the world is not enough!!

Osho in Pune;;;;; absolutely excellent;; well I was the only one laughing watching the video in the meditation center.. the interviews:: " I found joy in my life after having been to the center// Osho oppened my mind..." and you them all dancing with the red or white outfit like devish turners.; Well in theory I have got no problem with people bielieving in whatever they want // my only issue with this is that the center was the most wealthy place in India : you could smell the money this corporation was stealing from the poor spiritually lost people,,, and it was somehow terifying. I left Puna straight after to reach Aurangabad. From there I could access the sites of Ajanta and Ellora easily. Ajanta and Ellora are two site of each more than 30 temples caves dug in the rocks,, each temple is monolitic.. Once again I was blown away by the beauty of these sites. I spent an awful night in a bus to reach Ahmedabad (Gandhi's city...) and the following night I took the night train to Udaipur. I arrived abslutely naked// you can imagine!! Udaipur is a splendide calm(for india) city with palaces in the lake. the lake palace was used in Octopussy (... james oh james). In Udaipur, a sort of weird miracle happened.::: I saw in the morning on facebook that one of my best and first fiend was in India for hollidays with his fiancee.. I was quite upset because he didn't inform me about it ;;; well I think he forgot I was at that time in India......Anyway as I did a boat trip on the lake, I saw a boat with a couple on it and their figure looked familiar although it was almost impossible to be them. Just to double check I went to see if it was them;;;; and I can still see the uncomposed face of mon Gabs and his Steff recognising me.... hahaha unbeleivable!! I shall be the best man in a few months time for their wedding... I planned before to go to a yoga class but of course we changed that for a nice happy beer.;;; what a joy!!! As if it wouldn't be enough, their travelling plan was just the exact same as mine;; Jaipur , Delhi and bye. In Jaipur, thanks to some great connections I got to have lunch with the Maharaja of Jaipur heheheh yeyeye. Today I am in Delhi with my friends for the ultimate day of the trip// tomorrow I'll be in London.
This trip was absolutely amazing, I have learnt a lot and understood a lot more about our world. It was fantastic and I can only recommend it to anyone. I met people of every age during the past 7 months; so everyone can do it at any time, and I really wish you to do such a journey once in your lifetime. Actually you all traveled with me along side, I always thought of you my friends,, when I laughed about something it is because I imagine you are with me seeing the situation and we laugh together. When I see amazing parts of the world, I think of how I would love to share this moment with you and that is why I wrote on this blog. These 7 months were the most intense of my life and I hope you enjoyed the reading, and that I managed to free you for some moment of the routine with each reading. Thanks a lot to the travel joiners who came for a few days or weeks heheh: mister Gil, Dad and Mam, misters Robi and Bi, Miss Nat, Mister Gabs and Miss Steff. and all the one who I met during the travel and I had amazing fun wih.
A yaer ago I flew off to London the same as tonight;; I'll stay there for a week before taking the eurostar for ze big come back and a nice nice very nice party there. So I will see most of you very soon. And for the others ;;; well I love so much to travel that I'll as well you soon hehe.
read me, see ya there

Ultimate India!!!

What a slogan;;; it is the slogan of india/// but it is so true ;; it is ultimate. I went the following day to Fatepur Sikri and Agra to see zzze 'Taj'. I met some people who told me I could see it from the back and that it was pretty much the same so that I would save the entrance fee blablabla... heuuu no // it is not the same, I paid to enter and see the beauty from very close; and I definitely did right. The Taj Mahal is the grave of the wife of a Mogohl king,, like a pyramid of Egypt in some ways, but what a building, the simplicity of the architecture and the complexity of the wall elements make it a wonder from near as from far. Lovely!! << even a bit more then that.
It is in Agra that I developed the BRST 'Boris Rickshaw Scam Technique';; there you go:: you agree on a price with a rickshaw let us say 80 roupies to go somewhere; then you tell him 'I pay half price if you bring me to a shop (where he gets his commission) just for looking not buying, then he agrees, then you say you bring me in two shops and I get the ride for free/// and it works; so pretty much all my rickshaw rides are for free now I only need to spend 10 minutes in various shops looking not really interested by the fake stones or the fake pachmina challs etc. It always works!! It is important to always agree on one shop then a second one otherwise they always want three shops > and that is too much time 30 min/// Anyway, I then went to Delhi see the Indian Gate and others Delhi specials and took the plane to Bangalore where I met Natacha Ben's girlfriend (one of my very good french mate). We traveled together for the next 2 weeks and had lots of fun. In Bangalore, I tried to get some web contacts and did a bit but I'll go to some more firms in Pune and Delhi later on. We headed to Hampi;; a surreal place it looks fake !! temples spread out between massive stones, beautiful light, shaved women who give their hair to the gods etc. absolutely unique. We rented a motorbike << well it was more a motor on a bike but it was gorgeous::: I was singing to myself 'born to be wild' and had all the flashback of last year while I was traveling in Europe. After Hampi we arrived in Badami to see the temples in caves;;; that was of course amazing one more time// but the most appealing thing there was the shooting of a Boolywood movie;;; hahah what a laugh to see these indian boys band dancing all together: some of them were to small and were walking on their pants but they still were the stars heheh. We managed to speak to the main singer ''Sandy"// a real nice bloke actually he said:"me too it makes me laugh these movements but it is my job"...
The following day we were meant to take the direct bus to Goa at 6.30 am...> ok buses in India are not exactly punctual or good or anything... We waited until 8.30 am for the direct bus and then decided to take another bus with a change. At 9.30 we were still in the bus station so we decided to take a rickshaw to go to the next bus station and hope to get a bus from there.... At the end of the day; we took 3 buses and 4 rickshaws to arrive to Panjim in Goa/// ultimate India my friends heheh ///Goa Goa;; I thought everyone spoke Portuguese there and that I would be able to communicate easily, but actually, only very few old people still peak portuguese/// let us say I didn't impress the ladies ... the beaches were extremely dirty and with thousands of dead fish so the ultimate swimming was pretty little. We were looking for some good old 'trance Goa' and saw some rests of hippies and weirdweirdweird people, like this Iranian girl almost naked on the beach with piercing and tatoos everywhere as well as pink make up like American Indians on the face, who couldn't say a word because of the drugs at noon// apparently she was DJ on the beach.... (un)fortunately we didn't stay to listen to her set... This time we rented a greater motorbike and did quite a ride for 2 days exploring the different places and beaches of Goa. We went clubbing of course but it was rather soft compared to the reputation of Goa.
2 days ago we arrived in Mumbay, with one thing in mind Boollywood!!! People told us that westerners were often casted to be extras in movies.... and and::: of course they casted us!! hehe watch out my friend we are now Bollywood stars! The film will be called 'Bhavanraa' not too sure of went it will be out but I will definitely try to get a copy. My git what a funny experience! they gave us some cloths to wear::: the guy saw ma and gave me a pink girl top,,, very slightly far too small for me and a flower necklace hahahaha a beauty. The actors were awfully bad and we had to jump for each camera movement about 15 times as they newer got it right. Anyway, unforgettable I met a French with who we had good fun; we shall be creating a group on facebook for tourist extras in Boollywood;; lots of funny picts. Tomorrow I'll go to Pune to see some more firms. Pune is the city of the guru Osho... let see the strength of sect.
sa ya , read me there.

