Welcome to Laos - The Thing about Crickets is...

The coolest part about travelling is meeting new people. Spending the past 2 weeks in Laos I've made friends with a couple from Vang Tien. This evening after work they took us for some real Laos food just outside the main area of Vang Vieng.

The restaurant "Full Moon 2" (there are many bars restaurants and shops with 'moon' in the name here)  was brightly lit with thousands of Christmas lights. The kind of lights that are wrapped in a plastic tube so they look like rope. As we walked up several people sitting in the dining area looked up at us, then started to scramble. I realised we were the only customers, the other 15 people or so were staff.

Caught a cricket in chop sticks.
Take that Daniel-san!!

About 4 of them hung around as we attempted to order. Unfortunately for me and one other in our party, the menu was in Laos. My friend Vet began ordering in Laos for us. When she was done, the other westerner in our group asked us what she'd ordered.

"Chicken tendons, duck necks, prawns, soup, and deep fried crickets" At first I thought she was kidding, then she said "Oh and some french fries"

The chicken tendons came first, deep fried and served with a sweet sauce. Other than the unusual chewy, stringy texture, they were surprisingly good. Next the bad news came. No duck necks. Vet rambled something in Laos and the waitress (or waiter, I really couldn't tell) tottled off to the kitchen. Sweet N' Sour pork. Awsome!

Next came the prawns and the crickets. I don't like sea food so I opted for the crickets. To be fair Ana went first. She closed her eyes, pushed her shoulders up and made the strangest face as she chewed frantically. She said it tasted like prawns.

Great.

It took me 10 minutes of eating french fries and changing the subject to work up the courage. When I was finally ready to eat the damn thing my phone rang. Saved by the bell.  After dispatching my call I was immediately called out for taking so long. (Actually Ana called me a pussy)  My friend Peter was ready with his camera (His name is actually Peter Pan, I didn't believe him at first) I took a deep breath...tightened my grip on my chop sticks and popped Jimeney down the hatch. Crickets are not nearly as crunch as I thought they'd be, and that was somehow comforting. The poor little guy broke apart in my mouth. Mostly flavourless and about the same texture as the skin on a peanut, it really wasn't so bad.

I washed my latest snack down with some beer Laos and had another french fry.  The rest of the meal was fantastic and I have to say, I really like Laos cuisine.

Sauce

I headed out to get a bite to eat the other night during a marathon editing/searching for music for the movie we're working on.  A friend suggested this chicken place around the corner. Ok fine, yeah chicken, deep fried chicken, sounds great. SO I go in and order a 2 peice meal with chips (what they call fries down here). Anyway, its a pretty good deal. Until. I go to walk out. I turn and look at the gentleman behind the counter. "Oh, hey, can I get some ketchup with that?"
Dude looks at me, and, I'm not kidding, looks at me and says "Sauce is 30 cents."
Are you freaking kidding me?! Thirty cents for some ketchup. After I spent 7 bucks for 2 little tiny peices of fried chicken and some potatoes, that have clearly been french fried, masquerading as chips?
I looked at this fine entrepreneur and said "Really?"
He just looked back at me and blinked. I turned and walked out, never to darken their doorstep again.

KFC pulled the same stunt about 2 months ago. I haven't been back there either.

A couple of days ago I stopped at the hotbread place up the road from school. I asked for a schnitzel. I get a schnitzel there once a week or so. She starts to make it and I say, "yeah, can you put BBQ sauce on that?" She looks at me, and with no amount of shame whatsoever says "Sauce is fifty cents."
I just looked at her. "You're kidding"
She just looked at me.  "Yeah ok, fine, here's another 50 cents." Normally I'd revolt boycott the sauce at this point on principle, but really, a schnitzel without sauce is just too dray and bland to be choked down.
But, there are several hotbread places in the area, I am now boycotting "Terry's Hotbread." Bite me Terry!

Anyway, my point on this whole sauce thing is that, I think if someone is spending good money at your shitty little hole in the wall eating establishment, you should give them some free ketchup for their fries. I mean really? Whats next? 10 cents for each side of the bun? 15 cents for napkins? Where does it end?

Australia

Everything here is a lot like home but just a little different. Here's an example; they drive on the wrong side of the road here.

