(SIPPED SOME CHANG IN CHIANG MAI / THE LIGHT OF DHARMA / LAO LAO, BABY! / DAMN SAM, I’M STUCK IN NAM! / THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE CAMBODIAN BEACH BUNNY)Rewind. . Rewind. .
Let’s pick up back where we left off: in Bangkok. Had a wonderful time together with Joseph/Jose and Stephen (doctor to be, Irish, Mr Confident ;=) who i met in Wat Mahathat, where they were doing a one week Vipassana retreat. Brilliant spending time together with Joseph, who was ordained as a monk in different wats (monasteries/temple complexes) in Thailand over the last three years and - according to him - only for my doing got outta Wat Mahathat for a couple of days, before boarding a plane to Sri Lanka to pursue his life's quest: following in the footsteps of Buddha. (Read: my powers of persuasion not amounting to more than leaving it entirely up to him if he wanted to come along or not, except i might have been the only one staying outside the wat and having a good time at that. Obviously.) Hope you're doing alright, palls!
Twice changed the date on my bus ticket to Chiang Mai cuz kept meeting and going out with people, Bangkok residents as well as fellow travelers - going out for two weeks straight, what a relief after India's poor bar scene and very limited night life! On the bus to Chiang Mai met Kwannie, graphic designer from Rotterdam with Hong Kong roots.
Arriving at 6 am after a sleepless night we eventually found a place to crash and after a welcome nap had a look around town (the old part of Chiang Mai is literally littered with wats).
Then headed back to the bar and club scene near Moon Muang, where we were staying, dominated by working girls and western sleaze balls. Hanging out with Kwannie, who all the bar girls thought to be a Thai girl as well, watching the girls ply their trade and getting grossed out by disgusting (white) men.. Fascinating stuff!
Woopy! Blogger just ate the rest of my post.
Grrrrrrrrrr...
Guess we'll have to do it all over again..
So, anyway.
After a couple of days Kwannie went off on a three day trek and i just hung around, got dragged off the street mid-afternoon to join an extended family and friends for a couple of drinks and some deep fried onion and ginger to go with it, the exact occasion for the celebration still eludes me..
..did the flimsiest bit of writing. (All that forcible drinking, remember?)
We met back up for another couple of days.
The very same night we met up again, we headed down to a more remote, louder and trashier alley, with bars opening up to one another like a covered market. I let Kwannie have her pick amongst the sleaze bars. Lo and behold! Before i even had the time size up the joint, we'd ended up in the one and only full blown lady boy bar. Talking about tapping straight into the nerve center!
We had to buy him/her ;=) a couple of drinks, obviously, but the endearing Coco was a pretty straight talker and pulled no punches broaching the subject of a what being a lady boy entailed.
Highly recommended, if you can deal with warding off x amount of advances, that is.. :)
When we parted Kwannie headed down South and i took my leave to do a bit of Vipassana at Wat Umong, which proved to be a bit of a drag.
Then again, a very instructive experience altogether. Never thought Buddhist monks could be so confrontational and in your face..
The time i didn't spend meditating i read up on Dharma....
..aka Buddha's teachings, aka higher insight, the facts about life..
..the lowdown, the shit..
..the one and only truth pointing towards the path to put an end to all suffering and through which one might eventually attain Nirvana..
- not high on my to do list, but deeply involving and more than just a bit enlightening all the same.. :)
Moved on to Wat Doi Suthep.
Supejb experience, rocked my world!
Very positive, supportive crew of monks - helping out loads.
Had my first experience of non-selfhood*..
*(Bit technical, prefer not to go into it here and now, remind me to explain it to you later on if you so please.. :)
..which sorta fried my circuits..
.. gave me a major/minor identity crisis for the remaining day..
..and made my meditation master monk
(too many alliterations i do agree)
..rejoice over my quick progress.
Then again, trying my hardest to explain what had actually occurred red my mum and sis a couple of days afterwards, my sis coolly pointed out to me that this sort experience is nothing out of the ordinary when doing meditation.
What relief!
There i was getting all worked up over nothing.. ;=)
Sadly had to leave Doi Suthep as my visa was running out..
..would've loved to stay on a whole lot longer. Definitely planning to pass by another time before heading home.
From Chiang Mai (along with a bunch of guys from Brazil, Italy, Japan.. who met in Australia and who i ran into at the local bus station all buses for the day being sold out) had to get a minibus to Chiang Kong, where i managed to accidentally get a free night's lodging. (Only found out at the border crossing the next day.) But the Gods weren't backing me all of the way. The next morning i got fined 500 Bat for overextending my visa by a day!
