Singapore

This is my last post from Singapore. Currently at Changi airport...what i call the "international airport"...LOL...how in earth could Singapore have a domestic airport?I was so dumb that today when the taxi driver asked which terminal I was going I answered "the international one". He looked perplexed, so I said "hold on Ill check"..."ahh, terminal 1 please..". What a geek a country which is a city cant have a domstic airport!

Im sick, or something is wrong. Dont have much energy and lots of headaches. Our luggages have both lost 2 kilos and I cant figure out why. Maybe we left things at shabs house? Hmm no idea. As far as i know we only left Miquels pink socks and pants. Its all my fault, i put my new red Angkor Beer shirt in his washing which made all his white stuff go red. Yeah, Yeah i know you shouldnt mix color and white... (whatever!). So he had to through out a bunch of his socks...oops! Tonight the roles had reveresed, he didnt sleep at all and I had a very nice night. Except for him waking me up at 3am to tell me he had lost all his money. When I woke up at 6 we found his money nicely placed in the place where it always was...what a relief! Hahah Miquel hasnt been allowed into the lounge this time. He always comes in as a guest but this time not. Anyways this lounge is definately not as nice as others so i think he isnt missing out on much. He is probably sleeping somewhere else in the airport.

Regarding Singapore its been a nice visit, but both of us were really exhausted. Yesturday we headed to my families center "vivo shopping mall" ..woho! Then we took a monorail to Sentosa island. Sentosa was nice, its like a resort island where you can waste all your money. Well we didnt go on any ride or have any great lunch but it was nice to see. I remembered sentosa quite differently. Sentosa is always under reconstruccion so they were builduing more and more attractions for tourists. What stroke me is that there were quite a few beaches. Really nice beache actually, white sand, palm trees...but the view was of huge ships and the port ...trully the last place you want to go to! Horrible!It felt really fake. We decided to make our way back to mainland by the cable car. Maybe not a good idea since we are both a bit afraid of hights. Specially Miquel who ended up closing his eyes for most of the way...the cable car was very very high. We also saw the Raffles hotel, which has beautiful gardens inside and passed through orchard street (big shopping mall where I got all the newest prada and gucci complements :P). On our way back we took the metro and walked what we thought would be a short walk. 1 hour later (after a 5 min. stop at the supermarket) we arrived home, exhausted...no comment. I then had a six feet under marathon and thats all I watched...

And now im heading to my last destination...last of this trip :( I cant believe september 3rd is approching, it felt so far away and now its almost here. Im heading to Tokyo (via HK..:) ). Im quite excited about it! I lived there from 1989 to 1990 and then went back to visit in 1992...since then ive heard a lot about Tokyo, ive heard my dad talk non stop about going back, but we never could. Now we are going. My parents are already there, and his friend is lending us his second appartment so we got free housing :) We will be there for 1 week, traveling around Japan. We already got our rail passes so we can travel all over japan with almost every train. Im so excited, i cant believe im going back...Cant wait to see the inmense city,japanese tv and all those famous spots i have been seeing in the pics of when I was a child, although I guess everything will have change a lot. And i really want to go to Ginza. The downpoint, its going to be sooo expensive. I think im going to want to buy so many small cute japanese things, but it will be expensive. Also, this week is when im going to regret having forgotten all my japanese...but hope to pick it up a bit.

Im happy we are changing planes in HK just cuz HK airport is one of the best of the world...so i feel like seeing it again! We do have a short connectionso I hope they work well with their logistics and our luggage makes it to Narita Airport!

Hope ( lots of hoping in these last paragraphs). I get a bit better to enjoy Tokyo at its most!! And I hope i survive the heat! After visiting my old home, Tokyo Ill be coming back home to NL, to face the reality of moving again to a new home in Paris ...

This is what i was talking about... Singapore and its laws, these are among others...

Smoking is not allowed in public buses, taxis, lifts, theatres, cinemas, government offices, and in air-conditioned restaurants and shopping centres. First-time offenders face a maximum fine of S$1,000. Smoking is allowed in air-conditioned pubs, discos, karaoke bars and nightspots.

As an extension of the "no littering" mantra, the import, sale and possession of chewing gum is banned. You are also not allowed to bring in chewing gum for your own consumption. In short, no chewing gum whatsoever.

To maintain the clean and green city, there are strict laws against littering of any kind. First-time offenders face a fine of up to S$1,000. For repeat offenders--it's a fine of up to S$2,000 and a Corrective Work Order .

The death penalty is mandatory for those convicted of trafficking, manufacturing, importing or exporting more than 15g of heroin, 30g of morphine, 30g of cocaine, 500g of cannabis, 200g of cannabis resin and 1.2kg of opium

Singapore, 24 August 2007

Dear People,

Did anybody know that this existed???

Logisticians without borders!! Their mission statement is: To provide significant added value to Relief Agencies worldwide through the provision of volunteer logistician services including the sourcing, solicitation, purchase and provision of required logistics equipment, services and relief materials.


Yours ,

The logistics geek

Hello from Singapore... Ahh!It seems like the exahustion of the past month(s) has fallen on me. We arrived in singapore and we had 4 free hours as we waited for shab (he is housing us :) ) to get home and go have dinner. The best idea I came up to was to lay in the bed and relax,while miquel wanted to go out...this clearly shows that im not well, im exhausted. We just stayed at home... I was meant to sleep but ended up spending the 4 hours watching my first cds from cambodia, namely six feet under which is great! Then instead of going out i ended up going to bed...that was my first night in singapore, very very very intrseting as you can see.

