I do apologize for any incorrect spelling or bad language but that's because I picked up most of my English by watching X-rated movies and listening to rap music.

People who think they recognize themselves are just paranoid.



Latest update

Q in Dubai

Q in India

Q in Thailand

Q in Australia:, Sydney, Melbourne

When I left the Netherlands on January 18, 2001 my flight was delayed because there was a fire at the airport. This was the start of my world trip. In the coming period I will have to land and transit at all kinds of third world airports and so I am prepared for all kinds of inconveniences. A fire at Amsterdam Airport, the would be mainport of Europe, I had not expected. The fire had a kind of style though since it started after an explosion of a toilet.



Dubai
Dubai 18/01/01 - 23/01/01
Dubai is a very clean and modern city. It has all kinds of big shiny buildings. The Jumeirah Hotel is one of the most exceptional. It is one of the most expensive hotels in the world with rooms designed by Versaci and fountains and so on. I didn't go inside, you have to pay for that. But from the outside it looked fine too.
One day my cousin took me to the desert. For the real thing you should drive a four-wheel drive like the locals do. They like to race across the sand dunes like madmen. A style of driving they also tend to use in the city.




India
Assam 24/01/01 - 10/02/01
If you like dust, come to Guwahati. Guwahati is a chaotic city in a permanent cover of dust. The visit to Assam was the roots part of my journey. My uncle and auntie had planned an extensive program, including visits to Shillong and Jorhat, to see all relatives and family friends. I had already been warned that Assamese people like to eat. During my stay in Assam I learned that the Assamese not only like to eat, they also like to feed. And they will feed you. Everybody will feed you. So if you have four visits on a day, you also have four meals on that day, breakfast not included. The food is really good but after a meal you just want to go to sleep. And after you had your afternoon nap guess what, it's time for tea. And when you have tea, you must have a meal.

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a negative travel advice for this region because of the unrest. The only time I noticed something of this unrest was when ULFA, the local rebel movement, had issued a bandh, a kind of strike. That day we had to cancel a planned visit to a tea garden. Well, I don't mind people who fight for independence or whatever, but if they interfere with my holiday plans, they really loose my sympathy.
The other thing was that every time my uncle and auntie left me alone in the house, I had to lock the doors behind them and was not allowed to let anybody in. Just out of precaution. The result was a genuine Snowwhite experience.

Well, this insurgency might be dangerous and all, but the thing for which they really should issue a negative travel advice is the traffic. The traffic in India is just amazing. Overhere the biggest vehicle is right. All others have to make way. A complicating factor is that in general the middle of the road is the best part of the road with the least potholes. So everybody tries to stay in the middle as long as possible. The drivers here have the habit to wait terrifying long before they steer aside to let an oncoming vehicle pass. It looks as if these people believe that if they horn long enough, the other traffic will disappear. To make things more complicated there are also all kinds of animals walking on the road that act like there is no traffic at all. After sunset people choose between no light and big light which gives a whole new dimension to the chaos. It is said that Indians are spiritual people. Well I guess this is because when these people are on the road, they have a constant near death experience.

Chennai to Madurai
I arrived in Chennai on February 10. Now I was alone, no helpful family nearby to assist me or to (force) feed me. I stuck to the hotel restaurant because everybody had warned me for the spicy food in the South. But even in the hotel restaurant I found some difficulties. In spite of my Indian background I do not know the names of all Indian dishes, to be honest. And promptly I ordered to dishes that do not combine. When the waiter friendly pointed out the incomparability of the order, I tried to ask as casual as possible what he in this case would suggest. But I don't think I looked very convincing.

I arrived in Bangalore on the 14th of February at 11 am. I had an appointment with my cousin at the airport at 7:30 pm so I had some spare time here. It was the first time I actually had to use my backpack. At my family's everything was arranged for, but now I had to walk around with my own stuff. I found that the right adjustment of the straps of a backpack is a quite important factor in being a backpacker. My backpack was clearly not adjusted right. And just before I thought I would pass out in the midday sun, I stumbled into a restaurant. There I could pull some straps and after that it was indeed much lighter to carry my backpack.
My cousin had to DJ in Bangalore in a really trendy club. Once you were inside you just could not tell where you were. It could also be Rotterdam or London. The only thing that reminded you that you still were in India is a guy in the toilet who not only opens the door for you but also opens the tap for you and after that offers you paper towels to dry you hands. A bit overdone, the toilets were the cleanest I have seen in India so far.

I arrived in Mysore on Feb 16. Mysore is a very relaxed city or as the Lonely Planet Travel Guide puts it easygoing. I ended up staying there for eight days. After one day I changed my hotel. It appears that Lonely Planet and I have a slightly different way to interpret the term very clean. But the new hotel I found was excellent and even cheaper.
The Sri Chamudeswari Temple in Mysore is located on a hill. You can reach the temple by tax but from a spiritual perspective it's better to climb the stairs with the 1000 steps. And since I don't have a lot of money, but do have a lot of time, I choose to climb the stairs. And offcourse a little spiritual cleaning might come in handy.
1000 steps are a lot of steps especially in the hot midday sun and after having eaten a large thali. Thalis, the all you can eat meals, are a great invention for budget travellers but are killing for stair climbers.