Back to Indiaaa

Breaking News!!!! thanks a lot everyone I am proud of you!, thanks to your votes, Prashant won and all Nepal twisted into a great partyland a pitty I can't see him live! Annapurna was undescribable;; it is by far the best treck I have ever done. The stunning landscape is constantly changing over the few days and you go from beautie to beauties. I made sure this time to have a guide who could follow me ,,,, but unfortunately even if he was much better I still had to wait regularly. I found out what big legs are good for: for running in Mountain. The guide had never seen anyone like that and wants me to do the Eversest marathon on the 29th of May hahah. one day we have been liturally running down and we did a 7 hours ttreck in 3..... well good fun on the day but the day after the legs were gone!! this guide was really cool. he was singing and playing the flute none stop while treking, so I am pretty aware now of what is Nepali music,,,, at the end I couldn't hear it anymore but it had some folkloric taste. On the last day we went riding horses ( the first time for me) hahaha I thought it would be really relaxing >>>> well not really/// god it is a hard sport!! After a few local raksi (local alkohol) my guide and the horse guy were absolutely wasted and as the explanations were in Nepali, I didn't completly understand the subtilities of speed riding and got a massive butt irritation, which was not really great for the bus the following day...... Anyway Annapurna was great! and I went after to a Safari in the Chitwan national Park. The only little problem was the moonsoon rain again;;; when it rains the animals hide like humans << not stupid those animal,,,, so why did I go anyway?? to get wet really.. after a few tries we finally got to see a Rhino and a tiger......footprint,, still it was great fun. Back to India,, and to none stop scaming operations. I landed in Varanasi (Benares) and it was fabulous. Here comes a nice story: as every good tourist I went in the early morning on a boat to see the people bathing in the Ganges and do other religious practices. I was comfortably sitting on the boat when something punched me big time on the back. "what was that?" I turned my head to my back and almost felt of the boat realising that I had a bird shit abou the size of a tennis ball on my back,, I looked up:: it was an eagle!! Do you think it is a good sign? Anyway after a few minutes of cleaning in the Ganges( my shirt not me) I decided that it was unfair that the rower of the boat was only 14 and really skinny and that the big boy me was sitting watching him;;; so I told him I would do the rowing..... Well I am not too sure of my technic and I might have to leave out the oxford Cambridge competition this year as instead of going anywhere we started doing very gentle circles... oh my god!! hilarious. Tourists from other boats seeing me suddenly thought it was really cool to row and to get pictures of themselves rowing on the Ganges/// I couldn't believe it I launched a new trend! Today I arrived in a great and mystic place:: Kajuraho.... Temples a bit like in Bagan but with KamaSutra sculpture on them facinating, an open book!!! I enjoyed a lot the idea that there was once a religion that was based on pleasure// a good change for once. Tomorrow Agra and the Taj Mahal.
sa ya, read me there