Crossed the Mekong to Laos, used up my last dollars for my visa and got ready to board a two day slow boat down to Luang Prabang. Funny lil' scene in Huay Xai : apparently i was the only tourist in ages to check out the street food (tasty rice paste with peanuts or fresh fig wrapped in salad or herb leaf) seen as how the locals couldn't stop chuckling over my rather poor attempts at dialoguing in Lao, phrasebook in hand..
Despite being on an absolutely overcrowded (80+ peeps) i was absolutely blown away by the unfolding vistas, the village life along the river banks and hillsides, the cascading mountains along the Mekong changing colours with the rising and setting sun.
Pfff!!
Incredible stuff!
Right up my alley.
At the guest house in Pak Beng met James (Melbourne), Jacobi (Vancouver) and John (London), who'd been traveling together for a couple of weeks. Had the most hilarious dinner at an Indian/Lao restaurant, where, as it happened, the waiter managed to be even more stoned than us. (Hadn't smoked in months, so it was quite the merry coincidence.)
The day after our arrival in Luang Prabang John took off with two friends (very happily newly engaged and near broke) for a 3 day motorbike trip and i consequently found myself the best value room in town: a double and a single bed for 40.000 Kip! Woohoo! The House Gods obviously digging my ass (limited number of puns intended ;=) i wandered down the street along the Nam Kham river..
.. passed by plenty of soon-to-be-even-more-gorgeously-decked-out wats..
..meditated a bit..
..had a chat with the monks..
..checked out the local cuisine (a piece of coconut waffle, some full grain noodles with coriander, a noodle soup with loadsa fresh herbs and vegetables, long beans.. green mango with a ginger-garlic-fermented-fish-and-chili-in-abundance sauce! – chewed the fat with a chef, working in a tourist restaurant down town and speaking perfect English, who just happened to drop by for a intestine/entrails extravaganza soup. Yum!)
..and i couldn't help but notice that Luang Prabang was definitely growing on me...
And that was even before i hit the bowling alley. All bars in LPB are kindly requested by the cops to close shop at 23.30, in respect of local inhabitants who generally get up before sunset. Except for a one or two local discos that stay open till 1, the bowling alley is the only place that, outta the center and plenty outta the way not to disturb any neighbours, stays open till 3/4. (A simple matter of slipping the odd envelope.) The one and only place to go …and you can bowl?! (I confess to being that kind of person who just gets a natural high off bowling.) Throw in a bar, music and in no time you find yourself going from one alley to the next - cheering people on, chatting, having a laugh. Ah! Bowling in LPB..
Met Emma, bubbly dentist from Belfast, and Shane, same same minus the dental record and plus an unappeasable urge to party hard, one night over at the bowling.
I will always remain eternally indebted to Em for sticking by me when, upon visiting the waterfalls half an hour outside LPB, I jumped off a rock and banged my left wrist and lower right arm into the some more rock, before bumping my head; the water being less transparent and consequently less deep than I assumed. Rising outta the water a stream of bloody red water running off my arm, s’pose I upset my fair share of wimpy souls. ;=) Good thing quite a few people do carry their first aid wherever they go. More good luck that Em was around to nurse my ever so slightly concussed self and to see me through the remainder of the day and the one following..
The very next day at dinner we ran into Sarah, who - never at a loss for words, makes my talkativeness seem pretty mild :) - at first did sorta come across as yer regular IT girl straight outta London, with a great sense of Northerner sarcy humour thrown in for good measure.. Sarah had just gotten into town after a grueling three day bus journey from Sapa (N-Vietnam), personally, I still wonder how she managed to spend such along time over such a short distance :), so to cheer her up we obviously had to take her out bowling.. Killer Mekong Whiskey – smells, looks and tastes like rum, tho’ no one dares say what it actually is –, lime, coke – not that much for banged up ol’ me - and hilarity ensued.
The following days we spent hanging out together trying not to get completely wet as people started preparing for Pi Mai aka Lao New Year. A shame just as Pi Mai hit LPB Em had decided to head down to Vang Vieng.
Then again, you win some, you lose some.. I managed to convince Ine, scrumptilicious friend from back in Brussels on her way down from Delhi, to give South-Thailand a miss and get her sassy ass over to Lao not to miss out on Pi Mai. Not only did she get herself a direct flight from Bangkok, she also brought me more than two kilos of Côte d’Or black chocolate! (70% Pure cacao with shards of caramelized cacao. Aw! God! Sweet bliss!!!)
