Our journey on the longtail boat continued down the Mekong after a sleepless night in Pakbeng.. hard bed.. power cut at 10pm (no fan).. toilet plugged.. good times. LOL.
We stopped at a couple of villages along the way, including one where the High Laos people live (Mhong tribe), and another where they make some particularly potent whisky. We also stopped at a cave with a Buddhist temple inside.
We arrived into the lovely city of Luang Prabang late in the afternoon and got to our hotel by tuk-tuk.. this place was much more comfortable. After settling in, we headed off for dinner, wandering through the fantastic night market on the way. Had pizza (best pizza ever) for dinner.. mmmmm pizzzza.
Next day.. super lazy. Breakfast at 10am after a fantastic sleep, just wandered the streets all day with a few of my Aussie tourmates and looked in shops, stopped for drinks/coffee, just chilled all day. Dinner by the Mekong River.
Today.. crazy adventure through the jungle. Five of us, plus our tour leader and a local guide, set out for a small village from which a trail leads through the jungle to another small town with a lovely waterfall. I wasn't going to go, but decided the exercise would do me good. En-route to the start point, the tuk-tuk (a four wheeled version for this trip), got stuck in the mud along the very bad road we were travelling, so much so we had to get out and push (all of us). The trek was fun, about 3 hours long, slipped in the mud and landed on my butt a couple of times, saw all sorts of interesting insects (none of which bit me, fortunately!), finally arriving at the town/waterfall area around 2pm. I was covered in mud.
The waterfall has a swimming area, which was full of freezing cold water, I lasted about 5 minutes. Had lunch in the small town before getting in a tuk-tuk again (same one, the fellow drove around to meet us) and heading back to town.
We arrived back to a hotel without power.. turns out the whole town was without power. Only lasted an hour, however it prevented me from having a shower and getting my shoes, camera bag, belt, and other items cleaned up. The whole process took over an hour when the power finally came back on! Good times.
Headed out for dinner around 7, went back to a small cafe to use their free wifi (yay free internet) and had a lovely sandwich... about to head back through the night market, hopefully will find myself a fridge magnet, before heading back to the hotel.. early night tonight, up at 6 tomorrow morning!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Wonderful Laos (written 19OCT2008)
..where did I leave off.. oh right, night market in Chiang Mai.. wonderful place full of wonderful things. Louise (one of my tour mates) is probably one of the best marketplace bargainers I have ever seen. She got the price of a hangbag down from 9200 baht (about $300) to 5200 (about $175). It was truly amazing.
Oh yeah, and I finally had a ride in a Thai tuk-tuk, three-wheeled motorcycle taxi thing, brightly painted, some with lots of colourful lights. Was sooo fun. :)
Next morning, up at an obscene hour (5:30) for breakfast and off by 6:30 to catch the first of our two buses. This one was quite nice, air-conditioned, comfortable, better seats than Greyhound. We travelled three hours north to Chiang Rai, where I actually thought we were going to have a look around for an hour or two. We had a lunch/pee break and a bus change and that was it! Next bus.. old, rickety, much less comfortable, full to the rafters, not air-con.. but it soon emptied out and we had lots of room to spread out. Three hours on this bus as well, to Chiang Khong, where our lovely tour leader Ju bid us adieu as we were crossing the Mekong river, leaving Thailand and entering Laos, and Gecko's Adventures keeps their tour leaders local to each country.
We did Thai exit immigration procedures, and our new tour leader for Laos, Soun, was there to greet us and accompany us across the river. Super nice bloke, born in Laos, grew up in the states, moved back about 12 years ago. Off we went across the Mekong, got our visas at Laos immigration. Interesting fact here... each of the three nationalities represented in our tour group had a different fee, the Aussies at US$31, Brits US$36, and me, US$43. What the hell?? Should be those Aussies paying the most! LOL.
After completing border formalities (entering a small town called Bakeo), we walked to our guesthouse for the night, and set out for a look around town, including climbing about 150 steps up to a Buddhist temple, which offered lovely views of the river and town. Walked up and down the main drag before meeting back at the guesthouse to head out for dinner, where I tried the national Laos dish, which I can't remember the name of at this time but was very delicious! Laos beer, very yummy, simply called: Beerlao. Off to bed soon after dinner.