When I almost had reached the end of the stairs I came across a little hut with a man sitting in front of it. When I walked by the man gave me a little flower. This was going to cost me. And indeed within 30 seconds the man had put a dot on my forehead, had blessed me and was now holding a plate on which he expected me to make a financial sacrifice to effectuate the procedure. I could tell from the face of the man that my five rupee coin was hardly enough to finalise the ceremony. I promised that I would return my next life.
On top of the hill there were a lot of little kids who shouted that they could name any European capital. The capital of Lithuania however, they could not tell. That was actually ok with me because, to be honest, I don't know that capital either and I don't want to be outsmarted by some five year old on a mountain in India.

After Mysore it was hill station time. I first went to Ooty and the next day I went to Conoor. These hill stations were fine but apart from the very beautiful views and the clean air, which is nice for a change, there is nothing much to do. So I travelled further. Next stop Kochi.

In Kochi I went to a quite nice open air bar in the bay each night. The evening breeze brought some cooling and also some terrible smell. I suspect that the Kochi sour is directly pouring into the bay. It's hard to find a nice place to sit in India. The standard bar is some dark place full of men drinking. Not really my kind of place. Things have rather confusing names around here. If a place is called pub or cafe that does not necessarily means that they serve alcohol. If you want to have a beer you need to go to a place called bar. A hotel is usually a restaurant and if you want to find a place to sleep you should go to a lodge. But that's fine with me. What I'm looking for are roof gardens. In general roof gardens are nice to stay and are called just roof gardens to make thing simple.
Kochi consists of two parts a modern and a historical part. The Santa Cruz Basilica in the historical part is impressive especially the interior. The fort was less special. A couple of hundreds of years ago someone has painted some very nice proportioned ladies on the wall. Well that is something I certainly do not disapprove of, but in all it was not that exciting.

My next stop was Trivandrum or Thiruvanathapuram as it is now called. At a certain point in time people here decided to change the names of a couple of places. Bombay is Mumbai, Madras is Chennai. My personal favourite is Ooty, which is now Udhagamandalam. You cannot tell me that Udhagamandalam is easier to pronounce in the local language than Ooty. Not that it matters to me since I seem to pronounce every name wrongly. In Trivandrum there is a big temple, the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple. This is a Hindu only temple and the gates are guarded by some big men who look like bouncers at a disco. Like there is a party going on inside and the dresscode is dothi and sari. I therefore only took a picture of the 30m. high main building. I am too old for party crashing.

Women's Seat
In the bus from Kochi to Trivandrum I had installed myself and my backpack on the backbench of the bus so I would not hinder anyone. After there hours the bus filled up with people. There was still room on the backbench for someone tot sit next to me, but one man on the bus wanted me to get up anyway. I tried to explain to him that it was a bit impractical to get up because the way I sat I took up the least space with my backpack and myself. He then told me that I sat on a woman's seat. I managed to get up standing quite rapidly. I apologised to the man and in return for the info I should have told this man that he was wearing really stupid glasses. But I was not sure whether he would the good intentions of such a remark so I said nothing. I had stood for about three minutes when a woman on the backbench offered me a seat. I thanked but she insisted. And then I sat but this time on the other side of the bench. The woman explained to me that in principle the backbench is reserved for women but if there is enough room men may sit there. Makes me wonder why the man wanted me to get up. Probably it was just a nerd with stupid glasses. Anyway, you will not find me on a backbench anymore.

After Trivandrum I went to Kanykumari on March 7. Kanykumari is the far most south point of India. India's Land's end. This is where the Gulf of Bengal, The Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea come together. It is a sacred place for Hindus. There is a Gandhi memorial and a Vivekananda Memorial. The Vivekananda Memorial is built on an island 400m. of the coast. Mr. Vivekananda, a.k.a. the wandering monk, went on a journey around India in 1880. He worked for social justice and, according to the local museum, was a very good singer. The most striking about Kanykumari is that there aren't internetshops on every street corner. In most places I visited in India there where more internet shops than book shops.
I had my fortune told by some guy on the street with a bird in a very little cage. On command the bird picks a card. On that card your faith is written. Unfortunately, my card reader could not speak English very well so he had to stick to the main issues. Where it all come down to was that I would become rich and marry a rich woman. I don't know if the bird had any fortune telling gifts, but the guy certainly knew what I wanted to hear.

I arrived in Madurai Mach 10. There I went to the Sri Meenakshi Temple that is quite impressive with towers of about 50m. high with little sculptures all over. The temple complex is quite big and pretty soon I lost my way. Parts of the temple are Hindu only. That's fine with me. If they want to do the Hindu thing there, then there is no reason for me to go there. I always feel a bit uncomfortable when I find myself in a place people are busy with religious thing. I don't want to sit and look when somebody is praying like it is some kind of trick they are doing. And I have to bear in mind that at times I do have my untactful sides as well. As was the same this time when for a moment I forgot myself an left the temple gate with some serious swearing because I stood on a little stone. It was in Dutch so I hope I didn't offend anybody but it wasn't my idea that you should go barefooted into the temple.


As a tourist you are constantly approached by people. Most of the time they want something of you, beggars, vendors. Most irritating are the ones that want to take you somewhere. They start with the standard questions and just as you think that you are going to have a normal conversation they ask you to come to their shops selling handicrafts, silk travels drugs. The thing is that they don't speak English very well so you have to make an effort to understand them. But the people who are genuinely interested in you start with the standard questions too. So it's hard to tell whether your interviewer is ok or not. Ok people should start with some kind of code word to make things simple. Tourists are the same worldwide so it's easy to assess whether somebody is ok or not. An advantage is that they generally speak English especially when they come from the US or UK.