After months of living almost completely deprived of real chocolate – it’s a barren wasteland out there, people –, the one I couldn’t get a hold of and as a result found myself dreaming of incessantly: cacao. I confess, as so many of my compatriots, I’m heavily addicted to cacao. I did bring about three quarters of a kilo of chocolate myself – far too little in hindsight, less than 100gs a week is pure madness – and since I wasn’t entirely sure that Ine was coming over up to a few weeks in advance and as I couldn’t risk not having any chocolate to go on for the coming months if anything went wrong I was heavily rationing what little chocolate I had left.. Oh, Ine! My saving angel!!! Those thousand kisses I owe you still are soon coming your way!
Right, enough about that... Back to Pi Mai. Pi Mai or Lao New Year is also called the water festival, meaning that anyone at every give time is in their right to soak you top to bottom. Be it with a hose, bucket, pot or any other container. If upon being drenched you stick around for a lil’ bit and your assailants aren’t too farang (Lao term for foreigner, originally referring to ol’ Frenchy ;=) to know how to show good manners, no doubt they’ll invite you round for a toast – mmmh, more Beer Lao! :) – honouring Lao people’s amazing hospitality you of course buy a round in return.
The fun bit is that whoever is in control of pouring the drink - depending on the number and how thirsty people are all of you share one or two glasses – collects the emptied glass, perhaps fills it up with some more ice, tops it up and sends it down to whoever he or she thinks should drink next. No peer pressure whatsoever, of course! As your conversation generally runs outta steam fairly quickly – eh, the ubiquitous linguistic barriers stopping people from truly interacting and becoming one ;=) - you say your goodbyes, get up and walk a couple of meters down the street another family or group of friends calls you over to have a drink with them. And again a bit onward..
Yup Pi Mai is one hell of good party. Kids with super soakers running allover the place, wee bitty smallish to absolutely massive sound systems and dancing people on every street corner, groups of people cruising along on pick up trucks, more often than not in the company of a humongous barrel of water. And for days on end there’s an all out war going down with people doing battle with flour and dyed water, smearing your face, body, clothes and whatnot with engine grease, red and blue dye.
Part of the traditional ceremonies involve crossing the Mekong to pay homage to a cave with Buddha statue especially decked out for the occasion, but it seemed that we, like most people, got bogged down around the food and drink stalls on one big slushy river bank instead. There we had quite an enlightening chat with a supremely nice thirty-something couple. The fiancé, who for starters already had a hard time understanding English, was plenty wasted and getting progressively more incoherent and unpredictable as time advanced. As most Lao people I had met up to then, they struggled to pronounce my name, saying Ham or something along those lines and apparently finding this quite hilarious. As it turned out ‘ham’ means penis in Lao. For some odd reason this seemed to please Sarah beyond compare, as she seemed to find this the funniest thing since making up word jokes in primary school. Eh, the intricacies of tickling people’s funny bone. Oh, well. Thank God she never relished in calling me thus in public.
Pi Mai, Pi Mai, Pi Mai! If only could go back right now, getting soaked, water running down your back, having a drink or two, dancing on street corners, doing the boogaloo. Which reminds me: who’s up for Pi Mai 2010?
Leaving LPB behind – not in tatters, but rather disheveled after a mass exodus the previous day – we also bused down to Vang Vieng.
Vang Vieng, currently more renowned for its tubing – more for 18-20 year olds getting absolutely wasted in the process of trying to get laid; if only I were that innocent still; oh, and apparently last year bout 8 kids managed to somehow kill themselves while doing so, something to with slides and zip lines perhaps.. Sounds more like sheer silliness to me!
That very same VV boasts a stunning countryside with more Mekong style cascading hills, dramatically gnarled lime stone hilltops, beautiful dried up rice paddies, a delightful stream and a couple of lagoons where one can go for a swim to get away from the oppressive heat.
Here Sarah bravely embarked on her crusade to rid me of my rather dramatic t-shirt tan, to no avail, sadly; and managed to lose her phone and camera with about a month of pictures she hadn’t backed up earlier - amongst other, no doubt cultural-historically more significant pics, the Pi Mai festivities, parade, us looking like a total pair of banged up clowns, our first and very memorable night at the bowling and so on.. Hope ya won’t kill me for bringing this up, Sal, I share your loss, luv.
Next up: Vientiane, capital of Lao, somewhat underwhelming, some nice wats and a funny national monument, scorching heat, a bit too much to bear between 10am and 4pm.
