in mind, it sounded amazing! So she drew us a map and promptly slit her wrists (same joke again i know, but the more i use it the more funnier it will become i reakon). So yeah she didn’t really slit her wrists, and the place that she told us about didn’t sound wonderful, it sounded a little bit nuts, a bit boring, and slightly worrying, it was a meditation retreat. Im still on an island!! A different one now though, we (Me, Jonathon and April) checked out of our last place on the last island, got a taxi to the port town and sat down at the side of the road with no plan next, there was a boat to mainland in an hour, and one to the next island south in half an hour, so we got that one, great! Ive been to this island before, im glad ive come back, ive seen more of it now, and its sweeeet. I have still be spending a lot of time in the sea, everybeach we stay on seems to get better than the one we were on last, it would stink if we did this the other way round, things getting progressivly worse, i don’t think it would stink that much though. Since im now on an island, and life on an island can be quite slow, but none the worse for that, im going to take my time over this post, fewer photo’s but more luuurve! Its been a few days and a couple of hundred kilometers since my last bunch of photos, i left Pai the beautiful little town, i got really sick there! I had a fever for a couple of days and the shits in a big way for about a week, all gone now, nice and firm. Hey there, well im still here in Pai, not really got any other plans, just waiting for Dave (me old housemate) to get in touch so i know what he’s doing, as he wants to go to India, and if he goes there, so do I. I think i might go to Chang Mai soon, its festival time there so that should be good fun. Continue reading A canyon!! A cave!?! And another bug!?!?! why you spoil me!! Ive done so much in the last 5 days, my legs ache now, and i have a sore ass. Traveled all the way to a small town in the north of Thailand called Pai, got on a train in Bangkok, for 14 or so hours, slept on the train, got off the train on bus to a big bus station, into a minibus for 3 hours through the hills to this small beautiful town called Pai, right away rented some bikes and biked for 2 hours or so to a waterfall in the hills. On the train i met 2 great german people, Mijko (think thats how you spell his name, if your reading this sorry if its not!) and Jenifer his girlfriend. All the stuff ive done in the last days was with them, been having a great time! Such a big difference to being in Bangkok with all its noise. Yeah thats it, i’ve had enough with Bangkok for the time being, too busy, too stinky, too humid, too many people trying to rip you off, its not so bad at times, but theres times when you can’t be arsed with em. Here’s a whole bunch more photo’s from the last few days, again, click on them for a larger view Heres a video of Ko San Road, the main travelers street in Bangkok, pretty noisy and garish at night, but it can be great fun! I was walking through a field yesterday, the one near the Royal Palace if you look on the google earth link below, and a couple of Thai guys came up to me trying to sell me bird feed, i refused and carried on walking, but they grabbed my hand and emptied a bag of bird seed in it! I had no choice in the matter!! so i fed the god damn pidgeons! Im in Bangkok! Its mad hot, stupid humid, and very smelly, and i love it! The Thais are super smiley, and it doesnt seem to have changed here at all. As for the coup, the guy that runs my guest house says less people have been turning up since it, but its gradually returning to normal, i spoke to the taxi driver about it on the way from the airport as well, he said through a big big smile that it was very peaceful, with the public laughing and hugging the soldiers, and flowers all around. Inside this post you will see lots of pictures of graffiti i stole from another site because i thought they were cool. I went to see a building in Manchester today that friends of mine are squatting, with the aim of setting it up as a space to exhibit art. Its coming along very well, its such an amazing building. Im in awe of whats going on there. He had lived a long and healthy life, his wife had been there with him all the time, they had been married for such a long time, coming up to 40 years now, such an achievement nowadays, what with the short lived marriages of the modern day, but i guess they are a remenant of the past, following the ways of the past as easy as kids nowadays seem to follow the ways of the present with no effort at all. Heres some amazing and beautiful pictures i found on the NASA website. Noam Chomsky is the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His primary field is linguistics, that is the study of language. Squarepusher spanking the swang in Japan Yeah you freaky little bastard! you go!! Dance dance dance your wierd little ass off!! I have a question, if you had to choose between one human dying, or one million cows, which would you choose? Ive been drawing some pictures of my freinds, there a nice bunch of people i can tell you, why not come in and see for yourself? Heres a link to a great website! not even checked it all out myself, saw a few things that were on there and thought i gotta tell people about it!! By a guy called Andre Michelle, hop to it!! If they can, should they? A photograph has been released of a creature that has been living in captivity for some years now, it looks like a cross between a pig, a dog and a human, and it appears to have had babies. It looks ok, like not suffering in anyway, i don’t know if its a good thing or a bad thing!? I quite like piercings, and in my youth, as was the rage in them days, i got my wrist pierced, a common triple piercing, found though that it got in the way with lots of things, fisting, ballet, digging with my hands, searching for coins in the sofa, also some people just didnt see the beauty in them. So i decided to get them taken out, here is the video of them being yanked out. Enjoy I draw in 2D? and it becomes 3D? Seriously! YEAH IT SURE BLOODY DOES!! Continue reading Draw in 2D, then it becomes 3D! Wowzers bejebers! Some time lapse videos here, expect more to come from my travels! Im well into taking pictures of insects, ive got a really good macro lens, i get a massive kick out of getting a good picture of an insect. Heres a few of my favorite ones. Well the the anniversary of Nine Eleven! NINE ELEVEN!! SHIT!! Osama Bin Laden! Shit!! my god! Twin towers! planes bashed into them, bloooody hell. Oil? is that what its about, is it? I dunno. