Fuck You Sir Richard Branson - Hate Air Travel 1

I fucking hate travelling. Don't get me wrong, I like going new places and seeing new things, but I hate getting there. Especially by plane.  The ONLY exception to that is via motorcycle. I'll go where ever you want me to on a bike, and I'll probably take the long way. A car isn't bad with the right people and the right tunes, but I hate planes. I hate their schedules, their airport, their security with their little magnet wands keeping the skies safe from evil, their staff (sorry Euan, and the hundreds of airport staff who have been very professional friendly and accommodating over the last year, but I'm venting) and everything else about them. The blue stuff in the toilets...I hate that too.

One day while leaving Thailand I had to pay $130 for my second bag. Since when can't we bring two bags? Who only takes one bag anywhere? I was leaving for over a year, I didn't know where I'd end up, I needed 2 bags.!It wasn't even heavy!

The lady from Virgin said it didn't matter, it was $16/kilo. So I zipped open my bag and started shoving things in my pockets. I found my hoodie put that on and started shoving things in those pockets. I put my laptop charger in my hood.

"There!" I said triumphantly dropping it heartily back on the scale. Still over.
"Ill tell you what, lets do a little carbon off-set type thing here. I'll go take a big dump and come back, whatever weight I've lost you offset from the weight of this bag. She looked at me blandly and handed me a bill. That look translates in all languages. The guy behind me was laughing at all this. Mostly AT me.

So there you go Sir Richard Branson, you got more of my money. Hazzah!

"Dear Sir Richard Branson, suck a pack of dicks. And choke on my $130." I hope he googles his name. I'm sure he does, all megalomaniacs do. It's in the handbook they get. If he doesn't, some poor underpaid/no pay intern, not quite-yet-jaded-or-broken-WTF-am-Doing-With-My-Life yet, is doing it. I know he doesn't care what some random blogger in Calgary thingks of him, but still, it would warm me to know that somewhere in his castle he's reading the words "Suck A Pack Of Dicks Sir Richard Branson" Warm like porridge on a snowy school day.

Working on a Movie -Adaptable

You need to adapt. To all sorts of shit. Hours, conditions, equipment, people, schedule, surprises...the list goes on.

On this trip I started out working at an amazing 5 * hotel with one guy. He taught me a lot of stuff. Then two more people joined our small little suite. But the view was great. Elephants walking by the grounds each day, babbling river, fantastic staff catering to us. Life was good.

Then we moved. To an alright hotel. Alright if we hadn't been at an AMAZING hotel the day before. My room was full of mosquitoes. The water was brown for a few minutes when you first turned it on. The staff was slow. Our little edit suite was now half a hotel room that the editor was staying in. There were 4 of us there and it was hot as hell. The AC worked but it was LOUD.

Oh, yeah, and 'people'....that's an important one. People are quirky. And they have habits and ideas and ways of doing things. And idosycracies. We all have 'em. It takes about a week for them to start to appear. About another 3 days for them to become annoying I figure. Add that to a tiny hot room with four people working long hours in it...well, we're lucky to be alive I figure.

Now we're in Laos. We are within walking distance to everything and have much more access to the rest of the crew. We get to go out and do things at night, see the sites. Have fun. The motivation to work a 14 hour day is waning. But, some days you have to. You need to adapt.

I'm not too bad at adapting. Working conditions don't bother me much. Shit, SFS was either freezing or boiling at all times, sometimes both in the same day. I just pretty much need a chair and a computer and I'm good to go. I don't deal well with bullshit though. If you can't give me a solid reason for wanting me to do something, I'm going to question it, and get annoyed. Sometimes I need to relax that rule though.

Its now 3am. I just finished work. I started at 10. Just part of the deal. Have to roll with the punches.

Laos

We landed in Udon Thani in a plane with a duck bill painted nose. A quick drive brought us to the border. It took about an hour to get about 30 of us through. Travelling with a 70 year old Thai TV star makes life interesting. People stopped to ask her questions or get pics and she'd make them laugh with her antics.

Welcome to Laos, pop 6,200,894. The hammer and sickle flags are a dead give away that we'd entered a communist state. Be that as it may, capitalism is alive and well here. The myriad of electronics, tonics, and pirated harmonics (music dvds, its a stretch, I know, but if you can do better....) on display at the duty free is a testament to that.
   
~Things I've learned in Laos: If there is a light above your bed LEAVE IT OFF or a staggering number of minuscule flies will fly into the light and stay there until they are cooked to death, only to fall onto your pillow.