As I stuck round in order to pick up my various visas on our last day in Vientiane Ine day tripped to a nature reserve quite a few miles outta town. And upon returning to the station – trouble with getting the right bus, being driven round in circles only to arrive to an arid, barren park, all day long in the blistering heat – Ine was so worn out, her central nervous system just decided: that’s it no more of this heat! So she changed her ticket for Pakxe right there and then, preferring to venture out to the mountainous provinces North of LPB.
Had to say I was also fairly worried about what to expect further down South since the Mekong had but entirely dried up down in Vientiane, exposing a vast river bed and a diminutive stream relatively far off in the distance.
Having come all this way just to head back up did seem somewhat silly to me, so I promised Ine we’d meet up somewhere along the North-East and Sarah and i pushed on to the 4000 Islands together. Thank God we did!
There was absolutely no shortage of water down in Lao’s Mekong delta. We stayed in Dong Det in a pretty traditional bungalow shed alongside the river (more of the same we had back in VV) with an almost overly friendly German stoner and his Lao in-laws.
Had a brilliant day out on Mike’s boat..
..we made it back just in time before a massive storm front was about to hit us.
Pretty fierce lightning, lemme tell ya! From Dong Det Sarah had to get back to Vientiane to hop on a flight for Hanoi to arrive just in time for her friend’s birthday. And I had to haul my ass all the way back up to LPB.
Quite a treat.
No, really I didn’t mind terribly much.
The landscape is just so damn spectacular I made sure I kept my eyes peeled.
Back in LPB I was so exhausted I wasn’t sure I would go bowling once more or not.. The mere thought! :)
Met up with Ine in the fabulous village of Nong Khiaw/Kiew.
More dazzling Mekong scenery..
..chewing the fat with a group of locals playing petanque (jeux de boules) already sweetly wasted in preparation for the 1st of May celebrations the following day, a friendly Indian just down the street and a big bottle of moonshine Lao Lao – the local rice liquor -, s’pose we had ourselves a combination which packed quite a punch!
Too bad I needed to leave so soon, would’ve loved to stay on a couple more days with Ine in beautiful Lao getting up to all sorts of impish tricks and stocking up on the adorable sticky rice I would soon come to miss..
What a change Vietnam turned out to be.
Joined a couple from London and two guys from the Isle of Jersey crossing the border and also making their way to Hanoi.
A rather hellish journey if ever I experienced one. Let’s just say I apart from a handful of rice I didn’t eat all day, the others agreed to pay way to high a price for the trip and even then the driver had the nerve to have a two hour break, three to four hours outside Hanoi, at midnight, mind you, awaiting “other driver” - the bastard being just too much of a lying lazy prick to drive us there himself as proved apparent later on -, and he consequently spent that time sadistically pushing all our buttons, cowardly backing out of every confrontation, plain simply enjoying torturing a group of exhausted travelers who just happened to pass the wrong border crossing. Great introduction to a country.
Sadly, Hanoi didn’t prove that much better..
Nice enough place, if only the people living there were as nice as other Vietnamese people. Instead, half of the people I had to do business with in Hanoi try to cheat you, pretend not to know any English if the situation fits them, can prove extremely obnoxious while you’re actually trying to buy something off them. Go figure! I strongly advise anyone considering traveling to Nam to just skip Hanoi and do without the pain in the ass it’ll prove. I’ll spare you the details, ‘fraid I could go on for a bit to long, ‘fraid I was forced to stay in Hanoi for way to long..
The next day round I somehow managed to drag my comatose self outta bed just in time to check outta the hotel I wasn’t intent in spending another night and somehow found my way into a travel agency where a truly smashingly nice girl helped me out big time, assisted me in buying a SIM card as well. Spent the remainder of the day doing the ol’ zombie shuffle fumbling my way around town and checking into the same hotel lacking the energy to look out for a replacement. Next day I had another funny exchange with the guy at the reception holding my visa hostage - great fun Hanoi! – before being picked up for a three day tour to Halong Bay.
Stunning place!
Oh, and i put my experience meditating to good use and convinced myself to face up to my vertigo, ignore the tearing wind and climb a very wobbly metal lookout tower, more like one hell of a 'rusty cage' really. (Aye, admittedly one of my favourite Soundgarden tracks!) Honestly, just looking at those pictures I’m already getting slightly vertiginous. Any idea how badly I suffer from fear of heights vertigo? If you can’t tell from my face.. A word of warning for y’all folks out there reading this: it’s one ugly, ugly sight… Anyway, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Returning to Hanoi I met back up with Sarah who’d just come down from Sapa, second time round.