I hit the beach of Varkala on March 13. I was not planning to go to Varkala at all but I thought that the Madurai-Kollam trip would take too long so I decided to break it up. Varkala was a nice surprise. It's very, very pleasant in Varkala. Nevertheless I decided to move on to Kollam.

Within one hour in Kollam I regretted leaving the laidback beach of Varkala. Now I had to take care again not to be driven over or to step on the stuff of some street vendor. However, I had a real activity on the agenda. The backwater tour to Allepey. But I did not expect to have to use much energy on this eight hour trip over the lakes and canals just behind the Kerela coast. And just as I expected the boat trip was very relaxed. The surroundings are beautiful but eight hours is a bit long. Fortunately, you could buy some drinks on board. And together with two Spanish guys I had met I watched the sun set behind the palms while Allapey slowly came closer.

After a stop over in Kottayam I went to Thrissur. Thrissur is a nice city. If a town has a clear distinction between the sidewalk and the rest of the street, things are much more convenient. And if a town has some size so that you can see some things then it's ok.

The trip from Kottayam to Thrissur I made by train. Class II, the cheapest tickets. This is the real stuff. This is only endurable on short trips Class II has two layers of wooden benches fully stowed with people and luggage. You can try to find a place with your big backpack in this rather claustrophobic environment but it is easier to put your backpack by the toilets at the end of the coach and keep standing next to it. Because the doors of the train are open the smell of piss isn't too hard to stand. I had some hesitation before I put my backpack on the dirty floor next to the toilets. But after a few stations a man boarded the train who put his luggage next to and on top of my backpack and after that he laid down next to it and fell asleep. I was already astonished that some people dared to enter the toilets barefooted. Indians are able to sleep anywhere. It doesn't matter if there is a lot of noise or if they are lying in an uncomfortable position. I don't want to use the word lazy here, because maybe these people are tired of a daylong hard working but it's kind of typical.
The guy on the floor was really blocking the way but nobody said something. I wondered if I would say something in Holland if somebody would something like this over there but I could not imagine any similar situation in Holland.

When I arrived in Kozhikode on March 22 I immediately checked the beach. Nice sunset. I have already seen a lot of beautiful sunsets. Sunrises should also be very nice but I haven't really had the chance to catch one for some reason. The beach itself was a bit disappointing. A little strip of sand with some people wandering and playing soccer. Well if the beach is not happening it's time to look out for a roof garden. If you have found one roof garden you usually can see the others from there. The hard part is finding the first one. The Lonely Planet Travel Guide could give some more info on this one. That would be helpful. I have already picked up quite a tan and at times people start to talk to me in Hindi. The only thing that's a little out of place are my jungle pants.
The most locals think I am some kind of hip dude from Bombay. Another thing that makes me different from the locals is the fact that I don't have a moustache. Every man has one. I hope I am not making some kind of statement not having one. I am trying to shake my head like the locals do but it's not that easy to do it like it's naturally.

I was in Thalassery on March 23. In a bar I met a man who introduced himself as the King of Bars. Of course it was a great honour for me to have a couple of drinks with him. This bar had a pleasant place to sit outside, which is not very common in India. The most bars I have seen are dimly lit dark places. After a while The King suggested that we should visit a friend of his, a very best friend. The friend was an advocate and a communist that was all information provided. It was fine with me and a few minutes later I sat in the office of some communist lawyer. The lawyer gave a short lecture about the legal system in India. In the end it turned out that the sole purpose of the visit was that the King wanted to borrow some money from his very best friend. After he indeed had succeeded in getting some money we went back tot the bar. After some more drinks I thought it was time to go. I bought a lottery ticket from some vendor who walked along the tables. I wanted to give the ticket to the King as a present. Strangely, he refused to take it so I was stuck with the ticket and I was clueless how I should know whether I had won or not. Next day I went to Kannur. There should be a fort in Kannur but I could not find it. I spent half of my day looking for it. And the only cafe's I came across were internet cafes. A bit boring. In the evening I went to the All Indian Exhibition, a kind of fair. It was obviously aimed at young kids. On my way back I got shitten on my head by a bird. There are almost one billion people in India. Why did this bird have to pick me?
I think it is safe to say that my day in Kannur was not a fun day. After Kannur I went to Kasaragod. There is not much happening In Kasaragod.
Next stop was Mangalore. In stead of the train I took the bus for a change. Limited Stop was written on the bus. I hoped that this was referring to the number of stops of the bus and not to the functioning of the brakes. At least you cannot say that they did not warn us if we would crash head-on into a brick wall although that ofcourse would mean a full stop.

After Mangalore I went to Udipi. The Lonely Planet Travel Guide had promised an active temple but the only active thing was an elephant chewing on the thing the people gave him.
Before I went to Goa I made on stop over in Karwar, a sleepy port town, close to the state border with Goa.


Goa
The first place I went to in Goa was Palolem. Palolem is really beautiful. I had finally arrived in Goa. Now I could see for myself if all the good stories that other travellers had told me about Goa were true.
The first sign that Goa is a good spot you can see the moment the bus crosses the state border. No more tea and food stalls on the roadside but Bars&Restaurants. Sitting underneath a palm tree eating a banana, overlooking the beach from the rocks and doing absolutely nothing are just the right things to do around here.

