Noah Fine's Journal

12:19pm: Kyoto a go go
Rosalie and I tried a traditional Japanese bath-house (sento) yesterday. They have only scalding hot or freezing cold tubs which you go back and forth between. They also have dry and wet saunas, tubs with bubbles, and a tub with electricity going through it, meant to simulate swimming with electric eels. The electricity tub was cool. When you move you feel the electricity surging in your nerves. Although I felt a bit dizzy at first from the heat, the whole experience was rejuvenating and refreshing and made me feel like a new man, which I immediately ruined by drinking too much latter that night at karaoke. The Sento's are a social thing in Japanese culture and a throwback to a time when no-one had a bath in their home. I really want to try an Onsen, which is a public bath fueled by natural spring water.

We went to Karaoke in the evening with some people we met at our guest house. It was great. I understand now why Karaoke is so popular here. You get a private party room with the full Karaoke gear and all you can drink for two and a half hours, for only 20$ (apparently Kyoto is the cheapest city for Karaoke). This is cheap by comparison to any local bar, where one glass of bear usually runs you about 10$.

I'm sure Rosalie will put this in her journal (do a search for username: suchadreamer) but I'll tell you anyway. She was boasting that yesterday was a big day for her because she overcame two major obstacles: singing Karaoke and bathing with naked old Japanese women.

10:21am: Domo Arigato (Mr. Roboto)
Rosalie and I are in Kyoto, ancient capital of Japan, spared American bombing during WWII.

We spent three days in Tokyo and then took the bullet train to Nagasaki. The train ride was 8 hours and would have been about 24 hours on a conventional train. Nagasaki was quite an eye-opener. The museum there is very tastefully done. Ground zero has a touching memorial. The recovery of the city is remarkable. In 1945 240 thousand people lived in Nagasaki. 70 Thousand died instantly, another 70 thousand sustained injuries leading to death, and most of the rest died slowly of radiation disease in the following years. Now 450 thousand people live there and it is a beautiful super modern city. Many temples have been transported from surrounding areas and put back together in the city giving it an 'ancient' feel.

Every day I think of about a hundred things that I want to write here, but there isn't much time and internet is very expensive. I will try to do more entries when I get to Korea.

We're off to see some temples.
Noah

2:19am: Killbear
Today I bought the new Hayden album. There's a funny song about how his ex-girlfriend goes camping with her new boyfriend. When they come across a grizzly bear the new boyfriend runs away and the girlfriend, frozen with fear, is left to be "dragged by her torso around the (camp) site". It kind of reminded me a bit of an incident with a monkey in Malaysia.

Killbear

The afternoon light was reaching down to the site
as my old love stared
into the fire with her new love there
camping up north, the same place we shared

Behind the van they heard crushing of land
and they looked to see
a grizzly bear lurking amongst the trees
searching their ground for something to eat

From what I've been told, my old love just froze
but her man got scared
he started to run, thinking she had begun
but he left her there, alone in the woods with the bear

so the bear all surprised looked right into her eyes
and decided that
she was it's prey or some kind of threat
so it followed it's instincts to deal with it

It charged right towards her and stopped just before her
and stood up high
swiped at her shoulder and dragged her by the torso
around the site
and that's how my old love died

if I'd been there I wouldn't have run from the bear,
that's the worst mistake
I would've yelled and banged pots,
and made sure that my love wasn't taken that way.

7:30am: O.K. I'm in the airport in Tokyo but I can't write much cause this computer keeps screwing up and clearing everything. So far the flight has been really good. The flight was not full and I had the whole three seats to myself. I got a bit scared cause I hadn't eaten dinner, and the pilot announced that they would be serving breakfast before landing. Which did make sense as we sped towards the east, an early morning sun, and 'the future'. I was saved by the fact that, in asia, breakfast is not distinguishable from other meals. We had steamed rice with mixed vegetables and prawns for breakfast, with a side of noodles in soysauce with wasabe.

Can't wait to get home and eat cereal with 2% milk.

12:53pm: comming home
On Rosalie's request here's my last journal entry before coming home. Took the overnight bus back to Bangkok last night. Feeling pretty zonked cause I barely slept. Right now I'm having a suit made, and about to go for Israeli food. I'm reading a great book called "in the name of the rose".