In 1971 Burger King tried to move in here, but couldn't because the name was already taken. Well kids, you just can't keep a good franchise down. They made a deal with this guy jack Cowan to run all the franchises here and gave him a list if names he could use. Hungry Jack was a name Pilsbury, who owned BK at the time, already owned so jack picked that but changed it to Hungry Jack's. Vain I'd say.

Anyway, it's just not the same. They don't use strips of bacon, they use these slices of back bacon that are more like ham. They don't have a creepy king in their ads either. They do have a whopper, and a whopper jr though.

In Australia they have drunk driving laws like we do. The limit is lower, .05 instead if .08. Oh, and they call it drink driving. No idea what that means. Drunk driving means your driving drunk. Drink driving means that you sound silly when you're saying it.

Oh, and the standard beer size here seems to be the schooner. However, for my Calgary friends, it's not a big ass beer. It's more like 3/4 of a pint. But more expensive.

Australia is full of bugs, and some are quite venomous. They don't put screens on their windows in a lot of places. I don't have any. I get bitten in the night.

You can drink beer on the streets here. You can sit on a park bench on a busy street in front of a gay boutique and drink a box if wine (that may have come in contact with nuts, eggs and/or fish products) and scream at people as they walk by without much resistance. There are alcohol free zones here though. During a big street party I wandered through one of said zones unaware, passing a phalanx of cops, and not one said a word. In Moncton the local Mountie would have thrown his mountain bike on the ground, seized the contraband, poured it's contents onto the road and given the author a stern lecture.

Australia is not a very religious country. In fact, one in 5 say their not religious at all. If they were all illiterate the missionaries would be quite busy. Unfortunately they are all quite educated and have rejected the idea of religion instead of being ignorant of it. The Vatican will have to settle for keeping the sex lives of poorer populations in check for a while longer.

Public displays of affection are common here. It's not odd to see a couple in the grocery store kissing. Oh Margret, this summer sausage is turning me on...Me too Gary!
The other night while having a drink on a patio overlooking the opera house a couple close to us was having a full on makeout session. I think he got to second. (that means he got boob) No one paid them much attention.

Flip flops are called thongs here. That would make the Thong Song a lot less risqué.

The bouncers here are friendly, professional and trained. Dear Canada, the rest if the world doesn't let steroid raging cretins with authority issues loose on it's drunks. Take notes.

There seems to be no end to Turkish take out restaurants here.

Many bars here are called hotels. I dont know why.

There are some similarities however. It appears that the phone companies here are run by assholes, just like home. Speaking of which, Bell can go fuck themselves. I sincerely hope their board of directors get some sort of painful disease that slowly causes them to go deaf and disfigured them in some horrible way. I'm thinking elephant man here, or that movie Mask that Cher was in, or like Gary Busey or something. Something awful. I would really like to kick their CEO in the balls. I'm not talking a little ankle flick here either, I'm talking coming off the ground a foot or two, Rochambough kick. The kind that hurts so much he throws up. I think there is probably a special place in hell for phone company execs. If Robert Picton was picking up phone company execs instead of hookers, a jury would have let him go. Probation at best.

Other than that Australians seem to be a fun group of folks who take things in stride and seem to have fun. I think I'm going to like it here!

The Temples

At 5:30 my driver picked me up and took me to the national park. I bought a 1 day pass and had my pic taken. They gave me a pass with my photo on it I handed to staff at most temples.

Angkor Wat at sunrise. Pretty cool, but instead of sitting with the unwashed masses waiting to get a perfect picture if the sun coming up over the temple, I went around the backside and took pics of the walls getting hit by the first rays of sun. It was a full half hour before the sun was visible on the other side. I snapped on my iPod and had The Doors cracking away as I explored the ancient halls.

For the next 8 hours I climbed stone stairs that were almost vertical, snapped pictures of statues, carvings, releifs, pillars and stone. I mingled amongst crowds from around the world.

Women and children lie in wait as you approach each structure. Desperately they try to hawk their shirts, table runners, scarves, books and cold drinks.

They'll offer one thing, and switch to another. They will then just repeat the price over and over. You'll often be swarmed by three or four at a time. saying no means nothing. You just get the price again. They will walk with you the entire stretch between the parking lot and the entrance of whatever temple you're ar. Prices get cheaper as you get farther into the park I found out. I got a couple of t shirts and a book about the temples.