Up early-ish to start our boat cruise down the Mekong river... in a Laos longtail boat. Such a good way to see the countryside and be lazy at the same time! Our destination tonight is Pakbeng, a small town on the side of the Mekong. Along the way we had a delicious buffet on board the ship, stopped at a small 'middle-Laos' village (where people live a bit more traditionally), saw some amazing scenery, and got to Pakbeng about 430pm. Small little riverside town, like I mentioned earlier, haha. Quite quiet here, our guesthouse only has electricity from 6pm-10pm, so we dropped our stuff and went on a brief walking tour of the down, including the market, and a temple. All temples are Buddhist unless otherwise stated! Back to the guesthouse in time for beer and dinner with the bugs, and here I am writing away now. Off to bed before the 1000pm power cut off, so I have the fan to keep cool until I fall asleep!
Oh yeah, and I finally had a ride in a Thai tuk-tuk, three-wheeled motorcycle taxi thing, brightly painted, some with lots of colourful lights. Was sooo fun. :)
Next morning, up at an obscene hour (5:30) for breakfast and off by 6:30 to catch the first of our two buses. This one was quite nice, air-conditioned, comfortable, better seats than Greyhound. We travelled three hours north to Chiang Rai, where I actually thought we were going to have a look around for an hour or two. We had a lunch/pee break and a bus change and that was it! Next bus.. old, rickety, much less comfortable, full to the rafters, not air-con.. but it soon emptied out and we had lots of room to spread out. Three hours on this bus as well, to Chiang Khong, where our lovely tour leader Ju bid us adieu as we were crossing the Mekong river, leaving Thailand and entering Laos, and Gecko's Adventures keeps their tour leaders local to each country.
We did Thai exit immigration procedures, and our new tour leader for Laos, Soun, was there to greet us and accompany us across the river. Super nice bloke, born in Laos, grew up in the states, moved back about 12 years ago. Off we went across the Mekong, got our visas at Laos immigration. Interesting fact here... each of the three nationalities represented in our tour group had a different fee, the Aussies at US$31, Brits US$36, and me, US$43. What the hell?? Should be those Aussies paying the most! LOL.
After completing border formalities (entering a small town called Bakeo), we walked to our guesthouse for the night, and set out for a look around town, including climbing about 150 steps up to a Buddhist temple, which offered lovely views of the river and town. Walked up and down the main drag before meeting back at the guesthouse to head out for dinner, where I tried the national Laos dish, which I can't remember the name of at this time but was very delicious! Laos beer, very yummy, simply called: Beerlao. Off to bed soon after dinner.
Up early-ish to start our boat cruise down the Mekong river... in a Laos longtail boat. Such a good way to see the countryside and be lazy at the same time! Our destination tonight is Pakbeng, a small town on the side of the Mekong. Along the way we had a delicious buffet on board the ship, stopped at a small 'middle-Laos' village (where people live a bit more traditionally), saw some amazing scenery, and got to Pakbeng about 430pm. Small little riverside town, like I mentioned earlier, haha. Quite quiet here, our guesthouse only has electricity from 6pm-10pm, so we dropped our stuff and went on a brief walking tour of the down, including the market, and a temple. All temples are Buddhist unless otherwise stated! Back to the guesthouse in time for beer and dinner with the bugs, and here I am writing away now. Off to bed before the 1000pm power cut off, so I have the fan to keep cool until I fall asleep!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Who has a place to live??
I do I do!!
I found a place with the help of my buddy Francois from Vancouver, he introduced me to a friend of his in Melbourne, and we are going to be housemates, yay!
I found a place with the help of my buddy Francois from Vancouver, he introduced me to a friend of his in Melbourne, and we are going to be housemates, yay!
Crazy Bangkok (this is a long one, covers three days!)
Here I am.. at last. Well actually I'm in Chiang Mai now.. Bangkok was so busy I scarcely had time to write my blog!
Flight up from Johor Bahru was uneventful, apart from the fact that I forgot I was only permitted 15kg of checked baggage, and I had 18kg.. cost me a wee bit in extra baggage charges. Oh well. Made my connection through Kuala Lumpur without any trouble. Air Asia was quite pleasant actually.
Got to Bangkok, arriving at their shiny new airport, the name of which I cannot begin to pronounce. Found my way through immigration, picked up my bag and through customs, out into the arrival hall where there were people absolutely everywhere. Passengers, airport staff, 20,000 cab/limo drivers who all wanted your business.. good times. Got some Thai Baht out of the ATM and found a cab driver, and we were off.