You can see people here who are jogging on the beach. It's ages ago that I even thought about my condition. Not being sick is fine with me.

One day I rented a bicycle to make a little tour. Coming from Europe I had to get used to ride on the left side of the road but most of the time I managed pretty well and there was very little traffic on the road that Saturday morning.
Although I have done a lot of cycling in Holland, cycling through the hills of Goa on a bike without gear was quite killing and after one hour I returned the bike and I lay on the beach the rest of the day, exhausted.
After a bit more than two weeks it was time to leave Goa. Goa is a nice place. Palolem in the south is beautiful and very laid back. After Palolem I went to Benaulim. Benaulim is a real touristy place. But since it was the end of the season it was pretty quiet
After Benaulim I went to Vagator and Chapora in the North of Goa. I have skipped the big tourist resorts.
Vagator and Chapora are situated on a mountain and one side is called Chapora and the other Vagator. This is the place where the hippies went hewn the first tourists appeared. The hippies have left this place too a long time ago. What not has gone are the full moon raves and the sunset parties.
Goa is a good place to take a break of all the travelling. You can see it as a holiday and like a real holiday I have partied a bit too much and spent way too much money.

Hampi
Around 1500 AD Hampi was an important city with about a half a million inhabitants. Nowadays ruins are the only things that are left. It reminds me a bit of Pompei in Italy. In 1565 AD Hampi has been destroyed by an attacking army and was deserted thereafter until the first hippies started living there again in the
Seventies. Today the main street is inhabited again and Hampi has become a nice backpackers and pilgrims village.
The landscape is bizarre. It's a weird scenery with big boulders scattered all over the place. It's dry but there's a little river with green rice fields and banana fields on each side.

There are a lot f roofgardens in Hampi but the best place to go in Hampi is the Mango Tree. That is a little restaurant underneath a huge mangotree with a terrace that looks over the river and the rocky hills.
The best way to explore Hampi is on a bicycle. There are ruins of temples and palaces everywhere. There are two places for which you have to pay to get in. Citizens of India pay 10 rupee others 10 US dollars. A clear no go situation for a backpacker. Apparently nowadays you have to pay 20 US dollar to see the Taj Mahal if you are not a citizen of India. Indian hospitality.
But I was in Hampi when it was World Heritage day and on that day you may enter for free. And as Dutch as I am then I am the first to take a look. Nice places but I am glad I didn't pay US to get in.

The temples and ruins are nice and all but the main attraction in Hampi is the rubber rings. Slowly floating down the river in an inner tire is one of the most relaxing things I have ever done. Alright, you have to forget for a moment that people wash and do other things in this river and that in the rice and banana fields probably enormous amounts of pesticides are being used, but floating like that is almost therapeutic. You have to walk back again but there are enough kids around who will roll your ring back for a few rupees. A quick shower and back to the Mango Tree again to chill out the rest of the afternoon.

And then suddenly my last ten days in India had begun. Now I had to plan things ahead again. I had to book my bus and train tickets. It was a bit disturbing that I had to explain the travel agent how to read the time schedule of the trains. But it all worked out.

Pune (20/04/01-26/04/01)
It's a bit of a change to come from the carless Hampi with 3000 inhabitants to Pune with three million inhabitants. But it's kind of nice to be back in a city with busy narrow alleys in the old part and broad and expensive streets in the shopping area. Apparently, after three months in India I am getting used to the things here.
There is a Pizza Hut in Pune and people in Hampi had told me that you must go to the Pizza Hut in India. Every once in a while the personnel does some kind of dance there and this form of self-humiliation is a must see.
So I went to the Pizza Hut. I sat on the ground floor when I heard the music getting louder n the first floor. When I wanted to take a look it was already over. Nevertheless, the extreme client care itself is worth a visit. The manager came to my table with an ear to ear smile to ask if my pizza was alright. I said it was ok but of course we both knew better.

Mumbai (26/4/01-29/04/01)
I had to postpone my trip from Pune to Mumbai with one day because a bandh was declared and I was advised that it might not be a good idea to travel to Mumbai on that day. No problem, I could stay in Pune one more day. Much to my surprise I found out that Pune too was on strike. Nice. When I started to get hungry it was pretty hard to find a place to eat. Fortunately, I could find one in the end.

In Mumbai I was the guest of friends of my dad. I was given a very warm welcome and I could stay in an A/C apartment and a driver took me whereever I wanted to go in his car. Fact is that Mumbai with it's 15 million plus inhabitants is one big traffic jam and the most efficient way of transportation is the train. But if you can go by A/C car with driver then I'm going to go by car and not by train. Besides, it had been ages since I had been in a traffic jam.

Two girls who worked for my dad's friend were kind enough to show me a little of the city. We have covered a lot of things from the Gate of India to Juhu Beach.

One of the places we visited was Haji Ali's Mosque. This mosque is built on an island in the harbour. To reach it you have to walk along a small path that connects the island with the quay. All the way along the path beggars are sitting on each side, which make the walk to the mosque a kind of awkward. I always find it hard to see little kids selling toys. It must be hard for them to see other kids being happy when their parents buy one form them. I imagine that a Ferrari salesman must feel kind of the same but then different.
On my last night it was time for a little visit to a discotheque. And the next morning it was off to Bangkok.