At least today we headed to little india and to Arab street....what can I say about this city. I guess that its the cleanest of all asia, you cant spit in the floor,you cant throw gum in the floor. Everything is controlled, actually you cant even cross the streets if there is a red light...freaky! They are quite serious about everything. In my entry slip it clearly sais that anybody dealing with drugs will be threaten to death....scarry. Anyhow this country which is as big as a city, and a small island is a cosmopolitan mix of arab,indian,chinese and i guess singaporean people. Its strange how things change from one street to the other as you move from little india to the arab part... When we arrived at the airport i was dunted by the hard task of looking for Shab. The description i got was "Look for an indian guy". Alright...the airport was full of indian people. So then I was told " he looks brasilian"...how in earth is an indian/brasilian guy meant to look? Well finally he appeared and we found him due to his real madrid tshirt (bad choice of clothing for the day..!!). Did I even mention that we flew for two hours from Bangkok to Singapore on a 747, and we even got first row sits :D Awesome... Apparently the 747 was doing Hong Kong,Bangkok,Singapore,Hong Kong...seems like its a very famous route cuz it was full.

We went for dinner at McDonalds at 8pm and this is the awkward thing about singapore. Mcdonalds at 8pm is full of kids with their school uniforms. Wouldnt you expect kids to go home?No, it turns out that afterschool they just go to mcdonals and study study study and study. And indeed, thats what they were doing, books and notebooks open and studing. Awkward! I went to a place full of electronics today to ask how much a Nikon SLR would cost as im quite intrested in one. Well the service was shit,but the prices great...so it seems that i might come back to singapore soon for a good SLR camera, who knows! They were seriously cheap compared to europe.

Malaysia is right here and you can get there by bus car by crossing a bridge. So the bus we took today from the center to our house had a sign saying that you must have your pasport with you if you go to a certain stop. Quite funny to have a city that is a country and to see signs that tell you to carry your passport. There seems to be quite a lot of people that live in Malysia and cross the border everyday to come to work here or study....how fun can that be.

Thats all for now folks :D

Still waiting in the airport. Was ment to edit my previous post, but how am i meant to do it if the entire blogger is in Thai?Its hard to understand what it sais so ill just create a new post... Really want to get to Singapore, and get some sleep. As always didnt have too much last nite as im flying today... I tried reading my book and im still wondering why everybody loves so much Life of Pi, i dont find the magic in it and im almost finishing it by now...

Actually we got to the airport so early.But it doesnt matter im in the lounge with my free food and internet (which ill soon miss :( ) This airport is immense and it took us a while to find our lounge. Walking distance in this airport are crazy. It surely is a nice,huge,full of shopps and modern airport but you should get free wheel chairs to move around. Last time i was here it took me ages as well. An airport definatively not reccommended for elderly, unless they want to do their last marathon....

We finally left KoSanRoad behind and all the backpackers. Grr!It was cozy being with backpackers and all organized for backpackers. But it kind of drove me nuts as well...specially when you see so many on their party/drinking holiday, which i dont specially like.

Did i ever mention that the last day in Cambodia we were "forced" to go with our backpacks on motrobikes since the minibus wasnt showing up...after having told everybody during the trip that i did not like motorbikes i was forced to get into one not to miss our bus. And woho it was quite cool. Although i must admit that i told the driver to go slowly and he was going slowly saying "no worry..i see its frist time on motrobike..." wasnt first time,but it was in Cambodia and that is soemthing else... So fine, my next South East Asia trip will involve more travels on motorbikes.

Oh! Very intresting in cambodia everything goes with Dollars. The bank would not change 100 dollar bill notes. They would only accpet the 50 and 20 dollar ones. Basically 4,000 riel is 1 dolla. So 1,000 is 25 cents. Prices are generally quoted in dollars and you pay in dollars and then the small things or the cents parts are payed in Riel! Strange but true..we were astonished at the beggining when a big bank did not want our 100 dollar notes.

Also all our buses were always from Korea..and here comes the worst, everysingle bus ride in cambodia had a tv. A tv where they would put a karaoke super loud cambodia cd.. 7 hours of full volumue karaoke can drive you nuts, even if you have your mp3 at maximum volume. We did sing for 3 minutes while cambodia people in the bus glanzed at us and smiled..and then came the rest of the hours trying to avoid the karaoke... At least most of the buses in cambodia had AC,something that lacked in Laos...

And in case you travel this part of the world, be aware. Night buses seem not to exist in this country..so whether you want it or not you will be forced to travel by day and waste your time from place to place...

And once you come from Cambodia and Laos..make sure you have some money left for your arrival in Bangkok cuz Thailand will feel extremly expensive!!! What i spend in Laos in 5 days was spend it thailand in 2.5 days..horrible :( And in laos i got so much more out of the money....

Food in laos is cheaper than cambodia...but transport is all monopolized and thus prices sky rock...

Cheapest room ive been to 50 cents (dollars) per night per person in Don Det.
Cheapest internet 25 cents (dollars) per 1 hour of internet
Cheapest visa thailand -->Free!
Most beautifull place --> impossible to decide..
Food that i have eaten the most --> (it was quite full of western food everywhere) but definatively had too many banana/pinapple shakes and panckakes...and got a bit fed up of fried rice.
Most relaxed people to talk to --> the monks, cuz they understand you quite well and are very friendly...and Rural people who just want to say Hi and Smile.
Most beautifull country --> Laos! Tranquil...a place where a smile and a sabaidi will get you very far...bargaining exists, but nothing too hardcore. Maybe they have just boosted prices by 2 dollars. Unlike in thailand where they go ahead and triple prices. hey, im serious even didac now thinks Laos is better than Cambodia.... :)
Annoying tourists --> Keep away from big groups of english tourists that are dressed like they are going to a disco while they are in the middle of the mountains.... And be carefull with the big patriotic israeli travelers. Also be aware of those that buy all their travel clothing in a high trend shop (catala:rollo,coronel tapioca) in their country before leaving. They will be wearing a t shirt that costed them 40 euros while they could buy it all in the local country for 2 dollars. You can easily spot them, they are acting like showoffs and being mad at everybody and everything.
Souvenier not to forget --> Photocopied books that look bran new,cds,dvds, and then all the wooden things like buddhas that might break on the way home (i didnt get any woho!) etc... Oh, bracelets and scarfs.... and most important a fewT shirts with the brand of local beer and to compensate for your layed back holiday and keeping in mind that you do have a job or job interviews when you are back dont forget to get your own tailor made suit in Bangkok... :)
Next destination --> Happy I did not go to Northern Laos and Myanmar so that I have a reason to be back :)