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, whats going on? Bush is wrong isnt he? Is he? Muslims! Extremists! Christians!!! Whats going on! Blair and Bush, their people want them out now it seems, what is going on, how can these poweful people do what i think there doing? This post goes out to Steve Irwin who was killed this morning, a stingray pierced his heart with its barbed tail. I guess he should have sticked to killing crocodiles, the poor bastard, my condolences to his wife and kids, may they dedicate their lives to rid this planet of Stingrays. The crazy thing about this is, for the past 3 years ive been having a recuring dream that Steve Irwin gets pierced through the heart by a stingray! in September this year!! Crazy eh! Maybe i should have told him? Still, i now know to take note of my celebrity death dreams. Continue reading Steve Irwin the Crocodile Slayer VS Peter Stingray the Steve Irwin Killer On monday (3rd of September) Limmy from Liimmy.com, is starting a daily podcast called The World of Glasgow, it stars a whole list of odd characters, heres the page with em all on. I reakon it’ll be well worth subscribing to it, if you dont know how to do that, its easy, get itunes (its free) then click on the podcast directory, then search for Glasgow, it should be at the top of the list. (i wonder if 10 people will follow this advice?) I got a google whack! The days get shorter, the good weather is over, homeless people wrap up in the comforting warmth of heroin, sexual libidos die. If you liked the world of sand, you’ll have a wonderful time with these games. A prayer for the designers of useless things. I have recently invented a soup that was inspired by the tribal herdmen of the African plains. The world of Sand!! A very addictive interactive game thing. Cera! Namekuji! Sand! Spout! Plus more! its got it all!! If you turn the Namekuji off then it stops wrecking all your carefully laid out plans. The fire sets fire to the oil, water makes the plant grow, spout produces water. It was made by this this guy Ive got a Youtube account, got a few vids up there already, and will be putting up loads more, check em out. Here in England, In Manchester to be specific (not sure about the rest of England) our police force has “Fighting crime, protecting people” written on the side of their vehicles. Besides it sounding really stupid, its also a bit like a slogan, which i think the police have no business using, as their not a business, they should be straight cut, no frills, its not like weve got a choice! its not like we need to be convinced to use them over some other crime preventers! So if the police have slogans why not the fire brigade “You start em! we stop em!” or “Where theres a fire, we’ll fuck it!” or for the ambulance “Busting red lights to save your ass!”. Sheesh “fighting crime, protecting people” indeed. Caterpillars, one of the few pleasant insects out there, a little disgusting to some, but to a lot, a funny little creature that turns into a flippy flappy pretty little flying flower that is a butterfly, but your minds will change when you hear about this small town located somewhere in north west Europe!! The population of the town was always low, and the people always quiet, but now there is nobody, only caterpillars, now i guess though they have all mutated into butterflies, butterflies that are thought to be made strong and beautiful by the blood of humans! Here are some shocking pictures of an area of the town that is over run with caterpillars! Shit! A great site by a really funny guy, nicely Scottish. Pretty funny collection of videos, flash funnies, pictures and what not, and a blog to boot. Always worth checking to see what else he has written about, always dead interesting. He recently came back from a massive trip around the world. What a great bunch of guys!! I think i need to floss more often I did once have a site that looked like this Heres a great recipe i invented for Butterfly Soup, one of my most favorite meals! creature, sailor, mother, baker, searcher, maker, sneakers, fakers, lookers, takers, alarmists, barmy, flips and jumps. Tramps and stamps, my mother your mother, black men, white men. Camping, sailing, walking, flailing, grounding, landing, crying, trying, come on jack! All alone with no slack. Clouds, clowns, frowns, mounds, pounds and grounds. Chips, pips, vagina lips, descening into cunts and swears……..Heres some photographs Well, i deleted everything, it was all boring me, i hated to look at it, took me ages to write it all and i thought it was all piss. (the pictures were innocent, innocent as hell) Anyway im starting again, a clean sheet. Soon i will be leaving England to go for a jaunt around some other places, countries even, other countries, i think i will have far more interesting things to talk about in these places, other than, been to work today, usual same old same old, came home, ate, sort of thing. Ive been taking lots of pictures lately, my father gave me use of a big box of lenses, one in particular i really love, its a closeup lens, great for closeups. Enjoy what i did with this lens. If you like the cows and got google earth, click here for a google earth file that will fly you to them! |
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:D). Then my birthday was over, I figure being back in India is a massive enough birthday presant for myself so the fact that I didn’t do much special was just fine with me