And that was India. I have survived my three months stay. I must thank all family and friends for the kind hospitality and the time they took for me to let me see a side of India that I otherwise never would have seen.

India is a complex country where very beautiful and very bad things happen at the same place and at the same time. I still have not figured out what I should think about India. I guess the only way to find an answer to that is going back.



Thailand

Bangkok
Just before it started to rain I ran into a little restaurant. It had been cloudy and looking like rain all day but I had timed my sightseeing perfectly. And now I could spend the rest of the afternoon in here. I was hoping that the little cloud that CNN World Weather Report had shown above Bangkok would have disappeared when I would arrive here. The fact that it's cloudy by the way doesn't mean that it's cold.
I am staying in a guesthouse just behind Khao San Road. Khao San Road is a kind of a Backpackers themepark full of cheap guesthouses, Internet shops and bars. I have seen more backpackers here than in three months in India.
Today I have visited two major items The Grand Palace, which is very big indeed, and the Wat Pho Temple, which is big as well. Very beautiful and colourful with a lot of gold and glittery things. I admit that walking I a random direction until you come across something interesting and afterwards looking up in the Lonely Planet what you have seen isn't really the way a well prepared world traveller should visit a city. But there are so many things to see around here that it is far too much effort to find out where to go beforehand.
It's pretty busy in Bangkok (6 million inhabitants) but traffic is kind of organised and is stuck most of the time anyway. There are some very broad streets here and it's sometimes not a bad idea to make a little dash for the other side if you are crossing these streets. I discovered this when I crossed the street with some locals who suddenly started to run when traffic cam storming down from around a corner. The quality of the roads is a lot better here than in India. Therefore, traffic is a lot faster as well. Something to keep in mind.

Thailand is one of those countries where people eat everything, snakes, monkeys, bugs. I managed to find myself eating fried maggots within two days of staying in Thailand. Something I didn't really thought I would do. But I had met this guy from Holland in the guesthouse and we had joined a table with a group of locals. And they were all eating it so it was a good opportunity to give it a try. It tastes a little like peanuts but in stead of tasting it extensively I choose to flush the insect with a large gulp of my drink.
It was by the way not the first time that I was eating insects this trip. I have been eating ants in India. I didn't really have a choice then but I survived. I was on the ferry from Allepey to Kottayam. I was travelling with two guys from Germany. One of them had persuaded the captain with a cigarette that we could sit on the roof of the boat from which you have a really nice view. We had a little chat. The man was called Isaac. Now I think that's pretty cool, working on a boat when you are called Isaac. But I didn't think he had ever seen the Love Boat. A very friendly guy an d after a while he pulled out a box with crisps. Potato and tapioca crisps and a lot of tiny ants. Isaac was eating the crisps as if there were no ants at all. We stared in the box for a while and slowly started to eat. We couldn't really refuse because one minute before we had all said enthusiastically that we would like some crisps indeed and none of us could quickly come up with any reason why we suddenly couldn't eat crisps any more. Nice crisps by the way.
I have been told that they even eat cockroaches in Thailand. I'm not sure if I'll join them in eating them. But it is in fact a good way to take revenge for all those times that they uninvited walked in my room and scared the hell out of me running over my blankets.

Sometimes at night Bangkok reminded me of the movie Blade Runner. It's a great city. But it was time to move on. So I bought a ticket to Chiang Mai. An overnight train ride of twelve hours but I had heard good stories about it. And I must say that it was indeed a quite comfortable ride. You can even order a meal from a menu with three choices. That's a little better than those pathetic sandwiches the Dutch Railways sell. But I have to say that if you have a twelve hour train ride in Holland you'll end up in France.

In Chiang Mai they know what rain is too. The good thing is that after a little shower, which normally do not last longer than half an hour it always cools down pretty much and after that it's really nice outside. Same as in Bangkok there are quite a lot of temples around here. If you have seen a couple of those temples you pretty much have seen them all. It's a building with a steep roof and a golden Buddha statue inside. It's all very beautiful and all but there's not really much going on. Well, sometimes you can buy freedom for a little bird form bird sellers at some temples. That brings good luck or something. Apparently, the birds make a little round an fly right back to their tiny cages because that's were they get there food. And that's probably just as long as your newly bought good luck is going to last.
And in Chiang Mai too there are many tourists. That's probably why everything runs pretty smoothly in Chiang Mai.
I'm staying in a very cheap guesthouse. A guy I met in Bangkok recommended if to me. The guesthouse is not listed in the Lonely Planet so that's an extra bonus.

My next stop is Pai, 135 km. to the North. I have bought a newspaper because I heard there were some incidents along the Thai-Burmese border. But according to the map in the lonely Planet the fighting is a little 100 kms away from Pai so I reckon everything is fine in Pai.

Pai is a little village full of guesthouses and little restaurants. Here too are quite a few travellers but it's very quiet. It's clear that it's the end of the tourist season. Pai lies in the mountains and the three hour bus ride could have been nice if I hadn't been folded up between people and luggage all the way. But well you have to be flexible when travelling and in this bus that goes for your body as well. At the bus station in Chiang Mai everything still looked alright. All big luxurious coaches and just one tiny crappy bus. But of course the tiny crappy bus was the bus to Pai. As soon as the driver arrived all the locals rushed to the bus and squeezed themselves into the bus. A routine I thought Indians had the exclusive rights of but obviously they know how to perform it here as well. It seemed that I could stand the whole journey but the driver wanted me to fold me down on a very little piece of a bench and after that I was cemented in with all kinds of luggage. But even three hours pass by eventually.