p.s. when you go to bed if you decide to rely on your friend to put an alarmclock i suggest you check that the alarm clock is set at the correct time. For instance 00:30 rather than 12:30!! Also make sure that your room has at least a fan unless you want to die in the middle of the night.

Didac and Anna are gone to catch the qantas flight that comes from sydney and goes to London and then barecelona...we have one night left ...Then heading to singapore. Last time i was there i was 6 so long long long time ago!! Really looking forwards to the cosmopolitan city where people cant even spit or through gum in the street...waiting for a big big change!!

once again..internet credit ending.

Hello from bangkok...cant believe we are here. Finally in a city that appears in the weather news in Cnn and BBC...finally in the hub of south east asia... It feels awkward to be here and have crossed the border. We have had a 7 hour trip. The border crossing took 1.5 hour but we finally made it. ONce we crossed i thought i was in another planet..it seemed like we were in a first world country. ANd that is mainly cuz the road from Battambang to Poipet (cambodian border city near thailand) was an awfull road. After crossing we took a miniban and the highway was amazing....all paved!!! No dust!! No crazy driving!!!no honing! Finally after 4 hours we entered this imense city. It seemed as if we were entering barcelona. Full of highways lights, lights in the highway!! And huge adds....Its hard to believe that Laos and Cambodia are sooo close and yet sooo different. That we have "left" all those people behind and those cities...just awkward. Specially awkward since we are in KohSanRoad the backpacker sanctuary of Thailand. This is a street made for backpackers. I think thats all ive seen since i have arrived in this area...in a way really horrible. Its like vang vieng in Laos or Lake side in Phom Penh cambodia....

IN our last nightin battambang we went to see a pagoda...it was closed but full of monks who were looking at them. We ended up sitting with them and chating with them for a good 30 minutes..they were so nice and open..some were really shy..just wanted to practice their english. They told us to join them in their praying so we were invited into the temple to see how they preid....

Tommorrow a day of shopping and to urism in bangkok and then heading to singapore!!!! I so want to go back to cambodia and laos..but i know that when time comes to choose a destination i always choose a place that i havent been :(

INternet credit ending!!!!!

...And now already in Battambang...Yeah, havent updated for while.We have been in Siem Reap for 3 nights... We were forced to buy a 3 day ticket to see Angkor. They have a 1,3 or 7 day ticket. 7 was clearly too much and 1 clearly too little...so no option. We saw Angkor during two days...Both waking up very early. Specially the second night when the electricity went off and the fan stoped working. I was awake by 5 and rumbling around the city till5:45 when my tuck tuk come to pick me up to see angkor. The heat was trully horrible...the sauna got worst everyday that passed by...Angkor was really nice. Very huge. The first day we went to visit some temples far away by tuck tuck. We spend from 6 am till 1pm in various temples...leaving us trully exhausted. We had to climb up a few and it was hotttt...The second day we visited the famous Angkor Wat . Lazy Anna and I went there by tuck tuck....sportive miquel and didac rented bikes...And biked for 7 hours!! We amazingly met in quite a few temples...! The people from our hostel were very nice..it was like a student flat. There were like 10 young tuk tuk drivers living there...And they took care of everything and had their night joints and watched tv. I was watching a soccer game last nite withe them and Miquel..quite amussing.

Angkor was also full of tourists,but less than i expected. I reallyliked the trees that were entretwained in the rocks...the ruins were quite nice. If anybody goes i specially recommened the Byon and Angkor Wat as the two must see...Pictures to come up soon!

I officially have a record number of pictures...so whoever wants to watch them better be patient.Tommorrow destination is Bangkok...to do a last visit and get ready to catch a plane to Singapore.

They say the boat trip from Siem Reap to Battambang is one of the most beautifull of the country. But we came here by bus...thourh a road that took a while to get through...buah!Horrible...Next time must take the boat!

So today we went from the coast till the north of the country. After a 10 hour ride we are finally in Siem Reap. Only 8km away from Angkor. There are no guesthouses in Angkor so allt he tourists stay here. As you can imagine we had a super intresting day in buses today. I think we are doing pretty well with our creativity in terms of game creation. I think we have played to sing songs, to guess mysterious characters, letter games,card games, sunscreen games.. And in addittion we have attempted to communicate in cambodian with cambodian people but that last one was definately not a success. We thought we were going to arrive in Siem Reap at around 7pm and at 5pm we see a bunch of ppl running through the street by the bus. All with signs all knocking on our windows. It was clear we had arrived. All the tucktucks wanted us to go with them. This is the thing they are very intrested in getting you to a guest house where they might get a commission...And even more they want you to hire them for the 2 or 5 day visit of Angkor. So we got down and ive never been followed by more tuck tuck drivers than this town. First step was getting our backpacks..already an oddisy. Then with didac and miquel we were trying to decide which tucktuck out of the 100 to take. They were standing 50cm from me and i couldnt hear them. Everybody was shouting prices and guesthouses names..it was nuts. I started cracking up..the situation was funny. Finally we said DIDAC is deciding...so a large majority went around him. At the end we got two tuck tucks one for Anna and Miquel and one for Didac and Me. Finally we were out of the mess.