Vote for Prashant!! 52525

There we go, finally in the night train with Robi and Alexis direction Darjeeling, hoping for a bit of more relaxed time after the crazyness of Kolkata... In the train I think of all the good and the bad time I had with my computer which died a few hours earlier after fantastic services during the past 4 years. Suddenly, we see every passenger giving some money to two travestites who where sort of begging down the coach..... what ???// that is really strange// earlier on in the day another travestite tried to pickpocket me pretty aggressively/// what is going on in this country the ladyboy are rather strong;;; we finally got the explanation. In india, they are a sect and the throw the bad eye to who doesn't give them money, and apparently it is a great business to be travestite in here, it is like the mafia every single one in the train/// appart from us three /// gave them money.... Normal in India is just different. Once in New Jaipa... can't remember the end of the name let us say Siliguri, we took a jeep to Darjeeling. Some people said we were meant to be abovee the clouds ,,,, well we have been "in the clouds!!! oh my god!!
We were meant to see amazing landscape of the Himalaya, and we saw winter, white everything white.... so we spent most of the days eating momos (local dish).... one night, as we were coming out of a retaurant (basically after 3 kilos of momos) we suddenly heard a massive crowd singing and dancing coming up the hill. A really emotional image like the end of a war or somethinglike that, of course we joined and started yelling some phonetically closed sounds as the crowd and dancing with the people. We asked a few people what it was but it took long to understand as the reaon so crazy was>>>" it is for Prashant !!, Prashant he is in final!! youpi! " Prashant is noone else than a policeman from Darjeeling who is now in final of Idian Idol the singing contest/// and that is the reason for the crazyness. In the morning, every house had a poster for supporting Prashant, mentioned the name to anyone and you will get a shiny smile. Prashant is a national hero; funds were collected from everywhere to send sms to vote for him. To help him to win you too you can send an sms to 52525 ( you probabaly need the indian code first). WE spent money to support the boy and felt part of his success. Facinating! After the crazy party we decided to go on a trek for a few days to see the amazing mountains/// once again not much chance there. But the money was well spent // we had the crappest guide on earth to guide us..>> his name was pretan and I can only derecommend him from all my strength. Pretan looks white but speaks Nepali; he has 5 rings on each hand and has this skill of being able to speak about 10 words per second for hours without breathing but only in Nepali...... in english during the trek, he was mute. To start with, we were on a jeep for 5 hours where we thought we'd have a private one/// ononono we were 25 on a jeep where in Europe you would fit 10 persons max:: 18 inside + 7 on the roof. As the locals are not used to cars, Alexis had to hold the old lady adn her daughter who vomited the food they ate during the last year for 5 hours so that they wouldn't fall of the jeep. As you would have understood it, we were happy to walk after this long time in the jeep. And we soon understood something:: Pretan and his Sherpa were not good walkers!! and we had to wait for them all the time:: as soon as the way was going up, we would lose them and we had to wait for them each time there was a crossing in order to know where to go. At night the highlight was to eat some Yak and drink some undrinkable alcoohol, which name I can't remember, listening to the fashist arguments of Pretan...... lovely! Anyway I had a great time with the two frenchies who came along. and we even got to see the mountains on the last day at 6.34 in the morning as the owner of the hotel still brushing its teeth woke the whole hotel up so that his clients could finally see the mountains;;; he did well, 15 min later the clouds went back on stage..... After Darjeeling I made my way (alone,,, it had been a month I have been travelling parents and friends) to Nepal to reach Kathmandu. In the bus, we got stoped very often ( I think by the maoists rebels but I am not sure::: there was plenty of marches adn aggressive slogans...... indeed there are elections in about 2 months and I think that the pressure grows);;; and I was dead scared when we were turning right, I am pretty sure that the metal was touching the wheel, it was very loud but noone cared...... Anyway, I made it to Kathmandu, which is such a weird city... the roads are in mudd but the shops and other thing look really wealthy. Some Hippies here and there, but mostly rich tourist eager to start fantastic treks with their brand new fake "The North Face" material.... And guess what:::: I am going tomorrow rafting and then trekking around the "Annapurna" above 8000 meters (well not the trek);;; after that the plan is to go for a Safari to see Rhinoceros and tigers on elephants back in Chintaw before going back to India to Benares.
Saya, read me there!!

the bourne Identity

27,,,, I am 27.. what an old boy! is the first thought I had when I woke up in the middle of the forrest. As I mentioned in the last post, for my birthday, I was experiencing the Gibbon experience: you go for three days in the jungle trecking in the mud and sleeping in treehouses in order to see some wild gibbons. Well to be honest, we didn' t see any but we heard them at 5 in the morning and went chasing them a good hour; and unfortunately we were unlucky. Not a big deal, we saw loads of other massive insects and one snake. but the most amazing part of the experience was the zipping system::: to go from one treehouse to the other you zip you litterqlly fly from one to the other it is hqrd to describe, you roll on a cable and ziiiiiip. great great great but really hard trecks the last day we walked for 8.5 hours in the mud and I got sucked by around ten leechies/// little bastards I hate them§!!. I met the people who started the project and as the boss was french we got on pretty well. I staid one more day to work for them and create a map of the area with all the zip cables and so on. I got paid with food and a T-shirt heheh so if you happen to go there once and see a map you'll know the designer. after that I quit Laos and went quickly through Thailand to get my plane from Bangkok to Yangon. In Yangon I met my parents who I hadn't seen for 10 months,,, quite an emotion!! To get in Yangon I did in Hanoi my visa, but as they didn't have all the details they needed to process it, they invented my life hahaha I felt like Jason Bourne in The bourne Identity::// there you go I live in Zurich but I can't remember the exqct adress. I am 1.72m tall, I work as a marketing consultant for marketing Zurich ltd. and I have black hair hahahah 1.72m // yeh right not too sure about that one anyway, passing the border check I bent my knees and hoped everything would be fine. ... ouf thank the lord I went through. then I had two weeks of a different lifestyle with my parents heheh more palace then crap hostel; so my vision of Myanmar was pertty different then the way I see places normally in this trip. It was grest as a break and the people are ssoooo nice there;; great country with amazing places like Bagan or Inle lake. Well It looks like the things are changing there now and we can only hope for these poor people. After Myanlar I flew off to India to Kolkata where I met this old mate of mine The Robi.heheh quel bonheur!! India is just a different world!! It is so funny in particular the moves with the head that people do to say, yes, no, maybe;;; it is like a dance I love it. tonight we are going to Darjeeling but my computeris pissing me offffffff!! anyway
saya red me there