My last few days in Ko Pangyan were pretty quiet. Mostly just me on my secluded beach working on my tan and going snorkeling. Although the island is good for parties and the beaches are quite beautiful, the swimming is bad because all the beaches are extremely shalow this time of year, and when you try to walk out to the deep water (>200 meters) you end up cutting your feet up on the coral and turning back. On the bright side because they are coral beaches the snorkeling is awesome. I saw barracudas. At one point I got scared because I had been out there for a while and the tide was going out, it got so shalow that I was scraping my belly against the coral trying to get back in to the beach. Eventually I found a narrow path through the coral (marked by a buoy), that had been cleared for boats to get through.

On my last night on the island I played the open mic jam again and got a free roast chicken dinner in return. I really could have used that meal about two months ago, now I'm going home and I predict that I will get my fill of roast chicken dinners. I only got to play two songs because there were many people there this time and quite a few people wanted to play. I had difficulty riding home (~10 km) at night, on dirt roads, while balancing my guitar on my motorbike.

I leave tomorrow evening at around 7:00. Can't wait to see everyone again, and I hope you're ready to party! I've been training.

Cheers,
Noah

3:07pm: The biggest water-fight of all time
Yesterday was the Thai new year celebration. These people are fucking brilliant for coming up with this idea. Basically, the entire country takes part in a huge water-fight that lasts the whole day. I'm told that in Bangkok and Chiang Mai it can last 5-7 days. The whole thing coincides perfectly with the hight of summer.

As I drove my motor bike from one end of the island to the other, every shop and home had a huge bin of water and its own entourage of people stationed outside who spray, splash and dump water on you as you drive by. By the time you get to the city you're drenched to the bone and a huge waterfight/party awaits you.
Two nice ladies who I have been going to for Thai massages invited me for a barbecue and drinks at their shop, and so I spent a good part of the day hanging out with their kids and splashing people as they drove by. After an awesome day, a bunch of us headed to Hat Rin for yet another beach party. Everyone went swimming, seeing as it wasn't possible to get any wetter.

6:49pm: New moon rising
Last night I played at an open mic jam down the street from my bungalow. This scottish guy accompanied me on guitar, he was awesome. We played a bunch of beatles covers and sounded really good. I premiered my new song to rave reviews. There weren't many people in the audience (12), but they were really nice and I had a discussion about religion with these two older guys that smoked a lot of hash. The owner Mick invited me back next sunday (if I'm still here), and said a turkey roast dinner was on him if I played again. The scottish guy has been living here for a year and invited me to his place in the north of the island for a jam. On the walk home (at about 2 am) I got surrounded by a pack of wild dogs and brandished my guitar as a weapon to scare them off.

A couple days ago I moved to a more secluded part of the island 'cause I wanted to get away from the party scene, in which I was indulging a little too much, but I've found that it can't really be avoided. Every beach has a party scene. They're crazy about their parties here. There are big parties leading up to and a few days following the full moon. Then, just as you have started to recover they hit you with the half moon party, then the new moon party, etc...

2:02pm: The beach giveth and the beach taketh away
Last night was another awesome night on Had Rin, the main party beach. I had a jam session with these two Israeli dudes at their cabin, involving a guitar, bongos and a diggeridoo. Although Israelis have a very bad reputation as travelers, these guys were cool.
Later I had an interesting political discussion with a couple of brits. While dancing on the beach I lost my sandals (they were stolen) that were very dear to me and had sentimental value, and had to go home barefoot. I was lucky relative to my English friend Carl, who passed out on the beach and was groped and robbed of all his cash by a lady-boy prostitute, and spent the rest of the night throwing up. Strangely, it was the second time it happened to him.

11:50am: more than one full moon
The full moon party was awesome! I danced all night to jungle, techno, house, etc.. till the sun came up. There's lots of great people watching. Anything under the sun that you care to see (or don't care to see) is happening on this beach. Though my dad already stole my line, I'll say it again: lets just say 'there was more than one full moon out that night'. Definitely the wildest party I've ever been to.