There was some drama which included my cab driver yelling into his phone at someone to try to figure out where it was, the Thai language at high volume is not really a pleasant experience, LOL.
He found the hotel in reasonable time, cost me about 350 Baht (about $12) to come all the way from the airport (about 40 min drive), quite cheap really. Got myself checked in, showered, went out for a quick walk in the neighbourhood to have a look around, got some water, a SIM card for my phone, and headed back to the hotel for dinner (pad thai.. mmm) and Singha beer (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm).
After I got the phone thing figured out.. I waited until about midnight (so it was 10am at home) and got on the horn to Lindsay at my old office to see about changing my flight from Singapore-Sydney.. I've decided to curtail my itinerary after I finish in Vietnam, heading straight for Australia instead of going back to Thailand/Malaysia for 3 more weeks. I just decided it was too long and too complicated. Was super nice to talk to Lindsay, and 2 more phone calls and about an hour later, I had all my flights from Danang-Saigon-Singapore-Sydney all re-arranged. I had one night previously booked in a posh hotel at the Singapore airport, this change could wait until the next day. Off to bed.
Up at 730, out the door to breakfast, immediately after which I was picked up by my day-trip people to head out for my tour. We visited a few sites just outside of Bangkok, including a short river cruise on a traditional Thai boat, a visit to a farm where this yummy sugar candy-type stuff is made (can't remember what it was called), a fantastic cooking course where I got to make Pad Thai (mmmmmm), and a visit to an orchid farm to watch how they grew orchids out of a bottle.. was really cool :)
I met some lovely people from Australia, including one lady who chatted me up all the way back to the city, we ended up exchanging information and hugs at the end of the car ride!
Back to the hotel where I was promptly switched into another room, as I would now have a roommate.. a nice fellow from the UK. I had some things to do, among them getting my US$350 local payment, so off I went.. I found this enormous electronics shopping mall just down the street called 'IT World', I had really been thinking about getting one of those tiny notebook computers that are scaled back basically to do internet only, as practically every place I had stayed so far had wireless set up and I was spending a fortune in internet bills. So after much looking around I picked one up, then went to the bank machine to withdraw enough money to change to US dollars.. by this time I was so close to the time to meet my group that I could only ask one currency exchange place, who would not sell me US dollars. Booo.
Met my group, great bunch, only 8 of us (although this group is three different tours, so we will leave some as we go and probably pick more up). Five Aussies, two Brits, and me. Tour leader is just lovely :)
Went to another currency place as suggested by the tour leader, bought some USD, headed off to dinner, seafood red curry, omg sooooooo yummy, back to hotel and dropped into bed after a couple hours online.
OK this is getting long.. next day.. did the grand palace (sooo fantastic), reclining buddha, took a boat up one of the canals, and vegged out in the hotel the rest of the day, until it was time to head to the train station for our overnight train to Chiang Mai (14 hours). Train ride was fun, didn't sleep a whole lot, such are the joys of sleeper trains... got to our lovely little hotel in Chiang Mai in the morning, myself and one other girl did an elephant ride which was tons of fun.. every 3 steps the elephant went, up it's trunk came for a banana which we had been given to feed him. Was very fun, got lots of good photos, including the one they took of us. Back to hotel, here I am.
Phew. That was a long one..
Tonight doing the night bazaar..
Tomorrow we are off to Chiang Rai by bus.. then crossing into Laos tomorrow afternoon, can't wait!
Flight up from Johor Bahru was uneventful, apart from the fact that I forgot I was only permitted 15kg of checked baggage, and I had 18kg.. cost me a wee bit in extra baggage charges. Oh well. Made my connection through Kuala Lumpur without any trouble. Air Asia was quite pleasant actually.
Got to Bangkok, arriving at their shiny new airport, the name of which I cannot begin to pronounce. Found my way through immigration, picked up my bag and through customs, out into the arrival hall where there were people absolutely everywhere. Passengers, airport staff, 20,000 cab/limo drivers who all wanted your business.. good times. Got some Thai Baht out of the ATM and found a cab driver, and we were off.
There was some drama which included my cab driver yelling into his phone at someone to try to figure out where it was, the Thai language at high volume is not really a pleasant experience, LOL.