you buy from me?? you promess

Get the number! get the number!! was Jono (the Irish) telling me, as the bus which just crashed us flew off... Yes Vietnam is famous for the bus crashes and as part of the trip, our bus was involved in a nice one. It must have been around three in the morning on the bus journey between Hue and Hanoi. Jono had is sleeping mask on and most of the bus was asleep. We entered a dangerous curve with a white line (don't overtake) separating the sides of the road.... behind us arrived a bus full of really weird guy like pirates:: their driver decided to overtake of course.... at the same time on the other side of the road we see a massive truck coming>>> so instead of braking and not fully complete the overtaking process, the pirate driver made some signs with the hand to tell our driver to drive off in the ditch.... yeh right bangggg on the side >> the whole wing of our bus was gone, but noone was hurt. As we went off the bus to get some explanation from the artist, the guys from the pirate bus grabbed metal sticks and screwdrivers pointing them at us as they started the motor before fleeing. That is the moment when we had to write quickly down the number of the bus,,, We then had to wait for a good 1.5 hours for the police <<< but that wasn't disappointing << after 1.5 hours then arrived one policeman on a scooter hahahah! we couldn't believe it,,, just surreel. Anyway the positive thing of the experience was that I got to know everyone on the bus and I met two swiss on the 1st of August (I am traveling as a swiss dueing this trip and it is our national day) so we had a few crisp to celebrate.
Every tourist traveling from north to south in Vietnam told me that the famous Halong Bay experience was completely ruined by the crowd of tourists around and that they would have thought twice if they would have known blablabla.... Well, that is a lie!!! Halong Bay is just hoooooo so many tourist aaaaaaa, ooooo woaaaaaaow look iiiiiii uuuu my git !! wowowowowowo heeeeeee look there woaaaaawwwww........absolutely amazing. It is true that when you first arrive there and you see the crowd you get shoked and that when you jump on a boat, the amount of boats going in the same direction makes you think of the pictures of the D day when the americans and the english landed in Normandie. But there are enough islands to hide all these boats and the landscape just blow you off!! It is a place to propose someone !! After that we went to the next biggest attraction in north Vietnam::: Sapa. And once again that was full of tourist but really splendid,, I had the impression of being in a geography book on the chapter on rice fields in south east Asia. During your treck in the mountain there are always little girls from various local hill tribes following you there in general they are (black hmong) and they are trying to sell you some bracelet or bags or whatever,, 'you buy from me, you promess', the difference with others is that they follow you the whole treck so if you do a one day treck they will be one day with you maybe 5 of them just a few meters behind, they ask you but a really gentle and cute way so that everyone buys from them... These people have nothing but they look happy. That is probably the most important thing I have noticed during this trip: you don't have to be rich to be happy and actually, a lot of poor people are much happier than rich ones... So I really enjoyed north VietNam although it is extremely touristy.
After this, I went back to Hanoi to pick up my visa for Myanmar and get a flight the day after to Vientenne the capital of Laos... but as often the visa wasn't ready on time and I had to change my flight for a flight going to Luang Prabang (Laos as well), which was shit because I wouldn't have time to go to Vientenne anymore bouhouhouhou. Laos is coool,,, it is a big calm after the hectic Vietnam. so laid back and beautiful mountains are everywhere covered by green forrest blankets and separated by the curves of the Mekong. A fantastic place for meditation, a pity I don't do any!! I went to the different temples and chatted to some of the monks::: that is really interesting >> as in other south east Asian countries, every elder of a family can be monk for a few years, this way, they get some free education, but when you speak to them they are just like normal young people wanting to learn computing and english, they say swear words without problems and have no tabou, From Luang Prabang I tool the bus to Vien Vang to go tubing!!! and that is really cool!! they drop you in a river with a tube and you let the currant get you down. Normally it takes about 1 hour to get down bur there are a few bars where you can stop in between with big swings to jump in the river. I met a french bloke and we did the tubing in about six hours......... yeye at the end the jumps on the swings were not all very glorious..... but it was a really good fun afternoon.
I am now on my way to the 'Gibbon experience' at the border with Thailand>> everyone I met told me they had a great time doing it,, it is basically being in treehouses for three days at 30 meters above the ground trying to watch some monkeys,,,,, well I'll tell you all about it after,,, it'd better be good as I will spend my birthday there * the 18th of August just in case *
sa ya,
read me there.