I visited about 9 temples built by kings, devoted to religious sects moslrlltly forgotten. The sheer feats of engineering to construct these offerings of stone in a time before cranes, winches or the block and tackle is impressive. The level of detail and complexity in the reliefs is inspiring. Tales of wars and triumphs, visions of dancers, elephants, horses and demons, and giant serene faces gazing endlessly at the four corners beyond the horizon adorn almost every free space.

The temples are amazing but after 8 and a half hours in the blazing sun I was done.  Back to the guest house for a nap.

Strange tales of Thai.

Thai people can't add
Yeah, that's a gross generalization, but this is my story - go write your own if you don't want to read sweeping generalizations about an entire country. You hit a shop here and the sales folks all have calculators. Big ones. You ask a price for something and they type it out on the countin' box then immediately hNd it to you for your counter offer. I thought it was just for communicating. Three days ago I bought a boat ticket for 600b. I gave dude 1000. He had to use the calculator for the change. Then I started watching. It happens all the time. Quick, three nights in a room at 400/night... How much do I owe? Thai hotel clerks need to use a calculator to figure it out.

White guys on mopeds
There's a strange cultural phenomenon here. I remember a video years back by good Charlotte or Blink 182 maybe. One of those bands with so much black eye makeup, hair dye and tattoos that they look like walking shadows dressed up like white folks for Halloween. The video had a bunch of geriatric actors dressed and behaving like teenaged idiots. Just being young and stupid. They could have filmed that in Krabi Thailand

Scores of enthusiastic silverbacks can be seen screaming through the streets at night on scooters. Long grey hair, white goatees, beer guts hanging out over their ancient crotches and resting on the vinyl seat of a 125cc speed machine. Often a significantly younger Thai girl is riding pinion , or sometimes driving if grandpa has had one too many vodka/prune juices.

You'll see them trolling along, stopping in front of the 7-11 to chat with the young Thai girls taking a break from riding thier scooters to get a coke and a new sim card. The Thai girls, some of them I mean, I know how you feel about generalizations, are completely game. They'll see some newly invigorated Ben Gay receptacle and wave saying "hello my boyfriend!". Hey quickly stops reminiscing about his Plymouth Rock landing and say "hey where you going!?" all excited and titillated. Then they become a very unlikely scooter gang, roaring off into the night to the next cocktail bar/bamboo hut.

It's like a playground for old divorcees who've found a new lease on life.
Viagra is a terrible thing...

Cultural differences
A good friend lived in japan for a spell and told me the girls there had an annoying habit of talking with hi pitched childlike voices. This has been confirmed by some other former inhabitants if the land if the rising sun I know.

The other night I was walking by some seafood place and a lady out front is saying Hi to everyone walking by. Common practice here, and tough work, the boardwalks are slammed with tourist bastards in the evenings.

So this lady is saying hi, over and over, you can hear her 3 doors down. I want to buy her a pack of "Fishermans Friends" and give her a hug. Then all of a sudden, she practically screams, in a voice a full 2 octaves higher and several decibels louder "halloooooo! Welcooooome!". I actually jumped it had startled me so.

I didn't think about it again. Well, I've walked by this place a few times since, it's on the was to the beach and near the diveshop I've been hanging out at. It's happened 3 or 4 more times. Then I noticed, she only does it when there are Japanese people walking by. I stood and watched for a few minutes last night to confirm my suspicions, it she did it again about a 2 minutes into my investigation when a Japanese couple walked by. I recognized them by their hello kitty backpacks and the professional grade cameras where their faces should have been.

Food
Some of the best food comes from carts on the street. Theres a ton of competition and there's no small amount of pride in the traditional dishes they tend to serve at a third of the price of a restaurant.

Thais generally do a pisspoor job of western food in general. Breakfast is weak at best, burgers are not made of beef. They do however do a good job on pizza. They tend to favour thin crust pizza cooked in a wood oven. I've had 3. All fantastic.

McDonalds, BK Pizza Hut, and others are slowly making their mark here. It's a shame that a place with such a rich culinary history is being diluted so a few assholes can make a few more bucks selling mystery meat disguised as cheeseburgers to a ballooning society. I hope Ronald McDonald and that creepy ass king from the BK commercials have massive heartattacks resulting in quadruple by passes, then spend their days in a home for the infirm, being visited less and less often over the years by Mayor McCheese, the Hamburgler and Grimace, all of whom are anxiously awaiting their deaths and a healthy inheritance. The petty infighting would have begun on day one.