He found the hotel in reasonable time, cost me about 350 Baht (about $12) to come all the way from the airport (about 40 min drive), quite cheap really. Got myself checked in, showered, went out for a quick walk in the neighbourhood to have a look around, got some water, a SIM card for my phone, and headed back to the hotel for dinner (pad thai.. mmm) and Singha beer (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm).
After I got the phone thing figured out.. I waited until about midnight (so it was 10am at home) and got on the horn to Lindsay at my old office to see about changing my flight from Singapore-Sydney.. I've decided to curtail my itinerary after I finish in Vietnam, heading straight for Australia instead of going back to Thailand/Malaysia for 3 more weeks. I just decided it was too long and too complicated. Was super nice to talk to Lindsay, and 2 more phone calls and about an hour later, I had all my flights from Danang-Saigon-Singapore-Sydney all re-arranged. I had one night previously booked in a posh hotel at the Singapore airport, this change could wait until the next day. Off to bed.
Up at 730, out the door to breakfast, immediately after which I was picked up by my day-trip people to head out for my tour. We visited a few sites just outside of Bangkok, including a short river cruise on a traditional Thai boat, a visit to a farm where this yummy sugar candy-type stuff is made (can't remember what it was called), a fantastic cooking course where I got to make Pad Thai (mmmmmm), and a visit to an orchid farm to watch how they grew orchids out of a bottle.. was really cool :)
I met some lovely people from Australia, including one lady who chatted me up all the way back to the city, we ended up exchanging information and hugs at the end of the car ride!
Back to the hotel where I was promptly switched into another room, as I would now have a roommate.. a nice fellow from the UK. I had some things to do, among them getting my US$350 local payment, so off I went.. I found this enormous electronics shopping mall just down the street called 'IT World', I had really been thinking about getting one of those tiny notebook computers that are scaled back basically to do internet only, as practically every place I had stayed so far had wireless set up and I was spending a fortune in internet bills. So after much looking around I picked one up, then went to the bank machine to withdraw enough money to change to US dollars.. by this time I was so close to the time to meet my group that I could only ask one currency exchange place, who would not sell me US dollars. Booo.
Met my group, great bunch, only 8 of us (although this group is three different tours, so we will leave some as we go and probably pick more up). Five Aussies, two Brits, and me. Tour leader is just lovely :)
Went to another currency place as suggested by the tour leader, bought some USD, headed off to dinner, seafood red curry, omg sooooooo yummy, back to hotel and dropped into bed after a couple hours online.
OK this is getting long.. next day.. did the grand palace (sooo fantastic), reclining buddha, took a boat up one of the canals, and vegged out in the hotel the rest of the day, until it was time to head to the train station for our overnight train to Chiang Mai (14 hours). Train ride was fun, didn't sleep a whole lot, such are the joys of sleeper trains... got to our lovely little hotel in Chiang Mai in the morning, myself and one other girl did an elephant ride which was tons of fun.. every 3 steps the elephant went, up it's trunk came for a banana which we had been given to feed him. Was very fun, got lots of good photos, including the one they took of us. Back to hotel, here I am.
Phew. That was a long one..
Tonight doing the night bazaar..
Tomorrow we are off to Chiang Rai by bus.. then crossing into Laos tomorrow afternoon, can't wait!
Monday, October 13, 2008
i heart mandarin..
some ladies in the lobby are speaking mandarin to each other... makes me feel a little bit less homesick.. hehe
Paradise no more..
Well, stopped blogging for a few days because of the super-expensive satellite internet on tiny Malaysian island.. back on the mainland now so here I am again.
Pulau Perhentian was sooo lovely... my four nights there seemed like 2 weeks, time moved so slowly. I had the loveliest time.. basically did nothing.. except one day I rented snorkel gear and swam with lots of colourful fishies :) The fish there are not the least bit shy either..
The electricity 12 hours a day only was the only thing that took getting used to... and only because that meant no aircon.. it was bloody hot there.
Got back into Kuala Besut (where the the speedboats come in from the islands) about 12:45pm, after a fast and a bit bumpy ride.. was promptly met by a taxi driver who delivered me to my guesthouse in Kota Bharu - the nearest city with an airport. Tomorrow I fly to Bangkok, via Kuala Lumpur.
The guesthouse is very... basic. The toilets.. kinda work. My room is comfortable enough. I'm not complaining - it cost about $5 for the night, for a private room.