Happy Passover and Easter to everyone back home!
Noah

3:03pm: Over-intelectualizing a Thai beach party
Last night a group of us from our guest house went to Hat Rin, the beach where the full moon party will be. Its the perfect beach for a huge party. The length of the beach is lined with dance clubs each one playing a different type of music, and the sand stretches maybe 20-30 meters down to the water. It is then very shallow water going out for quite a distance. There were 3-4000 people there last night, and I heard that the parties leading up to the full moon are actually better than the full moon itself. The full moon party will be quite a spectacle though, with over 15000 people on the beach.
I spent a good part of the night talking to my friend Carl about the parallels between the plight of Dostoyevsky's protagonist in "Crime and Punishment" and the lead character from Kafka's "the Trial", and other parallels with Nichean and also Freudian thought. The crux of our conversation came down to the ubiquitous megalomania of the male homosapien. Our conversation was lubricated by buckets of Rum, Sprite and Redbull.
At about 4:00 AM when the waxing gibbous moon with a sole accompanying planet were setting behind the mountains to the west, as if a torpedo to the center of the earth, I ventured to walk the length of the beach, and half drunk, I came up with the following lines of prose (which struck me as pure genius at the time):

"I walked to the end of a beach littered with fools,
and I saw the planks of a dead civilization wash up on the shores"

3:46pm: Our Jewish Friend
This is the web site of our Jewish friend that we met in Phnom Penh. Apparently he is a politician back home. You can read his tales (I haven't yet).

www.tripeast.com

6:56pm: Ochheuteal beach
If I was going to describe the people here in one word, I would say stoic, or maybe sober. They still have a sense of humor though, but compared to Thailand they are much less layed back. I guess because of the short time since the civil war and also the ubiquitous poverty, they are still overcoming some kind of communal neurosis.

The most annoying thing is the number of bike taxis on every corner hounding you to drive you somewhere. I think every guy in this country that has a bike and no job (which is quite a few), does this.

We are currently in the beach resort town of Sihanoukville in the south. The beach is beautiful and we have already enjoyed one and a half days of sunbathing, reading, playing guitar and lounging around. On Rosalie's urging I have started reading "Crime and Punishment" and I am already quite engrossed.
There are two problems with the beach. 1) The water is so hot that you actually feel more refreshed when you get out into the sun. 2) From some stories we have heard talking to other travelers, you have to be careful of theft, which seems to be the main source of income for many of the poor children and beggars who roam the beach. We have been taking turns going in the water, so that someone is always with the bags. Not that this is any consolation but, the risks of being robbed are apparently much worse in Vietnam than in Cambodia, so you could say we're 'out of the jungle'. In a couple of days we'll be heading back to Thailand to spend Rosalie's last few days in Ko Chang.

6:47pm: Off the rails in Phnom Penh
We're back in Phnom Penh for one night. We're staying at the Angkor hotel, right down town, so that we can catch a bus early tomorrow morning to Sihanoukville. Tomorrow we will be laying on the beaches of southern Cambodia. We hope they're as nice as Thai beaches; otherwise we can take a ferry to some nice beaches in the south of Thailand on our way back to Bangkok. As it stands Rosalie will be flying back to Toronto on the 31st and I will be returning on April 21st after a quick detour to Singapore.

I'll be glad to get out of this city. I just walked to the bus terminal to buy our tickets for tomorrow and almost got hit by a motor-bike. They have a very strange system for crossing the streets here. They're not fond of traffic lights. Instead you are meant to just walk out into the street at a regular pace (its easiest if you close your eyes) and the vehicles just go around you. You need to have a lot of faith, but until you learn to do it you basically can't get anywhere.
This city is very gritty and kind of scary. Even our guide book suggests that you don't go out after dark here. We sprung an extra couple bucks for air conditioning (it's hot as hell up in here), so we're gonna spend the night in our room watching movies and down in the hotel bar, which serves free beer from 7:30-8:00.
Cheers,
Noah

p.s. Congratulations to Rosalie who got excepted for grad school at UofT.

