Where is the roman lettering!??!
Monday, 17 January 2005
Well, we got out of Laos in the end after a couple of excellent Third World Bus Journeys(TM) where all of the crazy looking, betel nut chewing, blood red mouthed (from chewing betel nuts all day) old women stared at us, taunted us and were generally a bit threatening. It seems that in Laos it's the old ladies that are the thugs of the nation, going around being noisy, doing drugs and generally being harsh while the young blokes are just chilled, friendly and drug free, simply wondering around sporting the finest in Crackpot Military Leader fashion which, I can tell you now, is THE way to go in fashion.
Brill Creem hair style and/or military baseball cap, Camo Jacket, Jeans or weird tracksuit bottoms and, of course, sandals. That's some bad shit! (in a Michael Jackson way) You shall see a different Dan on my return. We did see a different side to this fashion when we visited the cambodian dolphin watching island where, while laotians look like crackpot military leaders, the cambodians ARE crackpot military leaders. As Catherine said in the last entry, on this island (which was nothing more than a sand bar) the soft drink selling bloke had a fully loaded AK47 just proped up behind the soft drinks....I mean, what possible trouble could he get into on a sandbar full of tourist watching dolphins that an AK47 would get him out of?
Im looking forward to seeing Cambodia!
So that was Laos. It is a really great place and I'd recommend visiting to everyone. I think it's definately been the best 2 or 3 weeks of our SE Asia mission so far. Luang Prabang, Vientiane and Si Phan Don really are quite amazing and the place as a whole is the most relax placed known to man (that man being me). Really great people, very cool scenery and well, theres hardly anyone here so theres tons of space to relax in. Also you don't get any hassle at all and the transport is alot less drastic than the guidebooks would have you believe - we only saw one corpse on the road the whole time. Plus, the smoking children should be one of the wonders of the world. Darkly hilarious and extremely odd.
One thing I didn't enjoy about Laos was the Cowbell-core music that pounds out of the numerous immense sound systems that scatter the place. This is possibly the harshest form of music ever to grace my lobes. I will try to describe...
It's basis is thai pop music (I think) which is essentially very wet sounding pop music with thai lyrics and really low quality production. To make cowbell-core you get this and then speed it up. Then you add the donks...
After the reletively sedate intro there's a kind of cowbell drop. Similar to the bass drop in Drum n Bass but with really really loud cowbells. DONK! DONK! DONK! not an interesting rhythmn or anything just straight on the beat just to give it that SLAMMIN sound. You can just imagine them in the studio.
"Seems like we got a nice lively pop song here but it's missing something.."
"Bring in the donks, man. That's what this track needs some hardcore phat cowbell donk donk shit...yeah!"
Hmm yes, well, I digress. So yeah, we wondered over the border back to thailand at Chong Mek and then, using the cunning and efficient super transport of Thailand, got to Ubon Ratchirhactachithracahch...blahblahdunno place at which point we discovered that commincation was somewhat more difficult than in the previous parts of thailand we have visited and worse still, there is fuck all roman lettering anywhere at all which is confusing. Theres no guesthouses here at all either so its business hotel things all the way. Argh...the hardship we endure just to visit the incredible dancing flower of Udon Thani.
Yes, in Udon Thani, some bloke has bred a flower that dances in response to singing. A real flower. Freaky-ass shit. So we are going to visit it and I am going to done some big white false teeth and sing Jive Talkin to it while Catherine videos me. This is our mission - we have chose to accept it. Although bugger knows where we are going to get false Beegees teeth from....does anyone know the thai script for that?
So that's us...bit bored in a town where we don't understand anything. Good to hear that Nan and Steve are getting better and that everythings going good back in the UK. Tim has just delighted me with some astounding news. He's rediscovered Strongbow. Good lad!
On January 18, 2005, Helen said:
I have been a bit slack at keeping abreast of your worldly exploits. However I am now back with it. Unfortunately, Dan, you cannot hope to live up to Tim's amazing gurning talents! Though if he displays his talents at our wedding I might cry.
On January 19, 2005, sharon and stevie said:
Hi well we have been reading with much interest your mad adventures and inspired by your stories have taken up the travel bug- after much consideration we have decided to drive to wales this weekend....i know i know small step for man - large leap for mankind and all that but its all very well and good going away to the other side of the earth and being faced with betnel nut eating women may be scary but you try tackling the welsh borders in a caravan in the middle of Jan. We'll report in again on our return..
On January 21, 2005, Dan said:
I actually thought my gurn beat Tim's hads down although I know he is capable of destroying me at gurning....(Im thinking of a new years eve a couple of years ago....)
S and S - Hello, good to here from you cos now I have an email address for you. Good styles. I agree, Wales is pretty hostile this time of year...good luck! Also, prepare to recieve your own personal email as I am not Kate Sant. Any opportunity to have a dig....