piiiiip tuuuuuut tuuut

It is stronger than what you see, 24/7 in Viet Nam you hear horn of scooter trucks cars and buses!!! It is incredible none stop. The reason for it is simple: they do not use rearview mirrors nor indicators, so the only way to know the presence of a vehicle behind is to listen to its harmonious 'horning'// Xin chau!! There you go, I am in Viet Nam, and this country has really little in common with Cambodia.... We arrived in Ho chi Minh or Saigon as a start to discover a new world;;; Ho chi minh is facinating it is the exact picture of a city developping economically at an enormous speed in a chaotic way, where the state seems to lose slightly the control, buildings grow around like mushrooms, over 3 millions scooter fly like mousquitos in the streets with no traffic light to organise the jam. On the first day I almost got killed 4 times just trying to cross the big avenues running and stopping to avoid the scooters!! a bit stressful/// but thanks to an email from my uncle I managed the next day to have no problem anymore when crossing::: the technic is to walk slowly but with constant speed, this way, the scooters can anticipate your movement and avoid you without any problem;;; sometimes you see old granies like 90 years old crossing this way peacefully while you start praying for her<<.
How strange it is to see this city and its economical development and at the same time the flag ( a yellow star on a red flag), or other flags showing the sickle and the hammer. The contrast is absurd and finds its meaning in the history of the country of course. It is thank to the communists that Viet Nam is a free nation:: So the communist leader Ho Chi Minh is a national hero even if the whole political and economical systems celebrate every second capitalism. In Saigon I visited the war museum and saw all the atrocities the french and then the americans did to the people of this country, that was awful, I don't think I will ever be able to understand war.... but that is just me.... Anyway after a few days of intense cultural visits we went ( I am still travelling with Jono the irish) to a waterland:::: at the entrance we bursted laughing seeing the crowd going to the park,,,, the oldest one were maybe 11!! hahahah well it was fun inside anyway... no comments..
After that we left Saigon to go to the north and stoped first at Nah Trang.>> I was meant to stay there only one day but as we arrived and saw the diving possibilities for soooo cheap,,, I finally ended up staying 4 days to do my SSI advanced course and to admire the underwaterworld. Absolutely beautiful!! and I felt a bit of narcosis (like a little buz from alcohol you get when diving deep because of the azote in your blood) at 32 meters,,, really cool I loved it!! I can only recommend it to everyone... it made me even think of the possibility of becoming divemaster;; because that is a pretty nice job isn't it??
The next stop on the north ride to Hanoi was Hoi an, a beautiful city on the cost with fantastic beaches, and amazing taylors:::: yes yes very cheap taylor mean I had to let them make me a suit, but as they could basically do anything you want from Hugo Boss to Channel or copy any style>>> I decided to design my own suit and shirt heheheheheh. I designed an asymetrical suit with a colar on one side only hihi and it is longer on one side than the other with chinese buttons::::>>> I really enjoyed the process and the result is not too bad// I'll show you when I'll be back! it is good fun!!...
We arrived today in Hue and will take the night bus tomorrow for Hanoi as I am a bit on a time pressure now with the time I used for diving etc. I hope I will still be able to see everything I wish in Viet Nam as north Viet Nam is supposed to be amazing, but it might be tricky.
Hanoi, sa ya
read me there