I must admit i slept quite a bit on the bus..but the road was narrower than the privous once we had been in. Lots of traffics. The driver kept honging and we moved from right to left of the rode as we tried to avoid cars,bicycles and motorbikes. If we didnt crash it was a miracle...We took a bus from the beach to Phom penh and there we switched...the switching also invoved 100tucktuck drivers attempting to take us to a guest house in phom penh! Well so this trip is almost coming to an end. We might stop at another city or we might go directly to Bangkok...

If I was an author i would have probably used the dark clouds from the morning to get the reader ready for what was meant to happend at the end of the day.

We finally got a day today where we could wake up late. And we have a tv in our room so we can get up to date with the news and even watch National Geographic Channel. After waking up late and geting Miquel off the tv we headed to the beach...it was quite late by then. The beach was relatively empty, the sea was a bit rough. People were still swiming and im sure I could have swam too but it was quite cloudy..very cloudy actually.We sat down and it started raining so we moved into one of the multiple beach shacks. We were consantly being followed and asked to buy bracelets,skirts,massages etc etc etc...I bought one bracelet. By now my arm is officially full of breacelets. green and yellow, pink and black, white, pink,yellow black, blue and white and gree black and yellow...love string bracelets and they are so cheap here..

Well the day went on and on and I moved back to the sand as it wasnt raining. I suddenly saw a bunch of ppl congregating in a spot in the beach and less people swiming. In our area there were maybe only about 2 tourist swiming.After a while they realized something was going on and they also got off the water. I didnt know what was going on,but i could only predict that someone was misssing. Lately ive been watching a lot of Surf Petrol in aussie tv so i figured everything would be fine. In the tv show about real problems in aussie beaches ive never seen anybody die... A skijet was going around the water looking for someone....After a long long long time everybody started running to a spot. All of this quite near from where we were. Didac started to walk,miquel followed and then i did. I was with some cambodian people who also went...Luckily i didnt see any person. But someone must have been laying int he middle of the people. ppl were waving at the skijet to come back...The cambodian ppl told me that a little kid had fallen of the skijet and had been missing for a long time. The waves had brough his body to the sand....After a while they took him away...and everybody followed. It only took 5 minutes for people to jump back in the water. I had been tempted to swim as the water was quite warm...but by then it was the last thing i wanted to do....

And tommorrow we are leaving. The beach isnt really my thing. Next place..Siem Riep to visit the famous AngkorWat!

First of all...and very important key knowledge.

LONELY PLANET is a Guidebook..in my opinion one of the best!!So make sure you buy lonley planet when you travel...or routard (i dont get comission!)

hello again from the cambodian sauna ...oh man this is a sauna!!! i havent seen a toilet today and i have drunk so much...At least we have a fan in the room..actually two. This internet is painfully slow...cant even open the mail. Frustrating. So today has been a cultural day, royal palace, killing fields of khmer rouge. Also visited the prison and some other temple..After a cultural day we ended up in the russian market again. I ended up being the craziest of the four so i bough...Lonley planets

lonley planet Japan --> its huge!
lonley planet New Zeland --> massive!
lonely planet Singapore --> smaller...
lonely planet Myanmar -->small and must go there soon
lonley planet south east asia -->actually miquel bought this one
lonley planet europe --> well we are meant to share it

also bought entire season of six feet under and coupling...
and ankor beer t shirt

ohhh im forgeting..got two dvds more.
And we had a luxurious italian lunch today...wonderfull!We were in need of it....sooo delcious. In the meanwhile we rented a tucktuck for the entire day...The tuck tucks here are very glorious. Two seats are uncofortable but the other two are like couches...side and with cushions. Like in the typical french indochina that you see in movies. Fantastic!
And tommorrow we are heading to the beach!! Thats all folks!

indeed i would have loved to buy more lonley planets. specially france, but they only had italy!

ulalala Hello from Cambodia! So since my last blog a lot has happened, we have gone through paradise thorugh a never ending road trip to cross the border, met many more idiots and ended up in exhausted and in bed by 8pm. We are currently in phom penh the capital of cambodia and have spend the afternoon in the russian market. Ive been forced to buy pants as they always break and i bearly had any left. Also bought the entire seasons of sex in the city for 12 dollars and a bunch more of cds..unfortunately the market was closing and we have to rush out of here. Well well,cambodia is what i came to south east asia for, some kind of organized chaos. Motorbikes transporting things, 4 matteresses, 100 chickens. Cars and trucks and tuck tucks dont stop when they need to turn its just a matter of pasing by the cars in the opposite direction. When we got off the bus we had an invasion of ppl..tucktuck tuck tuck where you go madam, madam wait, ...this reminds me of india and mostly of vietnam. Its another world that Laos...its hard to believe laos is so close by and so different.

Anyways after leaving Pakse we heaeded to Don Det, which is in one of the 4,000 islands in laos. There we got rid of our last kips...it was like being in paradise. We were in a small islands. Paying 50 cents per night in a bungalow with not many facilities. The island only got electricity insatled in 2006 and it was very scarced. So basically it was a world of hammocks,beerlao,renting bikes,sunset boat tour and relaxing. We spend till 2am in the hammocks and then went to sleep and during the day we biked and had lunch..The lunch took again two hours to prepare we were sooo hungry that after lunch we ended up sitting in the hammocks for who knows how many hours...Beautifull day.