Just spent the afternoon relaxing, had a bit of a wander, eventually got some dinner and now am thinking about bed.. lol it's only 8:30pm. Who's almost 30? Who's getting old?
Pulau Perhentian was sooo lovely... my four nights there seemed like 2 weeks, time moved so slowly. I had the loveliest time.. basically did nothing.. except one day I rented snorkel gear and swam with lots of colourful fishies :) The fish there are not the least bit shy either..
The electricity 12 hours a day only was the only thing that took getting used to... and only because that meant no aircon.. it was bloody hot there.
Got back into Kuala Besut (where the the speedboats come in from the islands) about 12:45pm, after a fast and a bit bumpy ride.. was promptly met by a taxi driver who delivered me to my guesthouse in Kota Bharu - the nearest city with an airport. Tomorrow I fly to Bangkok, via Kuala Lumpur.
The guesthouse is very... basic. The toilets.. kinda work. My room is comfortable enough. I'm not complaining - it cost about $5 for the night, for a private room.
Just spent the afternoon relaxing, had a bit of a wander, eventually got some dinner and now am thinking about bed.. lol it's only 8:30pm. Who's almost 30? Who's getting old?
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Paradise.
Had a nice, but bloody hot and humid final day in Singapore, bought my ticket for the train from Singapore to Johor Bahru (was going to take the bus and transfer to the train, decided this was easier!), and hung out with my new friend Catherine basically all day. We went back to Sentosa Island by way of the the skyride (gondola).. which was more expensive but super fun.
After bidding farewell to my new friend and the nice hostel owner lady (overheard her name mentioned at one point but now I forget.. lol)... off I went sweaty as can be to the rail station (only 10 minutes walk, fortunately). At the rail station you clear customs procedures, do you have anything to declare bla bla bla, then onto the train and up the track 25 minutes, you clear immigration out of Singapore and into Malaysia in one step (although I never actually got stamped into Malaysia, just out of Singapore). The train ride started out lovely.. basically double bunks running along both sides of the train (with privacy curtains).. I had a bottom bunk right next to the door. Good times. The door was opened by air pressure, which made a fun hissing sound, which people opened and closed ALL night, in addition to talking until wee hours of the morning. Long story short, I got about 15 minutes of sleep.
We pulled into Wakaf Bahru station (in northeast Malaysia) at about 845am, one of the conductors was nice enough to tell me we were there as it wasn't well signed or otherwise obvious. A taxi driver greeted me almost immediately, where I didn't believe the RM80 ($28) fare to get to Kuala Besut (which is where the ferry goes from out to the islands).. there was a sign posted in the station listing all the fares, which he showed me, and indeed it did say RM80. Sigh. $28 for a 90km taxi ride, poor me.
Friendly taxi driver, although he didn't say much on the hour long trip (during which he drove like a bat out of hell). Delivered me right to the front door of the ferry ticket sales office, I bought a ferry ticket, and paid the taxi driver (even gave him a tip, which he was very happy about.. not sure if tipping is the norm so I just did it, lol). The owner of the small ticket-sales office said I could leave my bag there while I waited for the boat, which I was only to happy to do.
Went to a little cafe across the street as it had been 15 hours since I last ate (14 hour train ride, 1 hour car ride).. had a yummy banana pancake and a coke, strange combination I know, but I was suddenly afraid of adventerous eating while travelling solo, so I kept it simple.
The ferry left at about 11am, I had to pay a extra fee as the islands are part of a marine park, I guess they charge the fee for maintenance, etc. Was about a 30 minute ride, we went to Pulau Perhentian Besar first (Pulau means island, Besar means large, in Bahasa Malaysia) and dropped off some folks, one of which was a nice girl from KL and I chatted with her a bit, then over to Pulau Perhentian Kecil (Kecil = small), which took about 5 minutes. I was very wet from the trip, we hit some rain on the way.