Angkor toujours

haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I just lost a massive post,,, blooody hell I am pissed off////
Anyway, how many people do you think fit on a scooter?? nono my friend /// ijn Cambodia you can put up to 6 people haha,, or you can put a living pig on its back or a bed or a full kitchen hahaha. I love it I could make a photo series just on them.
I arrived on battambamg for my first day in Cambodia and went to visit the 3 main temples around on a bike with a really cool driver, who was jealous of my beard as everyone would look at me and mime the beard on their face before laughing like mad...> big successs I tell ya. Cambodians are really specials, always friendly and happy ( well that how they look like anyway) and they can speak about the khmer rouge with no emotions. Nip my bike driver, told me about his killed parents as he was 7 as if he would tell me that it might rain tomorrow.... Tragedy is everywhere it is surrounding you in Cambodia. You lose happyness when the kids guiding you through the temples explain you what happened in this school or this temple 30 years ago:: "'you walk on bodies, if you were working to slow because you havn't eaten for a week, they would kill you'',,,, you start realizing and get some nausea watching the sites... money is missing,,,,, the places are in a rough state, it is truly disturbing!!
After that I went back to Battambang on a bamboo train,,, and that was reallyyyy cool not comfi though... a bamboo train is made of 2 pairs of wheels one board of bamboo, one external motor and a rope to link the motor to the wheels. They build them and unbuild them as needed.. there is of course only one rail so if someone is coming in the other direction one needs to unbuid it really quickly before the collision/// hahah great fun. The day after I went to a cooking class as a good frenchman.... epa interesting to see the teacher buy the food from the market::: are you sure you want to buy that beef with all the flies??>> yeye no prob... ok chef. We cooked an Amok, a lok lak and a soup:: I was the only student who finished all his meals ... yeh no comments ///it is not me// after that as I was a bit hungy I went to a special market to eat some snake hahaha... that was a great market from far it looked like various fruit and vegetables,,, from close it was frogs, grasshoper, cockroach and snake/ you can imagine the size of my smile,, hihi delicious!!
Teh following day it was time to reach the highlight of Cambodia >> Siem reap the base to reach the amazing Angkor Wat!!! I took the river boat and met on board and english girl 'Marion' and an irish guy 'Jono' who were the base of the Cambodia travel team. Cambodians have really shit boat direction technology,, to turn they use 2 strings pulling onto the propeler,,, yeh right we ended up crashing into the riverside at each curve and got a few braches in our face,, but always good vibes, it is part of the trip!!
Finally, we arrived in Siem Reap and got ready the following day to go to the marvelous Angkor Wat... first day for the sunset unically,,, and we started to understand what ''they talkin abou''', it was hard to go out of the river of tourists everywhere but as soon as the stream was gone >> splendide!! We went to 4 of the main temples out of hundreds. The temple of the women with its raffined hand work of the 10th century, Byron with its massive faces sculpted in the stones, Ta prohm the tomb raider temple... imagine Angelina Jolie walking hahahah// well taht temple is gorgeous as it has been left in the state it was when it had been discovered there are trees everywhere it has got the adventure factor to it wowuououw. and of course Angkor Wat the biggest religious building in the world///// fabulous!! a few hundreds pictures later I was absolutely nacked!!
After that we went to a complete different region in Cambodia:: Ratanak Kiri to explore the nature side. Krati on the way to see the river dolphins :: they are really weird, round faces, they look like hypopotamus.. and then Bunlung, final destination. In bunlung there was no ATM so we had to srvive on the dollars we brought with us,, it was really short when I had to pay everything I had eaten but we made it. There we did an unforgetable day :: elephant treck!!! waterfalls, and volcanic lake. Elephants are soooo cool... not really fast I must say as they stop every 10 seconds to eat on the way, but so elegant and controled. at the start I thought I would get sick as it feels like on a crazy boat going fron left to right but as it stops ll the time no prob. It was amazing because we were the only ones going through the forest,, following the path << I am jocking Elephant make their own path through bush rivers etc. nothing stops them.. loved it!! After this long day I had to get a massage of course...heheheh and I had by far the most amusing one! I entered a random wooden house where a shield 'massa' was written. no english was spoken so the communication was a bit difficult with this old women without teeth... anyway, I laid down and she started, as she was doing my leg, a man started doing my back and the little brother wanted to do it as well, so she told him to try my other leg,,,, I had soon the whole family on my back, laughing in Kmher, with the grandma taking piss on me what a laugh but not really relaxing, the child was just doing everything wrong on my poor leg and I couldn't say anything// god what an experience // genious!
We went afterwards south to the Capital Phnom Penh or Ping pong as I call it because I always forgot the name and we went today to see some more horors of the Khmer Rouge s21 and the killing fields;;; you get goose bumps from the horror, everyone is silent watching the classrooms were the tortures were commited or watching the trees with still bullet marks or knifes cut on their trunk... very hard for the nerves. Tomorrow I should go to see the grand Palace and other things more joyful,,, in two days I am crossing the border to discover Viet Nam..
Saigon Ho chi minh, sa ya
read me there

14 juillet:::: national day!!!

Suite aux plaintes exprimées récemment par plusieurs membres de ma famille de n'´écrire ce blog dqns une langue qui n'est pas ma langue maternelle, me voilå amené å faire un petit paragraphe en français, la date du 14 juillet s'y prêtant parfaitement. Aprës les merveilles d'Angkor Wat (que je ne manquerai pas de depeindre prochainement), me voilå aujourd'hui rendu dans un endroit bien moins touristique:: la région de Ratanak Kiri. Cet endroit paradisiaque se trouve au nord du Cambodge et n'est accessible que par une route (enfin plutøt un chemin) en terre que le bus empreinte pour une bonne période de 6 heures dans la boue, la gadoue. Mais cela en vaut la peine, c'est formidable, les cambodgiens sont vraiment trës accueillant, toujours souriant et relax, et la nature aux alentours est splendide>> le vert des champs de riz, le rouge de la route, le ciel qui varie d'un bleu intense au noir des nuages chargés de pluie de mousson, le brun des riviëres,,,la poésie des karaokes (hahahah). Hier, la journée a commencé par une expérience inoubliable>> ballade de 2 heures å dos d'éléphant!!!/// ils ne sont pas rapides, mais tellement élégants et sereints, chaque pas est maîtrisé et posé avec calme. L'unique son qui émane est celui de leur trompe arrachant des feuilles toutes les 10 secondes pour se rassasier. Sur le chemin, comme partout au Cambodge tous les enfants font des signes de la main en criant avec un large sourire: "hellooooo", c'est três sympathique; j'ai même vu une mëre apprendre å son bébé
å faire hello aux touristes, on se sent bienvenu/// hahah quand je pense aux étrangers qui viennent en France, ce serait tellement inimaginable mais rigolo de voir les gens dans la rue faire des signes en criant "hello",,, hahah ce serait génial!!. Aujourd'hui c'est le 14,,, notre fête nationale, et en ce pays ancienne colonie française je ne chante pas la marseillaise haut et fort mais la freudonne doucement;;; je regarderai ce soir le resumé du tour avec une pensée émue. Voilå pour la session "french". A bientôt.