The next day we went to Cambodia, to Kratie..and none of us knew what was expecting us. Oh lord...we left Don Det by boat...this wooden boat. Ill post pictures of boats here cuz they are quite not the ones you would have in mind. Once we reached the otherside i had some issues to jumpof the boat but made it without falling into the mekong...Then we had to wait 1 hour for the minibus. minibus came, after 5 minutes we changed minibus. After 5 minutes we changed again. The worst of it all is taht we were travelling with some showoff asswhole german guy...very annoying. We then made it to the border. The road at the beggining was okay. And when we had 6km left we had to take an unpaved road all muddy and it took us 30 minutes to go throuigh it. Finally at the boarder we payed 2 dollars and were allowed to pass. The border was a wooden shack in the middle of the forest. With the policeman laying in hammocks and playing games...we walked a 100 meters to the cambodian side where they were also laying hammocks..Payed 2 dollars and passed in a bus which had no ac or nothing. It was an awfull bus. The worst of the worst. After 1 hour we had to take a boat. And they wanted us to pay more..so we all refused and payed. Then we had to wait 1 hour. Then we were finally taken to Kratie! Finally in kratie we left our stuff took a shower and quickly went to visit a famous stupa. We then had dinner adn we were all exhausted. I think nobody could even talk. At 8pm we went to bed and fell dead. Its just so hard to wake up late here all the time the latest we have woken up was 8. Tours and buses start sooo early!! This morning we took a bus at 7.15 to phom penh! It was a bus full of cambodians and a bout 6 tourists. But it was full of rich cambodians..And guess what we finally had AC!! Oh yeah!! After a 7 hour trip we reached the capital of cambodia had lunch and headed to the russian market to buy fake dvds etc :D

We got to be much more carefull here, so many more tourists, so many more ppl trying to jump on us. But its full of lonely planets at cheap prices. Its quite awesome!

btw did i ever mention that on our way from luang parabang to pakse we found in our bus some gusy with machine guns??It was not really nice nor cool...Here everybody speaks english its much more awesome. We are currently in the backpacker zone of phom penh...realxed,hammocks,music and backpackers...Quite awesome. Oh lord and this is a sauna, a true sauna ...i hope i survive the days i got left.

SO much more in mind i had and all if orgot sooo bye bye

So today we did some touring aroudn the bolovens plateau, serioulsy one of the poorest of the region...i took too many picture leaving my camera with no battery...I love the lao houses, their style is really cool.....The driving thechnique is also intresting..you drive through the middle of the road and you pass the trucks and busses in curves with no visibility. You just have to press the horn to let anybody know coming in the opposite direction that they should move! In the road you see cows chickewns, goats and pigs...Just reduce your speed and press the horn if they dont move, that is the chnique.


Anyways.... wish i coul.d upload more but computer is slow.

Well so i wanted to put some pictures up...lets see if you can at least see a
Yesturday trying to get the tuck tuck on the ferry......

Us and our taditional fruit shakes....

100 Unique Visitors since June..woho! Thanks for reading the bullshit that i type! And Chob Chai for the comments!

SABAIDIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!(hello!)

Im officially the person who has taken the most pictures 877 of the four of us. I think some of you arent going to be suprised.... i mainly go crazy when i meet people and kids and start taking pictures. I have a lot of memory and im not taking it with the highest resolution so im having lots of fun with my camera...just dreaming of getting a better one soon.Today we went to CHampasak and from there we went to Wat Phou which is also a UNESCO site..it is ruins of a "temple"and its very famous..we went there by boat. And when i mean boat i mean something made out of wood that when someone would move a bit it would move from side to side. I didnt really like it,although i enjoyed the views for the 1.30 hour ride. We then took a tuck tuck to wat phou...on the way back we also had to take a tuck tuck all the way to paxe..That meant we had to cross the river. We did that with a ferry. Which i dont even know how to describe. THe feery had ppl and trucks and cars on it, and hmm it was made out of wood and a steering wheel and some chains....Thanks god that we were just going to the other side. As our tuck tuck tried to get on the ferry it ended up with the wheel stuck ont he water. It seemed that it was uanble to put the wheel on the wood between teh land and the boat. So there you have didac and a bunch of people pulling the tuck tuck backwards. FInally the engine started again and they put the tuck tuck in that "ferry"...Tommorrow we are going on a tour around this area. As all tours this one will leave early in the mornign. I dont think we have ever woken up earlier than 8am and we dont go to slee to early either...Im looking forwards to twommorrow as seeing villages involves seeing people which involves picture time!! :)

Chob Chai for reading and byebye!!