8:23pm: Angkor is unfathomable
We are staying in a nice clean guest house in the quiet town of Siem Reap, 3 km south of the ancient city of Angkor. We bought a three day pass, which is only enough time to quickly go through half the temples. The pass is pretty expensive for us (40 USD), but well worth it. Also, we have to hire a motor bike driver for 8 USD/day. The ruins are breathtaking, and remind me of the stuff my parents used to make me see traveling in Europe as a kid, but this time I'm going voluntarily. Angkor Wat itself, including the outer wall and the moat, has a perimeter of over 5 kilometers. Although Angkor Wat is the best in terms of grandeur and style, the neighboring Angkor Thom is at least four times the size, and the whole area is spotted with hugely impressive temple complexes. Today we got up at 5 AM (can you believe it) in order to see Angkor Wat at sunrise. An infinite amount of pictures and written description could never adequately describe Angkor Wat or equal the experience of seeing this place.

One interesting thing to ponder while wandering through the ruins is how and why this magnificent city, which once was home to over a million people (back when there were maybe one or two hundred people in London or Paris), was mysteriously deserted, left to be swallowed up by the jungle, and forgotten for over 400 years.

There is much poverty here, but the spirit of the people is strong. Even the dirtiest, barefoot, hungry little kid, will give you a big smile and partake in a joke or two. He/she will be very grateful for a few pringles or some crackers. There are also many land-mine victims. Today we saw a group of street performers, playing traditional instruments, all of whom were missing limbs or disfigured in some way. I was struck to tears by the peaceful serenity and gentle kindness in their faces.

5:34pm: Genocide museum
Yesterday we went to the Tuol Sleng genocide museum. The museum, a former high school a 10-minute walk from down town Phnom Penh, was used by the Khmer Rouge to imprison and kill over 14000 people. The site has been left in the exact state that it was in in 1979, and you can walk into the tiny cells and see the rooms and instruments that were used for torturing and interrogating prisoners. It is quite gruesome and many of the rooms now house thousands of mugshots of all the people that were killed.

After this experience we decided to skip the tour of the killing fields and just relax at the guest house today. Apparently the site is just a field and some scraps of clothing can be seen coming up from the ground. A monument has been erected there, which contains 17 levels of the skulls and bones of victims. Afterwords, inappropriately, sightseers can shoot an AK47 for 1$/bullet, or a bazooka for 30$. Rumors say you can also blow up a cow for the right price.

Noah

10:39pm: Cambodia
Today we arrived in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. It was a grueling 7.5 hour bus ride from Saigon, including an hour at the border. The last couple of days have been very very hot, making any kind of action difficult. The city seems quite nice from the initial ride through on the back of a motorbike taxi. It is strange to look at these peoples faces and realize that anyone over 25 years old has been through one of the most horrible atrocities known to man. It is like being in a city full of holocaust survivors.

Phnom Penh was taken over by the Khmer Rouge after the Americans pulled out prematurely in 1975. The city was evacuated and the residents were sent to labor camps 14 km from town. over the next four years, until the Khmer Rouge were overthrown by liberating Vietnamese forces, ~1.7 million people were slaughtered in the killing fields.

Tonight we stayed in our guest house, which is right on the lake and has a really nice bamboo bar that extends out onto the water and has a beautiful and peaceful view. this is in stark contrast with the chaotic dirty streets out front. We had dinner and watched the 1984 production "The killing fields", staring John Malkovitch and the lawyer from Law and Order. It was a great movie and covered the story of the killing fields very well.
There is a scene at the end where John Lennon's "imagine" is playing from the protagonist's car, while he is reunited with his friend who survived the genocide. This scene had a powerful effect on me because once, as a child at summer camp, I was walking to breakfast in the morning when I came across a car (situated in an unusual part of the camp to find a car) blasting out "imagine" from the car stereo. The car was surrounded by a growing crowd of campers who were standing in silence and awe, as if they had come across an alien space craft, and I joined them. That experience was quite spiritual for me and has stuck with me ever since, so it was interesting for me to see this scene unfold and resolve as if I had had a premonition.

In a couple of days we will take a tour of the killing fields.

8:52pm: Uncle Ho (Chi Minh)
We arrived in Saigon yesterday afternoon to the tourist ghetto, a two-three block radius swarming with backpackers. Much like Kowson road in Bangkok, but much nicer.
We're paying 6$ a night for a double room with a fan, but are considering bumping up to 8$ for air conditioning, cause the city is roasting.
Today we saw the vietnam war remnants museum. Another victory for anti-american propaganda. I don't blame them for taking that stance though, after seeing some of the pictures of children affected by agent orange, and seeing some of the torture techniques they used for interrogating captured viet cong. Over all it was actually less slanted than I expected. A whole room was dedicated to Vietnamese and foreign journalists who died and their photo's mostly captured the hellish suffering of American G.I.'s. What they did accomplish, though, was to show that even the United states of America was capable of horrible and devastating atrocities comparable to the Khmer rouge and the Nazi's, and could not consider itself to be beyond judgment.