bangkombodia

Finally Bangkok after a long bus trip watching films translated in Thai and some crazy karaoke that the whole bus was following appart from me, that was fun everyone was singing very low, so you could see the lips of the people singing watching the videos of couples of singers walking in a supermarket or other interesting scenarios.... I arrived under a very strong monsoon rain and decided to take a taxi to reach Koh san road tourist street of Bangkok::on the map it looked really walking distance>>> well that is where I understood that Bangkok is reaaallly big >> it was definitely not walking distance it was extremely far;; I loved it because the taxi driver didn't speak any word of english so he was explaining me everything in Thai,,, difficult communication so I replied with a few 'crap' hazardly spoken and silent smiles. Bangkok, is a dense city pretty aggressive;; polution, population;;; but still a very interesting mix. It is easy to get lost in different areas and have some local food the way the locals have it //////// do you think you know what spicy food is?? well I'll bring you to a place to get a real dragon throat..... oh my godddd....>>> fire out of my mouth and water out of my eyes""'fantastic. There are some amazing temples::like the equivalent to the vatican for thai buddhist: Wat Phra Kaeo ;;; I start to understand a bit more of buddhism, it is passionnating.. I went properly out to beds superclubs in a tuktuk [ three wheels motorbikes],, which of course tried to bring us to another place he brought us in the middle of nowhere in a dark street in front of a prostituts bar and said: "it is here".. superpub .... yeh right my friend..... that is the moment were you know you need to get out of the street, but you know as well this tuktuk is your only hope to get out/// so you have to use a lot of diplomatie to make sure the driver is not calling his friend to organise you a surprise party... after 20 mins of long explanations we finally aggred to pay him another 20 baths [ he wanted 200 more] and he finally got us there. The club was nice very beautifully designed but a bit expensive coinsidering it was closing at 2 in the morning... at some point the guy who I met in the hotel who came with me disappeared and I never found him again,,, hope he is fine;;; but I met a group of french and went to an after party in an apparently illegal underground club::: very good fun.
After a few days I left for a new country >>> cambodia.... youhouhouho. I wanted to first go to Battambang before Siem Reap in order to see other temples before Angkor wat.... The minivan pikked me up at 6.40 in the morning in my hotel.... at 8, we were still in Bangkok picking up some other people,,, I had a ticket from Bangkok to Poipet at the border,,,, around 12 we arrived at a cafe where we were meant to make our visas,,,, but that is not the border is it??? nono the border is about 10 km from here>> you have to take a scooter with your backpack and my two other bagsto go somewhere else to get a tuk tuk and of course I had to pay the two different drivers yehyehe..... then I had loads of propositions to make my visa but decided to make it myself at the border and that was a very good decision [I ended up saving some money and beeing faster than the others waiting for their visas ::::: youhouhouhou]] at the border I met two americans who explained me that they were wortking for a NGO helping children when they returned from prostitution to get another job.... apparently, everyday trucks filled with children from 4 to 12 years old cross the border from Cambodge to go to Thailand to please the sex tourism [sold by their parents or uncles or neighbours]... the stories horrified me and I understood that Cambodia was a bit poorer than thailand.... Indeed,,, I always wondered how it would be to drive a car on the moon or on mars; well now I know;;;; the roads in Cambodia are like potatoes fields.... the highway is a departemental road.... I think this country is the poorest I have been so far in this trip. It beats Bolivia. Anyway, I got droped in a weard bus station, but :: nono today no bus ... only in the morning.... only taxi.... hahah how many people can you put in a small toyota... >>>>wrong,, 3 at the front and 5 at the back,, so I was with four others at the back for three hours,,, all very friendly but noone spoke any of the language I speak .... there was this girl next to me who kept on looking at me a [white boy with a beard]]] that is something pretty strange for them I understood afterwards,,, when I looked at her she did some bizarre faces which I interpreted as smiles.... very funny all her gesture were very spontan not at alll lioke what I am used to normally in our society everything is so controlled. It was great to see. After a while I felt good in this car I suddenly had this coccon feeling and did a nap probably on the shoulder of the man next to me...hahah anyway I finally arrived in Battambang... PS:::: ououhouh I forgot an important detail in Bangkok,,,, the day before leaving, I was exhausted and I decided to do one more massage,,, I went in a salon,,, foot massage of course follow me I arrived and it wa a ladyboy to make the massage haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.... I was so glad I said foot massagea and not full body oh my god.... but even foot massage::: there is always a bit of legs massage and they come pretty high,,, I couldn't relax at all I let you imagine...hahahahah.. Anyway I liked Bangkok and I'll be back in August for a few days before flying to Myanmar.
Cambodia,, sa ya, read me there

