Happy christmas post

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.

So, yeah, last thing i wrote on here was about the retreat, the last day was pretty funny, lots of talking going on, people dying to talk! me Jonathan and April had been talking since the day before though, we broke the rules, we felt ok doing this as we felt we had done enough already, and more silence wasn’t gonna do much for us i got some great pictures of bats from the retreat, in the mornings and evenings when everyone was in the dining area, it would fill up with mosquitos feeding on us, and then bats would swoop through and eat the mosquitos! So on the last day when we could all talk and do our things again, i got my camera out and snapped away at the air as the bats swooped, here are some of the best ones i got.

Im pretty happy with my bat photos. When the retreat was all finally over we all sat down in a group and got some group photos, heres one of them.

See the pride coming from me, and thats Jonathan striking that powerful pose next to me, April is in the front row on the far right, looking at something else.

After all the retreat stuff was over we went to Bangkok, which was as usual pretty hectic, i do really like it there though. We got there via train, night train, which i so love, on the way into Bangkok on train you pass loads of shanty towns, i got some ok pictures of them, but they don’t really get it across.

Heres some of shanty town.

Our plans in Bangkok were, get a Laos visa, i was going to extend my Thai visa so i don’t overstay it and get a fine, then we were gonna bolt out of there. We got our Laos visa’s really quickly, no hassle at all, but my Thai visa extension turned out to be pointless for me to get, as as it was standing i was going to get a 1000baht fine when i would leave Thailand, yet it was 1900baht just to apply for a visa extension, so i just paid the fine when i left Thailand, no big deal.

In Bangkok we walked around China Town for a bit, saw these things

This is a sharks fin, for sharks fin soup, i didn’t try any, its advised not to support this trade, as they catch the shark, slice the fin off and throw the wounded shark back in, and i don’t think they eat the fin for its flavor either, they eat it for its medicinal properties, which are, i don’t know.

These are dried sea horses, used in chinese medicine, don’t know what they cure.

This is Jonathan posing beautifuly on the streets of Bangkok.

Hmm, thinking what else we did in Bangkok, ahh yeah, we found a great restaurant which we went to everyday we were there, selling amazing vegetarian food, every meal you got was so good, and cheap as well. It was a very popular place. Also in Bangkok i saw in the shops there in the main shopping arcade, the dream lens for my camera, and it was about £150 cheaper than in England, i would have it with my now if my credit or cash card would have been accepted, pah! Still im gonna go back to Bangkok next month and i will get it then, with cash! Expect the best photographs in the world from then on.

Heres a picture of a busy road outside Hualomphong train station in Bangkok.

I think we were in Bangkok for just 2 nights, then it was on another night train (the third one ive been on in 2 months) to a town called Ubon Ratchadamon near the border of Laos, there we jumped in a pick up truck with a few other people wanting to go into laos, and got sped to the border. Was all very smooth to get through, no hassles at all, i paid my 1000baht fine for over staying my visa, got a reciept for it (which i think ive lost). Then once in Laos we stopped for some food, which wasn’t as good as Thai food.

The scene in the back of the pickup truck, hats on to protect from sun, scarfs tying hats to head so wind doesn’t blow them off.

After arguing with one guy about the price of a taxi from the border to the nearest town, we found another guy who would do it for the correct price and not 10 times that amount. So we ended up in a town called Pak Si in Laos, theres not much there, there was a great Indian restaurant there, and we have heard that there are many many more in Laos, there is also a lot of bagettes, as the french colonised this country at some point in the past, i dunno when. So yeah Indian food and bagettes sounds good. There really wasn’t much else going on in Pak Si, it was interesting though, just because it was the first town in a new country.