We spent a couple of days partying hard with the expats down and around Mao’s bar.
Then got on a bus to Nim Binh; forgetting to drop us off the driver did manage to get us on bus passing in the opposite direction and we eventually made it to Nim Binh, where the super friendly owner of our soon to be hotel was already awaiting our arrival. Hats off!
Nim Binh offers more Mekong/Halong Bay fare, be it on land.
Best way to move around is by hiring a motorbike. Very entertaining all in all, apart from the fact that I managed topple the bike on me left foot. Cut my foot clean open exposing the two muscles underneath. Ouch! With all the blood gushing outta me wound – a substantial puddle was forming underneath - the people at the café insisted I end my protests and let them help me... by opening up three cheap ass local brand filter cigarettes and apply the strands of tobacco as a suture!? - if only they’d used rolling tobacco or some grass for that matter ;=) - only to come out with some proper gauze two minutes later.
Luckily a field ‘hospital’ was nearby. There I managed to get all the tobacco out using isobetadine soaked gauzes while the nurse, who first started none too subtly poking at the tobacco with an oversize pair of pinchers, was away to get me some local anesthetic. Good thing Sarah was game enough to hold my lower leg in an effort to apply a tourniquet as the nurse stitched me up butcher/(pre-)war/DIY style.
Well, in any case cheapest field surgery ever: only 15$ for 7 stitches, local anesthetic, meds and three cans of coke at 1$ a pop.
Next day we bused back to Hanoi where they hooked me up to intravenous antibiotics to be administered three times daily. Woohoo! In the mean time Sarah got us a nice ground floor room with bath as I could hardly do any stairs. Nevertheless, when I wasn’t on the IV drip, Sarah – “I’m so surprised about your energy” - continued for the duration of her remaining days in Asia to drag my crippled ass around town – loadsa cab fares combined with the miracle of crutches.
After Sarah left I hit a bit of a slump. Trying to keep my foot up as much as possible, as the IV was taking more time than originally projected, I was pretty much confined to my hotel room. A week onwards only 6 stitches came out instead of 7. Funny business. Some days later I was finally able to get the hell outta Hanoi, so I made like a banana and split for ancient imperial city Hue.
There I spent two more days shut in at my hotel as the rain wouldn’t let up, uploading pictures, downloading music (my first fresh batch in 8 months) and having another stab at this blog update. The Imperial City, the many pagodas and royal burial tombs surrounding the city proved interesting..
..but as with most Vietnamese architecture and arts and crafts..
..too similar. (Again, despite often having remarkable settings as a backdrop, Vietnamese architecture is unimpressive compared to its greater Chinese examples. Nice try, tho’. Keep at it, I’d say. ;=)
Next stop on my way to Saigon: Hoi An. I literally wizzed through as my visa would soon be running out, all I can say is it seemed plenty laid back, but not that interesting; and the Cham ruins of My Son; diminutive, peanuts compared to the Indian temples it derived its architecture from.
24 Hour bus journey to Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City during which I met Nicolette, Dutch (therefore not to be trusted;=) currently living in Spain, planning to move back to Amsterdam, and Jaimy, aspiring, though I prefer ‘struggling’, poet and proud inhabitant of Kentucky, and spent the following days hanging out together. Loved the newly opened Indian restaurant we went to on our first night into town. Greatly enjoyed Saigon’s energy..
..amazed by how modern the place is; though perhaps not so surprising as the US practically blew Vietnam in its entirety to smithereens or at least did their very best to “bomb them back into the Stone Age” as one American general magnanimously suggested the US military would do if the Viet Cong didn’t ”draw in their horns”. Was deeply touched by the War Remembrance Museum..
..aka the French and American War Crimes Museum.
Had a ball savouring the street food and not getting run over when crossing, one respect Saigon luckily didn’t live up to its reputation.
Absolutely adored the more traditionally styled pagodas in Cholon..
..Saigon’s old Chinese district.
Once more on the bus, for the Mekong delta this time.
Nice enough boat rides.
The Cambodian border crossing: the coziest I've ever seen.
Final destination: Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.
Met up again with Em, who'd been working as a volunteer in a dental clinic and a local school for the past 5 weeks.
Visited a local NGO together called Tiny Toones, founded by a Long Beach, Ca. gang member who got deported back to Cambodian and first started out helping addicts and now focuses on teaching kids break dancing, helping them sort out their lives in the process.