Luang Parabang

I really liked Luang Parabang and its monks walking up and down the city constantly. The place was quite small and we kept bumping into the same tourists over and over and over...quite funny. The polish group that came with us from Vang Vieng to Luang Parabang we met them every single corner of the city. The city is part of UNESCO and its quite charming with two rivers going around it and surrounded by mountains. You can see monks everywhere and at 5.30 in the morning they go through the city and ppl give them rice...really nice thing to see. IN the afternoon there are some craft markets. Me and didac bought pants there..pants taht serioulsy look and when compared are much bigger than the ones i generally wear. And yet they dont really fit me...Strange!With didac i climbed up the mountain and we saw some nice view of the city and the river. We then met a monk and we were trying to ask him a question but he didnt really understand us so he ended up opening up a temple just for us. Really coool! The ppl here are so calm,relax. Its as if they have been stuck in a moment. We had dinner by the river and were able to catch the last open restaruant..yeah!Eating at spanish time didnt really work! Miquel and Didac also rented a bike to go aroudn the city..my legs were still hurting me from the trekkign so i decided against it...Instead i just fell asleep....Seeing how pressed we were for time we decided to head to the south of Laos to Pakse in an epic 22 hour journy. First Luang Parabang to Vientiane was an 9 hour ride. Were we once again met some true idiots. The people behind me didnt want to open the window. Of course there was no AC as promised...so after 6 hours and two tries by Anna to open our window i got pissed of. I went up to the guy behind me and told him i watned to open teh window. If they were behind and didnt like the air we could change sits. Oh,turns out he didnt understand..fine i told him in french. Now he needed a better excuse..and he found one. He claimed that if we changed sits we would crash cuz he was supersticious. Really pissed off i finally got to change sits when we reached the next city and someone left the bus, leaving two empty sits in the bus by a window!Alas!.We had already been 6 hours with no air. We then reached Vientianne and had to wait 3 hours and swtich bus but we got a super cool VIP bus with super conffy chairs! Unfortunately we also got someone who wouldnt shut up and who thoguth the army was a great place to go to and socialize and have parties. Seriously some ppl in this trip that come on our busses are driving me nuts! ANd thy tend to always be from Israel..is this a coincidence?? Finally met an entire group of catalan ppl ...all in luang parabang!

6th of august Vang Vieng to Luang Parabang

Oh..what a great day infront of us..we were ment to do about 250km by minibus to Luang Parabsng the old capital of the empire...Well to do this trip we decided to go by minibus with 10 ppl rather thnhan by bus as the dirfference is only of 2 dollars and its 3 hours shorter...Well nobody would think the trip would be amusisng and indeed it wasnt..It took us 6 hours..all by mountain road, all paved but making a lot of curves...at somepoint i felt very dissy..but got over it quite quickly. Well the views were really stunning..all the way..green and limestone rocks and mountains. Passing villages...we were traveling with 4 polish ppl who had also been on our bus from vientianne to vang vieng..they were nice butthere were also 2 irsraeli girls who ewere really bitches..alwasy complaining being rude etc. At the end they didnt even want to pay the tuck tuck from the bus station to theguest house area..reall bitches. Quite fun to observe and critizice ...anyways. We are now in luang parabang its full of monks around and temples..there is veray any electricity and its really cool...there are two rivers here one of them the mekong ..great views but again not enough time to be around...No comment!Im so coming back. Today i met the first catalan ppl, for the rest i havent metany spanish. And a lot of dutch..they are always so loud..this girsl behind me now are driving me nuts..but they are just saying theri duuu doeiiiiii so i hope they will be leaving NOW! Anyways its time to leave and get bitten up by mosquitos ..bye bye!

5th August

Now this computer is quite slow in typing so ill do my best to explain how our trekking went. Well we woke up 1 hour before the pickup to have enough time for breakfast,but once again that was not enough time...we were going to be picked up by9:30 and at 9:25 we were getting our food!Grrr at 9:34 we russhed and we got picked up. hahah in the tuck tuck there were already a group of 6 south koreans. One of them started talking to us..hilarious dude who was intrested in our young ages and later made us play a game about who we liked better of our group. Did Anna like me,didac or miquel better? Who did miquel like better? Unfortunately the south koreans went kyaking during the day and we went trekking...It was the 4 of us and two guides..so a very personlized tour. Things started very beautifully, and well it lasted like that for the entire day except for a couple of times. First of all...we had to cross a bridge that passed over the river. The bridge had to be passed one by one...it was quite long and extremly narrow,made of bamboo sticks some of which were missing and you had to hold to a metallic holding rail which in some parts was almost broken. Youc ould see the water current of the river running very quickly it was scary..but having seen miquel do it it meant i could too...once in the other side of the river we started to walk and walk and walk through the rice paddies. We eventually reached a cave..it was so dark we had to build a fire to actually get in. Even so it was sooo dark..first the guide fell,then miquel,then didac..it was my turn to fall but anna and i were strong enough not to fall hahah! Well i started to hear the water current in the cave, by the noise i could see that we were approaching a river and i wasnt happy. I did not want to swim in the dark in a cave in a river..i didnt even know the guide so i wasnt trusting him too much. He stested the water and came out to tell us that the water current was to strong. Yeay! we were going back...unfortunately we had to trek p the mountain and down the otherside. It was very steep and the worst it was muddy..i still dont know how the guides managed to walk up..they were only wearing flip flops. The best of all the coolest thing was that in the entire day we only met 1 couple ..we met a few lao ppl who were crossing the mountains with wood and fruits to sell in vang vieng but that was about it! The tranquility was amazing...now here was the worst..it wasso hot it felt like a sauna. After 5 minuts of walking we could have undergone a face cleaning our pores were fully open due to the heat and humidity. Miquel got very burned and cant really carry his backpack anymore ...today my legs are quite sore of all the ups and downs of yesturday. As i sayid the path was very very muddy and it was full of limestones so they were extremly sliperry. After lunch ..they cooked for us some veggies and meat and brough some fried rice..very lekker! We got to swim in the river as they prepared us some food!! we continued..we headed into the jungle, the plants were massive. By now everyriver we had to cross we had to walk through it. It was very refreshing ...lovely! But again the mud made us all end up brown...however the walk was worth it we reached a waterfall in the middle of the jungle..it was just the 6 of us and the water. The current was strong but really nice..its just hard to describe. You could see the clouds and we were feeling it was going to rain any time soon...Im a really slow walker when it comes to up and down hills...so i had one of the guides help me most of the time. He didnt speak much english so all he would say was BeCarefull..hahaha..im still hallucinating about their flipflops.Towards the end we had to walk downstreem for about 15 mintues it was really cool. Eventually we had to cross back the river we had crossed by the bridge in the morning.We had the option of crossing swiming or by kyak. We all decided we would swim. I promise you, you dont know how strong a current can be until you are in it. We jumped and the current took us down down down. We kept trying to go diagonally. Anna and Didac continued walking for 20 mintues through the rice patties till the car. MIquel and I went with the other guide kayaking downstreem for 10 minutes...And the rain started right when we reached the guest house. Although at the end we all made it through we all passed the exit way and had to somehow walk up streem on the side of the river. In Vang Vieng i didnt get to do tubing which was a real pitty. You get tractor wheels and you go down the river..we just need more days....But i now realize how dangerous the current can be..even if you are a strong swimer its quite crazy!