After a few purchases we loaded the vans for a 4 hour trip over the worst roads I've ever driven on...and I've driven to Indian Mountain and back. Its not like dirt roads, its worse. It's dirt roads that used to be paved, but years if not decades of indifference have left them a mangled track of jutting tarmac and stone peppered between ten meter stretches of solid pavement. Our driver treated it like the groomed concrete of a formula 1 track. Passing on blind corners, being forced onto jarring shoulders where holes and stone were the norm, and dodging oncoming traffic seemed very much the norm to him.



Arriving in Vang Vieng is like arriving in a past that's been victimized by the present. Thatched huts line the roads along the village. Legions of scooters scamper through the streets overtaken by rumbling trucks and vans laden with inner tubes and foreigners. Restaurants featuring raised seating platforms with stubby little tables face plasma screens blasting Friends, or The Family Guy. I would hazard that 90 percent of restaurants or bars are playing one of those two shows. Depending on the time of day, the corpses of stoned or hung over backpackers are strewn across the cushions and mats at each table.


~Things I've learned in Laos:  A bottle of Whiskey for 15,000 kip (+/- $1.80). If there's a snake in it, "Don't worry, it acts like viagra"-bartender, Smile Bar.


Colonised by the French, their Asian servants fought back and reclaimed Loas leaving behind a varied culinary culture. Coffee, baguettes and pasteries are served neatly beside Larp and Laos BBQ. The food is amazing and cheap. The latest incarnation of Laos cuisine includes pizzas, garlic bread, brownies and milkshakes prepared with weed, mushrooms or opium. It's been the hot topic of discussion over dinner lately.


Drugs are highly illegal, this being asia, and a communist country no less, however the trend is tolerated here. While walking with a long haired buddy in a hawiian shirt one evening, a guy on a moped stopped out of the blue before us, shut off his engine and asked if we wanted to get happy. I almost had my belt undone before he said, "No, do you want to buy drugs? Weed? Opium?" 
"ooooohhhh"


~Things I've learned in Laos: The more fun the shit on the menu is, the less fun the staff is.


Each year 9 Australians, usually young backpackers, die in Vang Vieng. Most drown while tubing down the river. The wide variety of bars along the river eager to toss you a line and refill your Whisky/Redbull bucket may or may not be a contributing factor. Other dangerous yet fun activities include Kayaking, Hot Air Ballooning, Boat Tours, Rock Climbing, Spelunking in any of the various caves in the area, and Rock Climbing.


The other major pass time is drinking. BeerLao, the local brew is exceptionally good. Buckets of booze and redbull are dirt cheap and often come with free TShirts. Thatched roof huts serve as bars with hammocks, beer pong, pool and makeshift dance floors. Fire dancers light up the night. Most are staffed with expats who've elected to extend their vacation in exchange for lo/no pay and a free room. 


~Things I've learned in Laos: The party doesn't start till after midnight.

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?

Even a journey of 17000 mile starts with one early morning plane ride.

I'm on the plane. At one time I didn't think it would ever get here...but the last few weeks flew by. I got alot of things done, forgot alot of things and said alot of goodbyes in the past few days. Saying goodbye to our ancient English Setter, Maggie, was one of the hardest, due to its permanence.

But I'm in the air, off to Vegas where I connect to LA, then to Bangkok. Right now we are passing by Missoula. The little map on the back of the chair belonging to the little tiny woman ahead of me who felt it necessary to squeeze her 5'1" frame into the exit row, cause, God knows she needs the leg room, says so.

If you've never stayed at a dilapitated Best Western in Missoula, you have not lived my friends. They say the journey is the destination, but the Best Western in Missoula is like a journey itself! Missoula is a shithole. But with the right company getting there can be a great ride!

There was a Molson Canadian ad on once where this guy is sitting on a plane and this gorgeous blonde girl (maybe Tricia Helfer?) in a Cowboy hat takes the seat next to him. Living in Calgary I always thought that might be possible. Today I am sitting beside two little old ladies. One is telling the other that she's not part of the social network, but she does have facebook but doesn't respond to anything because you don't know who's out there. That makes her a creeper in my book. She's also explaining 'The Twitter' I'm going to blow their minds and tell them the story of Tron, as if it was a true story. "One minute you're updating your status on the tweetey, the next you're fighting for your life with phospherescent frizbees! Stay away from the twitter ladies, there are no Rascals in cyberspace!!"

Next Stop....VEGAS BABY