This morning we went a little crazy buying bootleg CD's and DVD's. CD's cost 1$ and DVDs cost 2$, plus you get a free one for every 5. I've already bought over 20 CD's. Leonard Cohen, The Doors, Paul Simon... I'm reading the biography of Jim Morrison, trying to get inspiration to write song lyrics. Also, Rosalie and I have started working on nightly writing exercises, on her impetus. I am going to try to write lots of songs, that I can later distill down to just a few.

Before Saigon we were in Da Lat in the central highlands. Da Lat has a cooler 'mountain' climate. The city was founded by the french scientist Alexander Yersin, who discovered the bacteria responsible for the black plague. Besides a very impressive market, we weren't impressed with the town at first. On our second day we rented bikes and explored some areas around the city, which were very scenic, and started to turn us. For dinner we decided to splurge on some western food, since we were sick to death of pho (noodle soup), homesick, and badly in need of some clean, healthy nourishment. The Da Lat Sovitel hotel is a five star hotel that was once a palace, and was converted by a rich american attorney in the last 10-15 years. We ate at Larry's pub in the basement. It was a friday night and our guide book said that all seven of Da Lats american ex-pats would be there. They were. I had Taco's and Corona beer. MMMmm. It wouldn't have even been that expensive except that Corona was the only beer not included in the happy hour two for one special (as indicated by the small print at the bottom of the menu), and I had two at 4 USD each. After our dinner experience and a walk through the decadent yet deserted halls and lobby of the hotel, we felt refreshed and more partial to the city of Da Lat.

Happy (march 8th) international women's day!
enjoy it cause the other 364 are men's.

4:24pm: New E-mail
On the off chance that anyone is reading this (besides my family), I would like to inform everyone of my new e-mail address. My collegeclub e-mail has been giving me lots of problems, although I still have it I will be using this new one regularly:
sodamnlucky@operamail.com

10:12am: My Son
Today we spent most of the day on the beach. Not sure which body of water it is (should probably look at our map). Pacific? Biked 4km to the beach. Nicest beach I have ever seen. Not too crowded either. Old vietnamese ladies walking around selling fresh mangoes, pineapples and foot massages for under a buck. Paradise.

Also, got a hair-cut today. Very short. hair cut + shave (straight razor) + shoulder/head massage = 3$.

Rose got a dress with matching shoes/bag/shawl, dress pants, and a dress shirt for 48 USD. I got a suit for 30 USD.

Tomorrow we go to the ancient ruins of the Champa civilization at My Son. The 3rd century ruins were once the religious center of this ancient civilization. They were partly destroyed by US bombs. Older than Angkor Wat (7th century).

Glad to hear you got my postcard Pop. Happy birthday!

Dad, The suit's not gonna fit you unless you manage to trim a few pounds off your gut.

n.

5:28pm: Scams abound
We left Hue after two days. Our second day we went to the most magnificent tomb of the emperor Mihn Mang. Rosalie will probably tell the interesting story that goes along with it. The tomb was one hundred and eighty years old, and a huge and beautiful site. Man made lakes in the shape of a dragon or a half moon, were dug out by thousands of peasants digging every day for three years, with their hands.