There are some pretty trendy little tearooms in Pai that would not be out of place in any major city. For the first time since long I heard classical music again. In all my wisdom I have brought a Bob Marley tape with me. Nothing wrong with Uncle Bob's music but the hot weather-Bob Marley combi is quite obvious. You don't have to be afraid that you will return home without having heard I shot the Sheriff somewhere.

The road from Pai to Mae Hong Son, 110 km to the West, lies in a very beautiful mountain landscape. The little bus was a lot less crappy than the last one. It's a winding road and the little bags hanging from the ceiling are not meant to put your garbage in but to throw up in. I didn't feel sick at all but some young locals were more than happy to show why the bags were there.
There are a lot of tourists in Mae Hong Son, too but it's not touristy at all, which is nice for a change.
I'm now near the west border with Burma. The Wild West. This is the region where the druglords rule and where the line between police and criminals thinner is than in many other places. But for now there's little wild going on in Mae Hong Son it looks pretty relax.

One month is definitely not enough to see Thailand. And I have met a lot of longtermers. In Bangkok I met a Dutch guy who was cycling around in Thailand for seven months. Ok if that's what you like why not? There are a lot of places in Thailand where you could hang around for a couple of weeks and that's exactly why one month is not enough.
One of the things that make a stay in Thailand quite nice is the fact that the people here like a good time. According to Lonely Planet Thailand is number five on the world's alcohol consumers list and it seems that people here try hard to maintain that position. This too makes it sometimes harder to leave a place than you first thought because it is very easy to miss the morning buss this way. And in the afternoon the pub looks far more attractive than the bus stop. And slowly a little pattern emerges. And why should you leave a good place anyway? Furthermore, the guesthouse has the best shower I have ever seen in my life. Not only can you fine tune the temperature and the force of the water but it also has an Air Jet Bubble function.

You can make treks form Mae Hong Son to the surrounding mountains. Not really something I would like to do by the way. Walking over mountains and sleeping among all kinds of bugs. Some treks take you tho hill tribe villages.
One of the hill tribes around Mae Hong Son has the custom that the women wind a kind of metal string around their necks that makes it look as if they have very long necks. I saw a hill tribe girl walking on Mae Hong Son market and I must say it looks pretty bizarre.

Finally I succeeded in continuing my journey After Mae Hong Son I went to Mae Sarinag, a four hours drive to the south. The busses here are definitely made for people with Thai size bodies. But at least the room you have is so small that you cannot make any movement forward thus making seatbelts or airbags unnecessary.
In general people in Thailand drive pretty bad. Maybe there is a realion between the way people drive and believe in reincarnation. On the road people look like they are going to help the circle a little.

After Mae Sariang, I went to Mae Sot, a sic hours drive further South along the Burmese border.
The bus was due to depart at half past eight in the morning but it was not a bus that stopped at the bus stop at 8:30. It was a pick up truck with benches in the back. Slightly uncomfortable but it turned out to be an interesting ride. The mountains in this area just go on and on and every once in a while we were treated with a marvellous view.
One of the passengers was an American woman somewhere in her fifties. Her Thai companion wore a Jesus love you T-shirt. Ohoh, missionaries. Missionaries are the archenemies of the backpackers. Backpackers like to see things as they are and missionaries like to see things as they like tem to be. A clear conflict of interest. The backpackers'view is of course supported by reason but then the missionaries' view is by God.
Half way a group of man and women got in who demonstrated clearly that growing poppies is a major source of income around here. It was clear too that they had not respected the golden rule never to get high on your own supply. Stoned right out of your mind was great understatement. It cannot be nice to be sitting in the back of a pick up truck if you're that stoned. The only one of the group who was having a clear look in his eyes was the baby that was looking around with big eyes. Babies, first they just drink and drink and after that they throw up. Who do they think they are? English tourist?
Before you enter Mae Sot you pass a couple of very big refugee camps where a lot of people who fled Burma live. Apparently, it is not really nice to live in Burma.

Mae Sot is a small busy town, 10km from the Burmese border. Thailand is a very big country but it's small too. Because who do I meet in Mae Sot? The cylcing Dutch guy I met in Bangkok. Cause for a little celebration one would say. The next logical step was of course go for a little cycling tour. I rented a mountain bike and we set off to a temple somewhere out of town. The area around Mae Sot is beautiful. On one side of the valley you have the mountains of Thailand and on the other side the mountains of Burma. According to Lonely Planet there is sometimes fighting along this road and armed soldiers would patrol it. We saw none of the above. We did come across some checkpoints but the soldiers who manned it waved friendly at us from their hammocks. Of course the temple stood up a hill and we could climb a nice amount of steps. It was quite nice up the hill but when we realised that the clouds above Burma were in fact rain clouds we decided that is was time to return to Mae Sot.