This amazing bunch of banana’s is from Pak Si

In Pak Si you can get Corn Flarks

It wasn’t long before we stumbled on this gruesome scene, being in a poor part of the world such as Laos its hard to get away from distressing scenes like this. (in case you can’t tell, its little ants eating a dead rat)

We spent one night here, then we got a boat up the famous Mekhong river to a town called Chompasak, in the hope that we could get another boat from there to where we wanted to come. But we couldn’t so we had to back track via small bus, which went onto a barge to get to the other side of the river, which then took us to a main road in the middle of what looked like raddish country (there was a couple of shops and then mostly groups of girls that ran up to anyone that came there and offered them raddishes, and people eating the raddishes like they were apples) and dropped us off. We sat down and waited, then a bus came along, we argued with the guy over 25pence for a bit, then got on his bus, he stopped right away and told us to get on another bus, which then took us nearer to where we wanted to go, but it wasn’t where we wanted to go (we were on an island on the Mekhong river called Don Khong, we wanted to be on an island called Don Det). So we walked around asking people if they could take us to Don Det, we argued with a few groups of people going back and forth between then, playing them off against each other, then paid what we were orginally quoted and got on a boat which took us to our destination!! Hoorah!! The whole journey took us about 3 times more that it should have taken us and cost us about 3 times as much, were such good travelers!

The first boat we got on, which took us to Chompasak

The pier where we had to get off that boat.

The bus we got from Chompasak on the barge across the Mekhong river.

Raddish country, you can see the raddishes on the table in the bottom right.

A guy fishing on the Mekhong river

Another fisher man.

The destination was/is Don Det, its where i am now writing this post, its the reason ive not been on the internet much, theres not much electricity here, only with generators, so most people don’t bother to have them on during the day, and the internet connection is via a mobile phone style signal, so its expensive. So ive not done much interneting, sorry for that! I know its the festive season and all, i am thinking of you all wet and cold and full of christmas sprits. The area where i am is called “4000 islands”, so called because there is supposedly 4000 islands around here, counting all the little ones, i guess there could be.

There is a local moonshine type drink in all of Laos, and then there is this variation of it, which contains poisonous things, this one as you can see has snakes in it, theres also a tarantula variety, i havn’t tried it, but you know its only a matter of time before i do.

Ive been having a lot of good times here, the local people get on with their own thing as well as dealing with the small amount of travelers that come here, its nice to see them going about their daily business, lots of crops being grown around the place, lots of animals to tend to. Everyone seems to own a pig, too which they throw all their edible (to a pig) waste, so thats bones and vegetable waste, i quite like the pigs, theres one at the bar ive been hanging out in, its just outside the front door and i regulaly pet it, and get strange looks from the locals. Theres loads of chickens wandering around, its just like being in a japanese RPG (don’t think you’ll all get that).

An extremely ugly turkey.

Not sure why this chick was doing this, i didn’t see it put its leg down once.

One of the many “bin pigs”

One of the first things we did here was to rent out bicycles and go for a ride around the island to see whats here. Theres an old railway track that the french built when they were living here, theres no track left really, just the clear ground where it was, and a bridge that it went over to the next island, called Don Khon. On the other island we found an amazing waterfall, really big, lots and lots of water passing through it, ive never seen a waterfall that big before, i was amazed, i really was!

This photo doesn’t really get across the size of the waterfall, it was huge though!

A little way down river from the waterfall there was a lot of people fishing, they just scooped the white water and seemed to catch a lot of fish each time.

On the other island i saw a big escape, a really really big pig, it wasn’t so fast so the guy that owned it kinda just walked after it, but when he got hold of its lead it slipped out of it! Then he grabbed its tail and it started screaming and squeeling, super loud! non stop squeel! Until the guy got its lead back on again. I got a photo of the moment it slipped its lead

Beautiful pig eh!?

After some more riding around the island on our bikes we came across another bridge to a small island, and here we found a small village with a group of little kids all playing with a gibbon, a small gibbon. It was really agile, spinning round and round on a bamboo fence, then leaping off onto a tree, spinning round and round that, leaping into the air and onto the fence again. It was lovely to watch, all the kids were playing touch the monkey, and the monkey was playing touch the kids, both sides running away when they touched their target. After a bit the kids seemed to get bored with the monkey, but the monkey carried on spinning around, so we gave it some orange, and it stole Jonathans camera sock, and ran off with it, then threw it behind him, such japery! I loved this little monkey, and tell everyone i see on the island about it. I was playing with him for some time, if i held out my arm he swung around it, and then id spin around and around and he would leap off onto whatever i was next to, he was so happy!

Couple of pictures of the silly little monkey. Aww isn’t he cute, the crazy little bastard.