Today we arrived in Hoi An. We are staying in a beautiful guest house. The building is over two hundred years old. The town is small and very beautiful. It is an artist colony right on a small river, 5km from the beach. There are hundreds of stalls near the market that do high quality tailor made suits (40$), dresses (40$) and silk pajamas (10$). In Bangkok the tailor made suits are 120$, but at least I won't have to carry it around in my suitcase through Cambodia. I think I may buy one here and another in Bangkok. One problem with this town, and Vietnam in general, is that everyone is bugging you, trying to sell you something, following you for blocks and blocks, and basically trying to scam you. It is very difficult to get a moments peace. This is not different from most places in indochina that we have been, but here it has definetely reached a kind of fever pitch.
Case in point: We just bought two beautiful rice paper paintings from an art shop in town for 30$ (we bargained her down from 45$). After wrapping everything up and explaining the chinese inscriptions (which took quite a while) she asked us for an extra 4% commission charge. This kind of pissed me off cause she had been so nice all along but hadn't mentioned this, and we were just about to part. She forced us to follow her to another shop, where a lady informed us that we had to pay another 20$ american. I flatly refused and it blew up into quite a heated argument (lots of other women gathering round staring us down), where the lady said we hadn't paid her at yet, though that had been the first thing we did. We (read: I) kept yelling, I told her to call the police. Eventually we just walked off. Very harrowing.

9:08pm: no Hue
Arrived in Vietnam yesterday, after an eight hour bus drive from Savannakhet in Laos. We only spent one day there as our two week Lao visa was about to run out. I spent the whole day in Savannakhet playing guitar, as our hostel had a big open common room with great acoustics. Rosalie spent the day exploring the town and the market with Christina, one of our Canadian friends.
We spent our first night in Vietnam in a dodgy small town called Dong Ha, near the demilitarized zone. Today we took a tour of the demilitarized zone and nearby areas of military significance. Our guide kind of sucked cause he couldn't speak english properly. Some of the sites were kind of boring, such as open fields where American military bases once were. The most interesting sight was a network of tunnels where hundreds of Vietnamese families lived underground for several years during the war. A few captured American vehicles, blown out tanks and shells. All in all the tour was a victory for pro-vietnamese propaganda (not that they're not deserving). It was a very interesting exercise to learn about the war, of which my previous knowledge is based on movies (The dear hunter, Platoon, Forest Gump), and TV shows (Tour of duty). The lessons are particularly poignant in view of the current American war.
several conflicting conclusions that I came to (through conversation and thought experiment):

1) America meddling in other peoples business only gets them into more trouble.
2) The American approach to war sometimes appears to be steeped in self interest, such as the desire to test out new technology, weaponry and chemicals in a "real" setting. Also, money. At the cost of millions of peoples lives these motives are questionable.
3) Even though south Vietnam and America lost the war it is impossible to tell what the outcome would have been without American involvement - wholesale slaughter of south vietnamese by the north? invasion of Cambodia/Thailand by advancing communist forces? If America didn't get involved in these kinds of situations, i.e. when one country is invading another, the world would probably be a very different place right now. For instance Israel would be long gone. But on the bright side nobody would be slaggin' the U.S.

Today we arrived in Hue (pronounced who-aye). This city looks really cool, and has me excited to explore!

11:21am: Vientiane
Yesterday we took a kayak trip to get from Vang Vieng to Vientiane. A minibus drove us one hour to the river. After half an hour kayaking we came to the first rapids. Rosalie was in the front of our two seater and just had to stabilize herself with the paddle while I guided us through the rapids. I don't know how happy I was to have this responsibility, but I took up the reigns with much pomp and vigor.. to no avail. About a second after hitting the rapids we were upside down with paddles, hats, boats, and flip flops floating in all directions. I didn't feel too bad cause' it turned out everyone who went down in a two seater capsized, while most of the smaller one seaters made it through.
After lunch we paddled for another hour before we came to a cliff jumping site. The jump was ~12 meters. I was the first to go and very nervous. I was proud of Rosalie for going too. Most people chickened out.
Now we're in Vientiane. We picked up our passports with Vietnamese visas, which were being prepared in advance. We'll be making our way over there in the next few days. Meanwhile Vientiane is another beautiful, clean and quaint Lao city. Strangely, even in the capital, the bars close between 11:00-12:00 and our guest house has a 12:00 pm curfew. Lao streets are very quiet at night. I guess they like their sleep.

10:30pm: Vang Vieng
Luang Prabang was beautiful. We rented a motorbike to go to a nearby waterfall that has several different levels that you can climb up to and swim in. The best part was the bike ride there, through several tribal villages. The previous day we walked through the town, saw many ancient Wats, and climbed mount Phou si (something that Stewart will probably never do) to watch the sun set. We were able to see pretty much the whole town on foot because it is rather small. Even though Luang Prabang is the second or third biggest city in Laos it is still pretty small. The population of Laos is just over 5 million and 80% of the country is mountainous.