After Mae Sot I spent one day in Sukothai (for some reason this ancient town is named after a StarTrek character). In Sukothai is a large historical park with all kinds of ruins. I don't think I have seen half of it in the short time I was there.
Because I had to take the morning bus to Bangkok the next day, I stayed in a hotel near the bus station. Finally I had found a place in Thailand where nobody spoke English. But with some effort a managed to get a room and a meal.

After Sukothai it was back to Bangkok from where my plane would leave for Australia. The first part of my journey has finished. In Australia I would have to start looking for a job to get my financial situation back on track. And then I have to see what my next stop will be.



AUSTRALIA

SYDNEY
Blake's
Sydney is a big city with big buildings and big broad streets. To minimize the shock comming from Thailand to Australia, I decided to stay in a backpackers near Chinatown. But it wasn't quite the same though.

The hostel where I was staying, hotel Bakpak, was a big and sterile - apart from the cockroaches - complex. It was inhabited by all kinds of people. People who were in Sydney for just a few days and wanted to see all the touristy stuff and people who had stayed in the same hostel for weeks.

The people I hung around with spent most of their time with partying hard and saying that tomorrow they would go and look for work or else travel on.
Most of the time we ended up in the Scruffy Murphy's Irish Bar just around the corner.

Pretty soon it became clear to me that this lifestyle was bad for my physique and my budget. If I changed a Traveler's cheque in Bankok I always got about eight notes in return, in Sydney three. And so I joined the choir of people who were saying that tomorrow they would really go and look for work.

By the end of the week I finally managed to get up reasonable early and to give myself a decent shave. With a fresh resume I went to the agencies.

After I had demanded a office job with at least an hour at the first agency and had begged for any kind of job at the last, it became clear to me that it's not that easy to find a job in Sydney.

Luckily I knew that Marieke, a girl I worked with in Holland, was working for Blake Dawson Waldron Lawyers for a few months at this moment. So a little telephone call and a little chat with my new boss and I had a job.
Cause for celebration. So I changed another TC for three lousy notes and hurried back to the Scruffy's.

Now I had to leave hotel Bakpak. Little chance that I would arrive on time for work regularly if I stayed there longer.
The thing with hostels is that there is always somebody ready to go out at anytime. And despite four months of hardship in Asia, I still haven't found the mental strenght to say no if somebody asks me if I want to go to the pub.
I took the first note from a notice board and after a brief inspection I took the room as well.

And then came Monday and I had to go to work. For the first time since a long - but actually a far too short - time. Now I could experience that also at the other side of the world waking up on a Monday to go to work is not nice at all.
But I always had suspected something like that.

I had had my job interview on level 38 so I took the elevator to level 38 because I assumed that that was where I was going to work. When I arrived at level 38 with excellent views of the city, David my direct boss showed me where I was going to work. So we went back to the elevators and went down to level six with no views at all.

I was now in Hai Lu's Kingdom. Hai turned out to be a very relaxed guy so it wasn't all that bad that I wasn't working with the real people upstairs. Together with Ray we had to try to keep a data room running.

I was employed as a paralegal. A paralegal is an assitant to lawyers. In fact I had the same function as the black guy from Matlock. But in everyday life it was more photocopying, filing an stuff like that than wild car chases.

Working for a lawfirm in Australia is a good oppertunity to see how an Anglosaxon juridical system works and what the differences are with the Dutch juridical system. But the best thing of this job is ofcourse Friday night drinks. Not only because it's free but also because there is a balcony on level 36 with a marvellous view of Sydney Harbour. Free drinks and a beautiful view, an unbeatable concept.

Karaoke is pretty big in Sydney. And despite any form of talent I found myself more than once in the triple 8 bar, a slightly dodgy establishment near Chinatown. But also visits to other places in Sydney made it very easy to spent my hard earned money.

Alas, the working holiday visa limits your work for the same employer to a period of three months and sooner than I thought I had to leave BDW and its balcony.


Redfern
The house I was staying in stood in Redfern. Aparently, Redfern does not have a very good name. Everytime I mentioned to a local where I was staying they would do a step back and say things like 'you better be careful'.
Me myself nver noticed anything bad. Even at the times I strolled back from the city late at night.

First I was living with Bratt and Kristy. Later Bratt went back to the UK and Ayesha joined the residence. Everybody was pretty busy busy with their own work and social life so it didn't happen that much that everybody was at home at the same time. Or it had to be on Monday nights to watch the television series The Secret Life of Us.

One night Kristy took me to the Rabbitohs Leagues Club. League Clubs are an interesting fenomena. Remotely linked to a sport or sportsclub they provide a place for elderly people to gamble on the Pokies slotmachines. And they serve dirt cheap drinks and that's where we came in. The night we went was karaoke night and for once the old folks benefited from their hearing problems.

Besides my home in Redfern I spent fuite some time on 755 George Street where Annette and Harold lived. Harold and Annette are two Dutchies I had met in hotel Bakpak.
Almost every weekend I hopped by for a nice dinner.
Not only did I get good food but they were also always ready to recall those details of previous nights out that I myself would rather not have mentioned at all.

It was also nice to speak Dutch again after a full week of only English talk. It's nice to be able to speak without thinking before you say something. Although experience has taught me that it's wise to always think before you say something.

It's by the way not only the Australians who speak English around here, there are also heaps of British and Irish around who speak some kind of English.

Clayton Utz
After a couple of weeks without work and a rapidly deteriorating financial situation I finally found some work at Clayton Utz . I could start in a paralegal team again.