4th August - Trip to Vang Vieng

Once again up at 8am to have breakfast. Then the bus pikcks us up to go to Vang Vieng. The bus is meant ot leave at around 10 but it seems that there are too many people. Solution?Yes there is a solution. The bakpacks of the 7 left over pepole are placed at the end of the bus aisle. And the 7ppl each come on the bs with a plastic chairs and sit in the bus aisle. With the bus fully packed we embark towards the north to Vang Vieng. Where is the promised AC in the bus?Well this consists in keeping all windows open and every now and then opeining the door of the bus. We have a toilet stop and sto once so a lao person that goes with the driver can give some sandwithces to someone. Our tourist bus finally arrives in Vang Vieng.The trip has been okay except when the bus had to go uphill which he could only do at about 2km per hour. We find new and lovley guesthouse and go runniing to get some lunch. Laater we take a tour of the town. this is the backapcker sanctuary its all made for us. All the restaruants are open air and they all show movies-family guy or friends..its nuts. The town on ly has one main road, and a few streets. The main road is full of restarusants with western food, prices are still super cheap. We have been arguing about our trip. We want to see a lot and geting from one place to the other is already taking us a lot of time. Three of us think Lao will be much better than cambodia, while one of us prefers cambodia. We have set a date by when we want to have crossed the border...unfortunately we will not be able to go to as many cities as we wanted...Its hard to believe this country is in this planet. Many places dont have electricity,its really remote and yet save. Everybody seems to respect you and in terms of backpacking its a paradise due to its beauty and prices. We went for dinner in one of these touristic places in Vang Vieng where they were showing family guy non stop. That made a conversation with Miquel impossible as all he could do was stare at the Tv.....I have also found some shops that cell full boxes of DVD series and im considering buying some such as 24, lost etc...but not sure yet. I dont want to carry them for my entire trip. Also everywhere you see the logo of BeerLao. Its everywhere, in every single bar, in the stadiums in the trucks in the guest houses...Beer Lao..!! Tommorrow we are going trekking and tubing and waterfall watching...so now its time for bed!!!

p.s. humidity is killing!

3rd of August - Vientianne

We wake up by 8am to visit all there is to see in vientiane. because they have wierd schedules we got to wake u early. By 4pm evrething will be closed..our first stop is breakfas. As always it takes a while to get it prepared . second stop is the morning market . We all end up buying some thing, be it a t shirt, bracelets or decoration object. we then head to wat tat luang. its the most important religious monument of Laos. it is there that the most important buddhist monk of laos lives. The place is beautiful and uncrowded. Although we encounter some tourists its as if we are in a forgotten land. only a few of us are rumbling around after taking a million pictures we head to another temple the wat chan and end up in a western restuarant for lunch. Turns out we find the restaurant was also mentioned in our guide. we quickly engulf our food and drink our milkshakes and then head to the national museum which talks about lao culture,revolution etc..Its an old but intresting museum full of propagand. 1 hour left before all the places close so we go to the most sacred temle of laos. wat simuang. This place is beautiful and once again qute empty. after observing a monk during 20 minutes anna miquel and i get "venerated" (hmm however that is called..)by the monk. He talks in Lao and puts a bracelent in each ot our arms and throws holly water in our head. Didac doesnt do it and its a really bad idea. When dinner time comes we all get delicious food. Instead, didac who had until now always had the best food gets the worst!! hahah After that visit we pick up our passsports with the visa for cambodia. And at some time during the day we also end up at wat sisaket. This temple is full of buddhas of all sizes. We hadnt been able to go there the day before cuz it was 4.30 and it was closed.The walls ohave little caves each of which hold two budhas. really nice. the night ends in vientiane having dinner at a little cafre by the main road by the mekong. Then we head for dessert to a french restarant. ITs hard to belive this is the capital of a country. Its so quiet and tranquil country. Tuck Tucks here are for 6 ppl more o ror less so we can always travel together. The country seems so save and the people frindly. there arent too many lights in the streets. Many places are oriented for backpackers and its hard to imagine how this would be with out them. round 800,000visitors come to Laos every year. A lot less than neighbouring Thailand. The landscape is beagufil with the mekong river, limestone ountains and very green jungles,waterfalls,lakes a dn caves. This palce has 14,000km of roads of which 80% are unpaved. Making it very unhandy in the rainy season...NOW!

August 2

Im very frustrated as my previous entries all got deleted so i had to rewrite them. in addittion the entire bloger page is in Lao and so its getting complicated..