Spent two nights of culinary extravaganza, and for (almost) no money really..
Ended up getting invited round to a very fancy karaoke joint: private room, 4 hostesses, the lot! by the very friendly and soon-to-open-her-new-spa-similar-to-the-ones-they-have-in-Singapore-but-with-cheaper-labour-of-course girlfriend/mistress of a high official at the ministry of foreign affairs, s'pose what one could call the enemy of this fair nation's people, as the Cambodian government is one of the most corrupt globally, one nonprofit worker telling Em that only 4% of the aid handed over the government actually waters down to those in need of it!
Skipped town for a few days at the beach in Sihanoukville..
..where I absolutely relished finally being able to go for a swim after having had to mind my foot for so long, plus getting back to my writing. And managed to get rid of my t-shirt tan – well, for the most part.. ;=)
Oh, and saw Em waste a fortune at the roulette wheel in one of Snouky Snouk’s very flash casinos, that we visited accompanied by fellow high rollers Edith and James, scientists at the very cutting edge of the molecular spectacular, originally from Dublin but in hiding in London. - Oops! Sorry about that.. – So, there we were just about to move to the VIP room high on dreams and schemes of cleaning the house in one of our trade mark baccarat blow outs. (If you are right now thinking of a singer I ain’t carrying any of your bets in the near and distant future! ;=) Positioned smack bang in the middle between the wall sized glass window opening to the card counting room to my back and the blackjack table in front, sitting up perfectly straight as I was being watched by any number outta the 25 eyes in the sky, I got the fear and had a minor mental breakdown convinced they mighty set security on us - card readers par excellence of world renown - any time soon and have their goons put the hurt on us pretty badly, break our hands and kick our ribs in, and.. – NO! Not the face!
Luckily we all got away scot-free, collected our various bags and apparel and moved on to bother the street vendour one block down flogging pretty exotic fortified wine - as of yet unbeknownst to the wider international public but predicted to stand out as one of Cambodia’s finer export products in the very near future!
With Em heading back to Phnom Penh to put in her last week at the dental clinic I stayed on a couple more days and sorta got my laundry done in between trying to make sense of my notes on story outlines, on miscellaneous themes for philosophical musing and various other nonproductive topics. - That was until i also needed to head back for PPenh to say bye to Em and meet up with her, her colleagues, Edith and James, before Em shot off to Singapore and E & J made for Lao..
..and to lock myself to a pc screen for three consecutive days in order to get this damned blog sorted.
Just to find that non-cooperative hardware..
..would hold me hostage for yet another day.
Well, s’pose I’ll hang out in town for another day or so, getting some practical stuff outta the way, before heading back to the beach and my writing pad. Looks like I’ll even give Angkor a miss. After traveling so much all I wanna do is write. No point in running around anymore. This is what I came out here for and what makes me happier than all else.
As for next month: plan to do more of the same but then out in Thailand. After that I’ll come swinging by London for about five days (July 31st till August 4th) before pussyfootin’ my way back to Belgian terra firma.
Oh, and last but not least: I booked my gran’s apartment at the beach from the 28th to the 31st of August. The usual suspects are hereby invited. (For now it looks like we might even wanna head out there a couple of days earlier. Sounds like a plan? Be sure to let me know.)
Also hope many peeps will join us for Pukkelpop the weekend prior to our coastal exploits. And if you’ve unsuspectingly been invited round to my sis and Anthony’s wedding I’m sure I’ll see you there.
Well.. It’s is a wrap! This entry should more than make up for whatever sensitive information I might at some point or other have tried to convey..
Hope you’re (well.. the majority of you at least ;=) doing a-OK!
If not.. Why not go for a walk and have a go at torturing a lesser life form? No partners or children about? Why not plan invading a neigbouring country? Or just ruin some random stranger’s happy-go leisure time instead. Other people’s happiness can so easily be sabotaged. Why! Now you’re getting the hang of it! Why, yes of course! Feel free to experiment with some tricks and ploys of your own. There you are! That should help you get rid of those nasty summer blues!
Loadsa - collecting-more-scars*-than-i-feel-i-need-to-impress-girls..-if-only-lady-Fortuna-'d-agree - luv,
-hx.
*And for a change not of the emotional kind.. Woohooo!
Ps: if so inclined, you can always reach me at +855 99 485 305.
Pps: quite like Dizzee Rascal's Bonkers - just came up on internet radio - dirty flirty! :)