So yeah, ive been mainly relaxing during the days, and spending the night at the “Regge bar” up the road, (there’s Regge bars wherever you go in South East Asia). Me Jonathon and April would spend hours in there drawing away in our books, and passing them around for other people to draw in, and the owner saw our drawings and liked them, so he said if he bought some paints and some boards and paid us $20 would we paint him some pictures! We said we didn’t want his money but would paint him pictures quite happily. Here’s a couple of photo’s of the pictures we drew.

This one is regge colours, cos its a regge bar.

And this one we just painted whatever we felt like, i did the little girl on the right hand side, i was amazed that i could paint! Ive hardly ever put paint to paper! The whole painting amazed us all, both of them did, weve neither of us had much experience with painting, i think i will offer to paint wherever i go now, its something you always see on traveler bar walls, paintings by travelers.

Its such a nice place here, so peaceful, lots of hardcore chillin out going on, we’ve had a couple of picnics, one where we cycled first then stopped off and ate, and another one where we rented kayak’s and stopped off on one of the smaller islands and ate. Theres a monkey just down the road from here that is chained up, some one owns it, i dunno why they own it, but i go and feed it some fruit and nuts everyday, as they only seem to feed it bread.

The chained up monkey eating an orange.

Heres a couple of nice pics involving the sun.

A kid cycling home from school. (the road you see in this picture is the main road on this island, theres no cars here, they wouldn’t fit on the roads)

This really is a strange strange corner of the world, ive been to some odd places, but this place seems really strange, its an island on a river, for the past 5 nights there has been a powerful wind blowing up the river, so when were in the bar at night, which sticks out over the river, theres a constant strong wind blowing through the bar, i find it really refreshing, blowing away all the smoke and keeping the air clear. You can’t go any further south from here without going into Cambodia, and the border isn’t the best way to get there, so you don’t get to many people using it. There’s an Australian guy who lives here, he said he applied and applied over and over for a work visa and eventually got sponsored from a local here, and he nows runs a bakery on the island, selling amazing cakes and breads, he walks around all the bars in the evening offering his cakes to all the hungry travelers, who are all the more hungry due to the relaxed view on funny cigerettes around here. (the bar i did the paintings for has big joint, and small joint on the menu, and it offers to make any meal that you order a “happy” meal for an extra 25 pence). I think this place will stay with me for a long time, id be surprised if i don’t come back here one day.

After here were gonna head north, the only way we can go really, we will be passing through Vientianne (the capital) Vienviang, a nice place apparently, los prabang (another nice place) and the plane of jars, which is a huge area full of big clay jars of all sizes, that are of an unknown date and unknown use, hhmmmdy hmm eh

My mind is well and truly in travel mode now, the option to go anywhere is a familiar one, im toying with the idea of hanging around in Thailand for a bit longer, then theres my plans for India and so forth, the future is bright, bright with beaming tropical sun, its also full of tropical fruits and amazing people, amazing sights sounds smells. My distant memories are of traveling now, it seems like an age ago i was in the north of Thailand. My memories of England are far away, not that i want them far away though, they just are. I am quite attatched to traveling with Jonathon and April, ive been traveling with them for almost a month i think, its really familiar for me, they will be leaving for Australia in about 3 weeks now, then ill be on my own again, it seems like such a long time since i was left up to my own devices (what a strange saying that is). And yeah, well stuff and things and that, you know………..hmmmm Happy Christmas y’all, and a happy new year. Here’s a few more photo’s i think you might like, think of them as added extra’s, because its christmas.

These ants are all over the place, and there the best ants going. There really strong, and really clever, they build nests out of leaves, by folding them over to make coccoon shapes, and they seal them up with a web like material. Big teams of ants pull the leaves over and hold them in place whilst other stick them there, amazing little guys! There a bit grumpy though, if one is walking on you its not long before it bites you, i guess though it just smells you as food and is only trying to pick you up and carry you off.

This spider is tiny teeny weeny, it has a larger web, and then this smaller intricate bit it likes to sit on, i call it a king spider, as it feels the need to be on a fancy chair like a throan (is that how you spell that?)

Nice flower picture there.