?

At home: the figures

Hours slept 7
Muffins sought 4
Reunions 2
Longest trance 0.5 days

Tiger x6

Today is the end of my holidays. I fly back with Wolverine tomorrow at 07:45hrs. Holidays have done me good. I don't want to be old, looking back at the distant Holidays
I will frame photographs and put them up around the house.

Yes, it's been good. I must stress though: I haven't done any 'soul searching.' (angry voice) and I haven't done any 'naval gazing' either. Or found spiritual- [ fade out ] ...


To be continued

High Spirits

What superstition! Prevalent across Thailand are spirit houses, built outside homes and shops to keep any resident spirits happy. They are frowned on by some because they munch through valuable real estate. This one (left) has got a job on its hands. It has to look after the spirits for an entire 18-storey building.

Also today, to take your mind off the porn look at these further snaps. Top two: a Thai cookery course. Everyone else's brew is flaming correctly whilst mine, like Mildred Hubble's in The Worst Witch, is going all wrong. Bottom: elephant riding in Chiang Mai.

NB I don't know what 'real estate' means. Are there people who say it with a straight face? I asked Richard to explain -but it was no good.

Thanks for your comments. No, it can't stay. 

Virus Control Centre#52 (Dad) ... any ideas?

Normal business to be resumed shortly

Query

Can anyone see porn on this blog?

Asia Grub Top 5

5. Vegetable mussaman - Thailand

Curried chunks of heaven

4. Apomalei - Malaysia
Translation: 'peanut cake thing.' Solves that angry early morning problem.

3. Sour and spicy noodles - Chinatown, Singapore

An orgy in a bowl

2. Fish amok - Cambodia

Baked fish chunks with coconut and local spices. Sweet, delicate.

THE WINNER

1. Penang laksa - Georgetown, Malaysia

Hot fish broth with tamarind and stuff.
Street hawker - 3 ringgit a bowl. That good I'm all confused.

Picture: Noodles on the street. Get me more!

Lao-lao

And now for Laos. Cue Remote Border Crossing #18. We reserved enough dollars to pay off the cronies.
It's all nice here. Can I stay? I could start a new clean-up program -for removal of Annoying Sex Tourists.
Today's picture: 'Excuse me? Has anyone seen Richard? I seem to have acquired some Bee Gees member -with pineapples'

Traveller's talk #2

It was 42 degrees yesterday in Hanoi. I have been exploring on a bus, admiring some buildings.
'Oh, look at these lovely buildings,' said a fellow girl traveller. 'Don't they look French?' But she didn't really know this. She was just reciting it from the Lonely Planet. I didn't know either, but I'd read the Lonely Planet too, so I agreed.
Sturdy old trees line the streets, and blossoms spill from crumbling balconies. The buildings here are unique. They don't really have floors, more just levels that appear here and there, one sometimes overlapping another, and often at odd slanting angles. When we go to eat we hunt down a cafe on some such level, so that we can perch among the leaves and watch the activity below. Motorbikes, people, people, motorbikes. Everyone is always busy. It doesn't matter which object a person may be carrying on their scooter - a herb garden, a TV... just as long as it's something, and its going somewhere.
How fat and awkward the Westerners look next to the Vietnamese!

Traveller's talk

This week: Junk boat adventures at Halong Bay, near Hanoi, North Vietnam. We had to take a boat taxi en route. I got stuck right next to the stinky engine with someone from New Jersey, and I had one of those painful dead-end conversations I keep having with Americans. I said, 'well, we got the best seats on the barge, didn't we?'
He looked at me blankly for a full minute and then said, 'yeah, but it'd make a great souvenir.' I smiled politely.
Damn these cultural differences! I must sort them out soon.