Great Risk like strategy game... atWar

Mayday Mayday

At the end of my street today there is a nice little festival celebrating May day. It starts as the usual festival with all kinds of music and food... then at around 11pm when a few thousand police have arrived it turns into a little riot. You might see it on the news tomorrow.

FARhRAD

I have a new bike, her name is Bluey Mark II (although Hot Rodniette was a close second). She has three gears: fast, super fast and blurrrr. Comments on her so far have ranged from 'I am so f#%king jealous'... thanks Meagan... to 'It's very red'.

I've also moved into my new appartment, I'm sharing with one other guy. It over looks Görlitzer Park which is filled with people and their bbq's on sunny days. summer here I come!

Hampi to Kochin

Finally leaving Hampi didnt occur without event, with a good 30 hour trip ahead of me how could it not. Thirty minutes into our 13 hour bus journey a rock smashed the windscreen shattering glass all over the cabin. So what to do now...? Wait for a replacement bus? Get it fixed? Great that is going to add hours onto the already painful trip.

Enter Indian style. The driver drove the rest of the overnight bus without a windscreen. By morning he had the funkiest hairdo this side of Trump Towers... got to love India sometimes

Goa, Goa... gone

After 2 weeks of breakfast, beach, lunch, beach, dinner, drinking (sometimes not always in that order) I have finally left Anjuna, Goa. Now im in Hampi with its beautiful bouldered landscapes mixed with temples and palaces of its past glory.

Ive still been on the lazy side of travelling so hopefully in the next few days i'll be more active. Although not possible in hampi... ultimate chill zone

Nepal, sickness and fully sick views

After 4 days being ill with some type of food related complaint and the need to journey on a bus for 7 hours from Kathmandu to Pokhara the seeds were sown to what has become one of the finest bets in history.

The task:
Completing the above mentioned bus journey, 7 hours, without leaving the bus while being into the 5th day of food poisoning.

The bet:
My face being tattooed on Macca's chest.

The result:
The most uncomfortable bus journey I have yet endured, but one successful trip fueled by pure determination.

Mumbai

Landing in Mumbai wasn't as confronting as I'd hyped myself up to think it was. Although having no money and no ATM was interesting for the touts trying to rip me off.
After a couple of days I thought I'd finally mastered the infamous Mumbai rail system when I ran for my departing train and jumped on as it was moving at a decent pace. After catching it - and my breath - my personal delight was instantly turned to public shame as I had managed to jump onto the 'women only' carriage. Uncomfortable smiles all round.

Im back...

Wow its been a while... and it would've been longer too if my family hadn't have bribed me. Thank you very much as I am now the proud owner of a Canon 450D (the one the was stolen was a 400D, so i guess you could say about 12% better) although i feel a little old, already being considered 30.

But I need to remeber how to work this thing so it might take some time before you'll see uploaded pictures.

Waiting for Godot

Many things in Laos and Thailand are miss translated, for instance on a menu I saw 'Grilled Crap'. Needless to say I ordered the noodle soup and remained none the wiser but perhaps healthier. Leaving Luang Prabang is hard to do because it is beautiful and chilled out. But to catch a boat up the Mekong 2 options are available, the speed boat and the slow boat.

This is where they really got the translation of slow boat spot on. From Luang Prabang to Pak Beng (about 150km) it takes 10.5 hours. Then the next day from Pak Beng to the border it is another 10 hours. Then from the border to Chiang Mai another 5 hours, but this time by bus.

It seems that I am in a state of waiting, waiting for dinner or waiting to go home, waiting to buy a camera didn't come as a surprise. My camera broke in Luang Prabang so I decided to buy a new one. The short story is it took 5 hours to buy the camera, Canon 400D digital SLR, because of a mistake buy the salesman. He processed the transaction, then realised he over charged me by 800 baht. So he reversed it, then realised he actually had the right price in the first place, then tried the transaction again. My bank was rather suspicious at this stage and froze my card. It took 5 hours, 7 cups of tea, many repeated conversations because of the language barrier and 2 invitations to dinner (Katrin they were both male) before I had my new toy. And I can tell you it was well worth the wait.