A smaller boat came out to pick me up (larger boat was too big to run up on the beach), I was on the beach of the second most beautiful place ever (the first being where I come from, perhaps I'm a bit biased!). Long Beach is the main beach on Kecil, with a number of beachfront chalets, a couple of bars, a few restaurants, a few scuba/snorkel shops, etc. I found my place after asking, as it was up in the trees a bit, slightly back from the beachfront. A nice guy got me checked in and showed me where my room was.. a bit dank and dark. I guess that's how it goes in a super humid environment that gets monsoons for 4 months of the year. No electricity at this place from 7am-7pm in the off-season, which is now. Each place generates their own power, as there is no supply from the mainland. Anyway, certainly comfortable. I had a bit of a nap and went to one of the restaurants for a bite to eat, mid-afternoonish by this point. Saw an enourmous monitor (sp?) lizard on the way to the restaurant, but couldn't get my camera out quick enough. Started to rain so I went and sat on my balcony, swatted away mosquitoes (another side-effect of the humid environment) until the rain stopped, and came down to write this rather enormous blog.
Internet is quite expensive here (by comparison to other places), so no photos until I get to Bangkok on the 14th, and I likely won't write another blog either :)
Ciao!
After bidding farewell to my new friend and the nice hostel owner lady (overheard her name mentioned at one point but now I forget.. lol)... off I went sweaty as can be to the rail station (only 10 minutes walk, fortunately). At the rail station you clear customs procedures, do you have anything to declare bla bla bla, then onto the train and up the track 25 minutes, you clear immigration out of Singapore and into Malaysia in one step (although I never actually got stamped into Malaysia, just out of Singapore). The train ride started out lovely.. basically double bunks running along both sides of the train (with privacy curtains).. I had a bottom bunk right next to the door. Good times. The door was opened by air pressure, which made a fun hissing sound, which people opened and closed ALL night, in addition to talking until wee hours of the morning. Long story short, I got about 15 minutes of sleep.
We pulled into Wakaf Bahru station (in northeast Malaysia) at about 845am, one of the conductors was nice enough to tell me we were there as it wasn't well signed or otherwise obvious. A taxi driver greeted me almost immediately, where I didn't believe the RM80 ($28) fare to get to Kuala Besut (which is where the ferry goes from out to the islands).. there was a sign posted in the station listing all the fares, which he showed me, and indeed it did say RM80. Sigh. $28 for a 90km taxi ride, poor me.
Friendly taxi driver, although he didn't say much on the hour long trip (during which he drove like a bat out of hell). Delivered me right to the front door of the ferry ticket sales office, I bought a ferry ticket, and paid the taxi driver (even gave him a tip, which he was very happy about.. not sure if tipping is the norm so I just did it, lol). The owner of the small ticket-sales office said I could leave my bag there while I waited for the boat, which I was only to happy to do.
Went to a little cafe across the street as it had been 15 hours since I last ate (14 hour train ride, 1 hour car ride).. had a yummy banana pancake and a coke, strange combination I know, but I was suddenly afraid of adventerous eating while travelling solo, so I kept it simple.
The ferry left at about 11am, I had to pay a extra fee as the islands are part of a marine park, I guess they charge the fee for maintenance, etc. Was about a 30 minute ride, we went to Pulau Perhentian Besar first (Pulau means island, Besar means large, in Bahasa Malaysia) and dropped off some folks, one of which was a nice girl from KL and I chatted with her a bit, then over to Pulau Perhentian Kecil (Kecil = small), which took about 5 minutes. I was very wet from the trip, we hit some rain on the way.
A smaller boat came out to pick me up (larger boat was too big to run up on the beach), I was on the beach of the second most beautiful place ever (the first being where I come from, perhaps I'm a bit biased!). Long Beach is the main beach on Kecil, with a number of beachfront chalets, a couple of bars, a few restaurants, a few scuba/snorkel shops, etc. I found my place after asking, as it was up in the trees a bit, slightly back from the beachfront. A nice guy got me checked in and showed me where my room was.. a bit dank and dark. I guess that's how it goes in a super humid environment that gets monsoons for 4 months of the year. No electricity at this place from 7am-7pm in the off-season, which is now. Each place generates their own power, as there is no supply from the mainland. Anyway, certainly comfortable. I had a bit of a nap and went to one of the restaurants for a bite to eat, mid-afternoonish by this point. Saw an enourmous monitor (sp?) lizard on the way to the restaurant, but couldn't get my camera out quick enough. Started to rain so I went and sat on my balcony, swatted away mosquitoes (another side-effect of the humid environment) until the rain stopped, and came down to write this rather enormous blog.
Internet is quite expensive here (by comparison to other places), so no photos until I get to Bangkok on the 14th, and I likely won't write another blog either :)
Ciao!
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