Things were a bit more formal at Clutz than at Blake's. They even have a dresscode for casual Friday which makes it a casual-but-not-too-casual-Friday and you could hear people say 'Thank God its Slightly-less-formal-Friday today'.

Part of the Australian juridical process is the so called Discovery. I never really understood what it was all about.
The work we had to do was printing off page labels, get a folder and stick the pagelabels on each page of the folder. After that the legal team decided in which category the documents belonged and we had to enter this into a database. After that the lawyers decided in which category the documents really belonged and we had to amend the data base which was basically redo all the data entry.
Yes, pretty boring indeed. But as long as they paid per hour I didn't complain. Not that much anyway. I only had to make sure that no vital organs were removed from my body because they thought I was brain dead.

We were supervised and entertained by Tony, a guy with the exact same voice as Joe Pesci so I was always afraid he would hit me with a telephone some day.

Nothing better to escape the dullness of your day job than to wind some people up.
In general people with a leftwing inclination are often very easy to wind up with some pro-American remarks. Some people with a leftwing inclination in our team were very easy to wind up with some pro-American remarks.

But since winding people up gets boring too I decided to entertain everybody with some jokes. I admit that the jokes Dutch jokes I know are hardly funny but when you have to translate them real time the clue sometimes can get lost. And thus my colleagues declared me the worst joke teller in the world. No consideration for the language barrier at all.
Luckily pretty soon I could transfer my title to a cabdriver who tried to entertain us during an everlasting ride from the client. None of us had ever been that close to the point of jumping out of a car at full speed.
After this sobering experience I promised I would never tell a joke again and they said I would make a great cabdriver.

And then came the Christmas Party. The Friday night drinks at Clutz were ok despite getting kicked out at eight sharp and the lacking of a level 36 balcony. Often the night would end in wild sex and romantic spin offs. For some. For others the only rubber needed were the rubberbands we used to flick at each other. Rubberband flicking, an artform highly underrated by most modern day critics.
But the X-mas party would be the Friday night drinks to end all Friday night drinks. It was an oriental party and Rhid, Huw, Sincas and me decided to dress alike. Somehow they talked me into dressing up like Chinese drags. I still cannot recall at which point I gareed but it was definitly not the lets spent a fortune on costumes for a free night point.
On the night itself things got rather misty. Luckily there are pictures on the net to remind us all what we looked like: Sincas' Pics.

But at Clutz too I could only stay for three months so the time came to say goodbye - standing on a chair - to my new pagelabel and data entry friends and travel on to new horizons.


MELBOURNE

The Toad
After a brief visit to the Blue Mountains, a beautiful national park where when a hike is classified as hard, it is hard indeed, I went to Melbourne.
Melbourne is a lot quieter than Sydney but it has a certain charme of its own. It has Crown Casino. Open 24 hours where you can get fish and chips.

I stayed in the Toad Hall Hotel. The Toad is a hostel where management is fantically strict but where still somehow everybody stayed longer than they intended.
There was a small group of hardcore guests who had stayed there for weeks or even months. Well, not me. I was going to look for work strait away and after that look for a room. However, finding work in Melbourne seemed even harder than in Sydney. But it was the Christmas period so I wasn't too worried. At least now I could do the X-mas things like having a barbeque in the rain - apperantly it was the worst summer in Melbourne since 150 years - and go for a couple in Fluid Oz, or Bar Open as some would like to call it. The Fluid is a very dull bar but conviently located just across the street from the Toad.

At newyears eve Harold and Annette from Sydney came to Melbourne. They were on their way to Warburton, a place in the desert, to work there in a roadhouse.

The Toad has a TV-lounge which was inhabited by people like me who should be out to look for work but couldn't be asked. Besides who needs work if you have Foxtel. Still, I considered the fact that people asked me what was on TV rather than looking in the TV guide a bad sign. The fact that my bank account was having a near death experience wasn't much cause for celebration either. And just when I had decided not to go out anymore the Canadian Girls arrived, Tara and Elizabeth. Not going out was not an option anymore.

Meanwhile there was no progress on the jobmarket. You know you're unemployed when you play 4 hour games of Monopoly and have watched reruns of Gladiator for more than eight times. Not everybody was as kind harted as the Canadian Girls to support the Italian community by working in a Pizzaria for Mexican wages. Good pizzas though.

So more and more people started using the F-word. Fruitpicking. In the end the bravest of the Toad, Kevin, Simon and Andy decided to ignore all stories about fruitpicking and set off for some serious fruitpicking. Within a week Kevin and Simon returned, a bit pale of all the hardship endured, spiders, snakes and lots of fruit. Somehow Andy managed to hang on. But it was clear that I would not go fruitpicking.

I had told the people in the Toad about Harold and Annette going tho work in the desert. Doing nothing exciting myself at least I could talk about friends who do exciting stuff. And these weren't even imaginary friends.
Simon, who had been in the Toad since the British first set foot in Australia, was getting desparate to leave Melbourne and decided to call the number Harold had given me before he left. It appeard that they only took on two people at the time at the roadhouse. And after a little persuasion I agreed to go as well and leave the Toad where I somehow had stayed longer than I had intended.

The only things we knew about the roadhouse that it was in the middle of the desert near an Aboriginal community. And that it was a dry community so no Friday night drinks.