Communists

I am going to sound very ignorant now, but I did not know that Laos is a communist country. I found out by seeing the communist flag matched up with the Laos flag everywhere. This is quite interesting and a little exciting. I have never been in a communist country before!

One thing which I find interesting is that the whole country has a curfew. Midnight is the time that everyone has to be in their houses. This law is supposed to apply to foreigners too, however they don't really pursue the tourists that have been out longer. Since there is this curfew, all bars and restaurants have to close the latest at 11.30 pm in order for all guests and staff to be able to go home. However for some peculiar reason there is a bowling alley which is open past midnight. This is the place where all foreigners head to after the bars.

Tonight me and Gemma are going bowling and we are super excited about it! It's not often you get to go to bars first and then bowling after :)

Halfway to Luang Prabang

We have finally come to our halfway destination pakbeing. We have spent the entire day on a boat riding down the Mekong river. So now we are resting and walking around as much as we can before it is time to board the boat tomorrow again.

Muay Thai pictures

Here we have some of the pictures from the training at Charn Chai Muay Thai gym in Pai.

Thai specialities?

High season in Pai started last week. This is also when suddenly many more street vendors started showing up with the same usual tourist things you can find all over Thailand.
One of these vendors is the bug guy. Selling fried bugs for the tourists to eat. I am yet to see any local people eat these bugs. In Bangkok they even charge you to just take pictures of the dead bugs!
Has anyone tried these bugs before?

Malaria

My plan is to start heading to Laos next week. When I was in London a few months ago and had a chat with my GP she told me that it would be good for me to take the malaria tablets. However I did some research on these tablets and found that the side effects on some of these are quite horrendous!

Listed side effects for the different types of malaria prevention tablets are : sun sensitivity, nightmares, anxiety, depression, mouth ulcers, headaches, nausea and the list goes on.

I decided that since I was first going to countries with not to much malaria I could skip taking them for a while. However now I am not to sure if I should take them for Laos and Cambodia. I have deet repellents, mosquito coils and a mosquito net. Also I will be wearing long sleeves and trousers at sunset, which the time when the mozzies come out to play. But you never know though.

My question is, have any of you out there been to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and taken or not taken the malaria tablets. Also have any of you ever had malaria?

Happy deepavali

The entire gym had gotten invited to a deepavali party. All off us went of course, as the host used to train at the gym and is quite a character.

The host himself is a man called Krishna. He is a funky guy who is floating about all over the place and is nothing else but friendly to everyone.

So the party. It felt like all the long timers in Pai had been invited and you had old people, young people, kids and animals. As soon as we walked in there was the biggest Asian elephant I had ever seen! To kick of the party fireworks were set of and then the music started. Krishna had organised a few local bands and djs to play. At the mean time more and more people came. In the end there must have been a few hundred people at Krishna's house.

Of course with Pai being Pai. There were many hippies! After the main bands had played, there was a dj/ diggeridoo player who came on and started to play some kind of trance music. This is when the hippies kicked off! They were feeling the music and just going with the flow, whilst us others could just stand by and watch with fascination and wondering how many shrooms these people had taken.

All in all it was a lovely evening with lots of friends and fun!

Quirky Pai

Pictures of this one random shop in Pai. It's called Tiger Pai and the owner loves anything tiger, leopard and animal printed. You can find anything from clothes, sunglasses, iPad covers, lighters, stickers to scooters all covered in animal print!

Thai trains

It was a real experience when I took the train from Bangkok to Chiang mai last week.

One thing that I found fascinating was the lack of safety. The oddest thing was that the exit doors of the train cars were always open. Those who wanted to could have just jumped out of the moving train! Of course I had to lean out of the door to take some pictures., which was obviously very unsafe but quite thrilling!

Back in Pai.

I have been back in Pai for a few days now and it's as if I never left. Sure I was only gone for a week, but in most other places people come and go extremely quickly. Most people I got to know last time I was here are still around.
I am even staying in the same guesthouse in the same bungalow as last time. All my neighbours are the same and time has just stood still.

It's funny how some places turn out to be like this and others just change constantly. It must be that most people who do come here end up staying a lot longer the originally planned.

Now that I am back I will be concentrating in my muay thai training and try to get fit in the next few weeks. After Pai I will be heading to Laos. So there will be some new places to explore!

Back in Thailand!

So after a very busy 5 days in London I hopped back on a plane to Bangkok. There I met up with 3 girls who I met in different places I thailand. We decided to go out in Bangkok for Halloween. All I can say is wow! People were dressed up and the clubs and bars didn't close. We had a great time! The day after we all got onto a train to Chiang mai. The train ride was supposed to be 15 hours, however we arrived in Chiang mai 19 hours later! By that time it was to late to take the bus to Pai. Now we are here in Chiang mai taking it easy and waiting for tomorrow to get on to our next step of the journey.