By 8am this morning we are ll awake. anna calls bac asleep shortly as didac miqnd and i follow the trins path in our thailand-laos-cambodia map. Eager to arrive we eatch town after town after town but our station never seems to arrive. Finally we arrive at Nong-Khati...with about 3 horus delay...take a tuck tuck that takes us to a place where they say they will arrange visa,bus etc...Bullshit we dont want that...Tuck tuck takes us to the border and we leave officially thailand. With a bus we cross the fridnship bridge and arrive at the lao border. We order our visas which in 10minutes are ready. We then cue and get our stamps...We then take a taxi to our guest house. Lao seems different, poorrer and relaxed. But without poor people begging. It seems laid back. As we are driving moonson rains hit again,but by the time we reach the guest house the rain has finished. Everything is upside down in the taxi. The gears are the otherway around,the stearing wheel is the other way aroudn...freaking wierd! The luggage fits all in the trunk! Amazing!So we are paying 4 dollars per night per room..looks like a good deal! We head for lunch...hmm lunch we are starving...we order stuff and after 30 minutes they come to tell us they dont have some of it. Fine change orders...after an 1 we get our food! Finally...We then head to the bank and change money. Oh lao money is nuts! 1 dollars is 10,000 kips..so imagine how many millions we have now! Its honestly hard to put it in your wallet!! Well..we visit some temples or attempt to but they all close at 4pm...So we arrange our visas for cambodia where we will be in a couple of weeks...We will have to cross through the river so its better to have the visas by then. We then just head to the mekong to take a few pictures and play card games and drink Lao Beer...thats what everybody seems to be doing just chillin..this is what this country seems about chillin...Nobody here comes running behind you asking for money or wanting to bargain..They are all smiling. The capital of the country only has 120,000 ppl..it looks like a town! And the adds you see everywhere are about Lao Beer! Hilarious!Tommorrow will be the day to see the market and the temples, they open at 8am...The traffic is not condense,but the the law of the biggest rules, the biger you are the priority you have...Crossing the streets can also be an adventure, but so far we are alive..And now, time for dinner!

2nd august

We wake up late. 9am and get some breakfast. The four of us are here so we start making plans for the day as daidac goes and gets more dumplings. Priority one is to buy tickets tto go to the tahi border with laos. Remembering yhow hard it was to get a ticfket in delhi I start to think of the long and painfull day ahead of us. We grab a tuck tuck which after 2 streets stops and makes us jump off. Tsk… he sais he wants more money. Idiot! We get another taxi. The station is quite and very clean, we get a bunch of ppl coming towards us. They are all official station helpers . in 5m inutes we obtain the tickets!! Wow! In 8 hours we will be leaving to the lao border. We go see the golden budha and on our way there we get lost in china town. Alter we take the metro to the center. The metro has AC , lovely! The humidity in Bangkok is really killing us. We walk,walk and walk and pass a bunch of street shops and markets selling full copyies of t shirts, pants coatsw bags etc…we visit the famous four face budha but before we go to sit in some couches in an empty super luxurious shoping mall.a fter some relaxing we search for some restaurant. We end up eating at some award wining restaurant for 6 dollars. Nobody orders drink but me which comes in handy when I chew and swallow a spciiyy red peper…yuck!!

We then look for some food for the 12 hours train ride that awaits us. We take a train and head to the unglourious victory monument. Moonsoon rain hits and odesnt want to stop. The only option out is to go by taxi back to the hotel. Anna and I go and get a 1 hour tahi massage for 6 dollars. Wse wait 1 hour more at the hotol and finally get our lguggage and take a taxi to the station . traffic is condence and we ares tufck in a trffic jam for long time. We get to the sation 30 minutes before the train is meant to leave but the train doesn’t show up. We wait wait wait we realize we left our water bottle sin the taxi..the criver has made us leav e running not to get a fine..so we go buy more water. Finally with 1.30hours delay the train arrives and we leave Bangkok. We get 4 policeman that come and check our tickets. They look very scary and strict they even got guns…the guy from the train isn’t happy that we aren’t buying his dinner nor American breakfast for the next morning. After few mind gaes we go to bed…we arealize that after1.5 hours in the train we arer still in one of the multiple train station in Bangkok…time for bed.

Specially the cadburry hot chocolate I great . they turn the ligts off and I try to sleep.but that isn’t really happening. 4 hours have passé im about to start my 3rd French movie but I just cant take the French anymore. In the meanwhile the dude infront of me continues to talk outloud afor ages . By now he is quite drunk and soon after starts making out with the girl sitting next to him who he doesnt even know!!!!. Well I try to do a search in the plane to see if there is any perfet sleeping position. But my research aattains the conclusion that ones whoa re actually sleeping have either just a lot off work or have taken pills. More tv shows and when im about to fall asleep they turn to cabin lighs on for yet another rmeal. 9:15 horus of light and we arrive to Bangkok. Its really late and tingt . the airport is new and huge. Pass police, exchange money, get luggage get taxi drive 60km and reach the hotel. Checkin takes ages. Finally get the room and rush to rromm 1142 wher didac and anna and their lugae are waitifng for us…time for bed.

Leaving sydney alwya sleaves pepol a bit paralyzed. The international terminal is always so empty in comparison with other terminal slike in London or Frankfurt or schipol. Leaving Sydney dinvovles traveling at lesast 3 hours that is probably the closests and its to Auckland. After being told that I could not get into the lounge. I still got in and got bto bring one guest..my brother! We enjoyed the free food and aonce stuffed up we stold two magazines and a newspaper too update ourself on all the gossip. I then realizewd that I truly don’t knowshtit about fashion and modeling. Im bearly able to recognize half the people who appear on the magazine.

Im happy im the second person to board the plane. The 747 looks immense. My brother appears 10 minutes after. Sseems like the plane aint that full at all, got a free seat by me and have to seat there as my tv keeps turning off. I always loved qantast entertainment. You can watch a bunch of videos to,tv shows etc all at your own pace, stop,rewint play. Food arrives and im a bit stuffee but anything is welcomed.