Before coming here, I must admit, I was a bit scared of Laos. Partly due to my dad's warnings, partly because it is a poor communist country that I don't know very much about, and partly
because of a rather violent passage from the book "the Paradise Eater" that takes place here. My fears were unfounded. This country has so much to offer. The people are very kind and the scenery is beautiful. The country does have some bad history but things are getting better. There are some areas that are dangerous because of rebel forces or landmines or unexploded ordinance from the Vietnam war (which incidentally is called the American war over here), but we are staying away from those areas. During the Vietnam war America waged a covert war against Laos, dropping over 20 billion tons of bombs, making Laos the most bombed country in the world.

There's one area called the plain of jars, where the mountain tops are covered in massive jars of stone, which were made by an ancient civilization over 3000 years ago. Unfortunately we won't have time to go this time, but we will be seeing plenty of that sort of stuff at Angkor Wat.

We are now 6 hours south of Luang Prabang in Vang Vieng. The city is nestled between giant limestone cliffs, along side a beautiful stream. The setting kind of reminds me of the shire from Lord of the rings. Today we rented inner tubes and floated down the river drinking beers, with a group of Canadian and British kids that we met on the slow boat down the Mekong river. Great day!
Cheers,
N.

9:45pm: Plein de Patate
Just arrived in Luang Prabang after two days traveling south on the Mekong river. We saw some of the most beautiful scenery, landscapes and rock formations I have ever seen. More impressive than Scandinavian fjords hands down.
Laos is colder than Thailand, slower paced and poorer. The average annual income per capita is ~290 US dollars. I took out around 60 dollars from my visa card, at a restaurant, and ended up with 50000 Kip. The highest bill being 5000 Kip, this means I have a huge wad of cash in every pocket. We met some cool French guys on the slow boat who we've been hanging out with; Christoph, Fabien et Manu. The boat had an overwhelming presence of West coast Canadians and French. Luang Prabang is really cool so far but we'll need to catch some sleep tonight so that we can explore it thoroughly tomorrow. The market has good food and lots of unique arts and crafts for sale, cheap. There's lots of cool items I might buy except It would be rather difficult to lug them around Vietnam and Cambodia.

3:36pm: Arriving back in Bangkok, it was nice to be somewhere familiar, and warm. Rambutri village, where we stay in Bangkok, is dirty and touristy, but it has a charm all it's own and is certainly a unique experience. We met up with Matt, Becky and Dana (Rosalie's brother and friends from Toronto and english camp). The first thing we did was go for another massage at Wat Pho. We also went to see Muay Thai - kick boxing, an almost surreal experience. Even Rosalie liked it. We left before the heavyweights came on cause we were tired and wanted to beat the rush out and catch a cab. Each night there is more than 4 hours of fighting.
The next day Becky and Dana went to see the grand palace but succumbed to scamming tuc tuc drivers who tell you 'it's closed', and ended up getting driven all over the city to various Tailors and Thai silk shops. At this time Rosalie was at a clinic getting antibiotics as her cold seems to have developed into some kind of infection or sinusitis. I spent some much needed time alone playing guitar in a park near Rambutri village where lots of musicians and jugglers (etc.) hang out.
My guitar has been a real blessing on this trip. Everyone in Thailand loves the guitar, and so many of them play. When I walk down rambutri street dudes yell out "hey mista, you sell your guitar?". Last night I played at an open mic. Becky came up and sang a brittany Spears cover with me "hit me baby one more time". It was quite a hit.
We took the night train to Chiang Mai. We went back to our guest house - Nice Place II. It was good to see some friends that we made there last time. I stumbled upon a CD shop called 'Noah's ark' that has obscure (to me) reggae, african, jazz, cuban classics for cheap. We each bought 3-4 disks that we'll exchange in Toronto. I found a used book store and bought "the Journey to the east" by Hermann Hesse. Becky and Dana left for the three day jungle trek today. Rose and I are sitting by the pool, enjoying banana shakes and the laid back pace of life here, waiting for our Laos visa to come through.
Cheers,
Noah

p.s. I hope people got the pictures I sent yesterday.