Thats all I got for now.

Just about a perfect day

I found Nemo - Saying goodnight
Feb 7 2011
Up at 630, picked up a friend at 7 and hit the dive shop at 715  20 mins later a bus picked us up and drove us to a longtail boat. We transferred to the dive boat from there. Once there the divemaster discovered that I didn't have my open water cert. Well. Lots of chattering on German... Phone calls to the main land, heated debate about my fate. They finally decided that I would do a "discover scuba" dive, then the money I spent would get put toward my open water. Sweet

For breakfast we had sticky rice and mango, fried dough with condensed milk, bananas, and sticky rice with spicy coconut. Amazingly good.

Filled out some forms, wrote a test on material I last read almost a year ago (92% thank you). Finally I got in on the 2nd dive. Anemone reef.

My first open dive was unreal. We did some skills then descended. The coral was amazing. Fish of every colour flippered along alone or in schools of hundreds. My instructor kept tabs on me and I stuck close.  The whole thing was exhilarating.

Back on the boat we had lunch , rice with green curry, and some sort of veggie stir fry. It was all great!  We paddled to the next spot about an hour away and suited up at shark point.

The wild life underwater is amazing, giant schools of tiny fish, reefs that tower above you, stripped eels, neon finned little fish. I saw a leopard shark, they are a neat little shark.  Sharks have to keep water flowing into their mouths and out their gills to breathe. Therefore they most continually move.   This brilliant little fella sleeps all the time. He dies so by lying on the sea bed with his head in current, so water just flows through him while he dozes  Its the equivilant of sleeping at you desk while wearing glasses with eyeballs painted on the lenses.   We also saw a barracuda, great big black shrimp, clown fish (nemo), and on and on. I was limited to 12 m because of my cert issue, but still there was lots to see.

We steamed back to shore, about an hour and a half run, some folks got picked up about halfway on a longtail and went to a different beach.

We unloaded and figured out how I was going to finish the course. After much Deutch squabbling we got it settled and I left.

My new traveling companion, Bianca, had left before me to get cleaned up for dinner. I picked her up on the way and we went to my hostel so she could use the net. Hers didn't have it. I went up and showered off the salt and got changed.

We got dinner at the beach as the waves lapped the sand just yards away. Dinner was amazing. Thai barbecue, corn on the cob, baked potatoes. We ate and chatted about nothing in particular. She told me in broken English about some of the places shes dived around the world. I told her about hockey.

Later we wandered up the beach where she bought a lantern. She lit it and we waited for it to fill with heat to ascend. Finally it lifted gracefully from her fingertips and slowly floated to the stars.  We watched it sail away into the night for a long time until it gently flickered out and disappeared.

We ended the night with a drink and watched a fire show on the street outside "the Coconut Bar"

We left, and walked up the strip to her bungalo and said goodbye. She's now off to koh samoi, I've another 2 days in Krabi. Traveling is funny. The only constant is you. New hostels, new scenery, new friends; but as soon as you get to know a place, a person, or a custom, it's time to move on. The shotgun approach to life I suppose.

Koh phi phi for 3 dives tomorrow.  Can't wait

Krabi - open flies and ass massages

Thai people have this annoying habit of extending the last syllable of every word fir about three beats. There's a little upwards inflection at the end... You want Thai massaaa-aaage? Next stop station Surat Thanieeeee-eee. You want order some pad thaaaa-aaaai?

First thing in the morning when you're tring to sleep and the porter is announcing every stop on the way to your destination it's really aggrivating. And he repeated each station over and over as he passes through the sleeping car.

On the way to the beach...
Sir you want to buy a suuu-uuit? Tailor just for yoooo-oooou. No I don't want a suit, I'm wearing flowered shorts and a wifebeater carrying a towel and sun screen. Unless there's a board meeting at the beach and Donald trump is gonna fire someone, I'm not in need of a tailored suit, two shirts and two ties at the moment. But thanks dude, good eye! Of course I'll probably need a suit at some point when I'm in Aus and will kick myself for not investing the $100.

I'm pretty good natured but after a while you get tire of politely smiling and saying Mâi ao khàp khun(no thank you). Yesterday on the way to meet a friend I had been pitched about 50 items before I got half way to where I needed to be. At one point some guy looks at me "sir..." I cut him of and sigh "Mâi ao khàp khun..." with no small hint of aggitation. "but sir, your zipper is down". I turned, looked down, saw the errant fly and just looked at the guy embarrased. He was just trying to do me a favor and I was growly. I laughed and gave him heart felt thanks in Thai and zipped up. He realized I was apologetic and just laughed. They really are easy going and nice here most of the time.

Tonight I booked a scuba trip, booked a hotel for tomorrow, bought a dry bag and got a coconut oil Thai massage. I smell like a piña collata. Little did I know that the coconut oil doubles the price of the massage. However, I felt so good afterwards I gladly ponied up the $12. Shoulda asked for a receipt :).

The massage was great, in an open air gazebo on a lane following the beach. I could hear the waves and, at a nearby resort, a guitar player was crooning soft rock ; tears in heaven, hotel California, bob marley tunes, brown eyed girl... All the stuff I used to play down at the beach when we had bonfires.

The funny thing about the massage was, she had me strip down right there in the salon, which is open to the road. So I get down to my skivvies. Luckily they werent a ratty old pair. Then she has me lay on my belly, throws a towel over my posterior, and prceeds to tuck it into my underwear. Now half my ass is hanging out for the whole beach to see. Not only that, she spent a great deal of time working on my glutes. With her elbows. Apparently massages get pretty personal. More than once she had her hands in my CKs and I wondered if MY coconuts were going to get oiled.

At one point she was actually walsing up the backs of my legs. It felt fantastic.When all was said and done I got up feeling groggy and happy. I actually walked away without Laing then I went back and apologized and paid with a tip.

Then I joined a new friend of mine from Austria and I got a bite at a resort where they had a fire show. Spinning flaming batons etc and a fire breather. Very cool. The food was divine. I'd gotten the buffet so I snuck out two pieces of chocolate cake from the dessert cart and we ate them on the beach whilst paper lanterns were set afloat at points all along the beach. Now I'm at the hostel and ready to fall asleep. Time to set the alarm and try to get 6 hours sleep before my big scuba day. Back home everyone's Monday is just beginning. Have a great day everyone, we'll see you in the morning...

I'm on a Bus watching Cambodian movies

I'm on a bus to Phnom Penh. They've got some Cambodian flick porting where the star is some kid about 10 in a kanga hat wearing little John Lennon styled glasses. He apparently has the super power of never shutting the fuck up in a high pitched staccato voice and not being smacked upside the head. Cinema in SE Asia is incredibly campy. He's made friends with a young monk/ninja girl who breakdances. Where the hell are my headphones at?

On the last bus they showed The Green Hornet. I'm not even sure that's hit theatres yet. It must have, but still... DVD quality, perfect sound, not some cheap "sitting in the back of the theater with a handy cam" job. I didn't watch it, but now I see that I should take advantage of such opportunities.

In Cambodia

In Cambodia, a pitcher of beer is $2 if you know where to go

In Cambodia, 11$ will get you a sufficient room... It's dingy but clean, free wifi, and a bottle of water.

In Cambodia they have a dish called Amok that is an amazing curry with a lemony undertone

In Cambodia, just because you think you're going to fart doesn't meant that's what's about to happen (maybe that's where the term running amok came from, think about it)

In Cambodia they have cops just for dealing with pan handlers

In Cambodia toilet paper is pink and they give you a roll when you check in

In Cambodia, cars, scooters and Tuk Tuks drive so close together that they sometimes touch

In Cambodia the local beer is Angkor and it's very good

In Cambodia they sometimes serve beer with ice

In Cambodia you can hire a guy to drive you around for 5 hours for 20 bucks

In Cambodia they use American money

In Cambodia the panhandlers are trying to sell me weed

In Cambodia the Tuk Tuks are fancy wagons like carriages pulled by 100cc scooters

In Cambodia along the river in Phnom Penh Angkor Beer is 1.50$ for a pint

In Cambodia people come up to you during dinner and try to sell you bootlegged DVDs and books 

In Cambodia they don't have the book I'm looking for

In Cambodia the threat of malaria is real and you have to put on alot of bug spray

In Thailand applying bugspray while visiting a butterfly farm is considered offensive 

In Cambodia if you need electricity, you climb a pole and get it

In Cambodia it's almost bedtime because like is visiting a museum that illustrates the atrocities of civil war at 8 am

In Canada Luke rarely gets up before 9