crap crap craaaaap

'craaap' is the first you learn when you are a man arriving in Thailand// not because it is crap, but that the way of being polite, whatever the person tells you you just answer with 'craaaaap'. swa dii craap, kap kuhn craap // that is about how much I can say in Thai/// but that is enough::: Thai people are really funny, they all are very friendly with big smile and they have and amazing sense of humor. They take a piss of tourists and laugh at them,,, I think it is fantastic, for instance they would sell you a tour to see waterfalls and tell you to take sunscreen laughing like mad because they know it will rain.. or giving some weird reasons why you should pay more .. generally I laugh with them you know it is a rip of but if it is done with a smile you accept it, a bit like in Brazil. And to explain you that their tour is better or their t-shirts are better they use this sentence "same same but different", or for justifying a price " no money, no honey " ,, but it is so much nicer to be ripped of with a smile. no bad surprises! I met Gil again after a week of travel alone in Krabi> harbour to go to the marvelous Koh Phi phi. waow:: now you are talking!! that is the Thailand as you imagine it >> crazy landscapes dark rocks like sculpted, christal clear water, coconuts, white sand etc. On the boat we met Shauna a great canadian girl, who traveled with us for a short week. She taught us that every canadian traveler has got its flag on the bag to not be mistaken with americans hehe as well as some new english words like vicarious '' still not sure how and when to use it '' we had great fun. Koh Phi Phi was spectacular.. I killed a few sharks on Koh Phi Phi Lay like Leo Di Cap in the beach,,, but the pictures were too dark we had to erase them hahah. After that we changed side of Thailand to see the famous island of Koh Pan gang and Ko Samui.. party party on Ko Pan Gang blue moon party,, full moon party same same but different /// well in the end we didn't go there was an unsain drug'n'drunk atmosphere we didn't feel like exploring completely... well we had a bit of partying anyway. Now what makes the DIFFERENCE::: the Thai massage<<<>>> I had like a nausea, it was really difficult to watch as we were as well seating in the first row. After that various champions arrive on stage to kick each others butt. A unique experience that I am glad to have had but I wouldn't go another time. Still missing are a match of Se pa trakraw (this acrobatic football ) and a coq fight/// well it is hopefully coming next. Now it is time for me to discover the capital city:: Bangkok.. Last anecdote:: to take the boat yesterday, I had first to take a taxi which brought me straight to the boat where some pirates looking guys were waiting for me. I arrived and foung out I couldn't buy any food on board and I was now pretty far from the first shop, so one of the guy offered me tro bring me there on his scooter... So I ended up on a scooter behind a "phad thai" a fat thai but very nice; grabbing its fat belly to not fall down,,, quite a fun experience.
Bangkok, sa ya, read me there

Orang outang...

You would have understand it or maybe not if your not fluent in Malay and in Thai;; I have been in Malaysia and am traveling in Thailand for a few weeks already. I left Gil in Singapore and took an unbelievably slow train from Singapore to KL (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) about 400 km in 10 hours// Oh my god,, what a feeling I have the impression to be rich again>> finished all these various dollars and normal prices::: welcome back cheap life youhouhouh. I met on the train 2 canadians and decided to go to the same hostel as them, as it was specified "roof bar"!! yeh right!,, this hostel was, and you can believe me, cheap but "SHIT"!! 2.5 euros for the night but not worth much more>> the bed were so thin and the structure so fragile that the movement of anyone was shaking the whole dorm;; being really tired, I still didn't have real difficulties to fall asleep. In the morning, I started my visit of the city and I discovered a complete new mix of culture// like in Singapore Chinese, Indians and of course Malays mix in this megapole landscape, but one capital thing is different: Malaysia is a Muslim country; and it is amazing to witness how religion affects every part of our culture>> the food is different, the architecture is different, the lifestyle is different, the bars serve tea and nonalcoholic drinks. KL, it is the first time I traveled in a muslim country with that level of development, and it is fascinating all the patterns and architecture reflects the muslim influence, such as the Petronas Tower (highest twin towers in the world above 400 m)... haha yes at the bottom of the towers there were 2 girls who approach me asking if I could shoot a picture of them, of course I accepted but as I return the camera they even didn't look at the picture I just shot to see if it was good....>> strange, they tried to help me getting a ticket from the desk and then insisted to speak about my country 'where is your girlfriend?'... yehyeh right/// then I started an escape pretending to take pictures from the towers to go always further away until I was at a dead angle to run away::: I guess I'll never find out what they really wanted... I continued my visit through the city hearing malay language.. actually nice to hear it is all terminating in 'ang' or 'eng' like orang outeng (man of the jungle),,, having some amazing food: nasi goreng, Laksa, roti etc. At night I met Wendy (old friend from the Masters in London) and her husband Ramlee, it was very nice to meet them (the locals) and we had some more amazing food of course, between two phone calls and emails check from Wendy (pretty busy this lady). The following day I continued with the visits;;; ok little anecdote:: in the morning I decided to go for the local breakfast solution: some sticky rice with champignons and other weird stuffings in a banana leaf,,, woaw that was a bit hard as a first thing in the morning,, with on the side some lichee cousins not too of the Malay name of them in Thai it is something like Rantanplan.. Anyway to eat this feast I chose to sit in the front of the national Mosque around 11.15 am ( yeh right I am not everyday starting my day at 6 in the morning!!!), I took my time, because it was hard work for a french boy like me to have this for breakfast... I finished and went to visit the great blue roofed mosque... At the entrance, someone stopped me to tell me it was closed HEIN?? yes it is >>> 12 pm "now closed" et merde!!! 45 minutes in front of the building eating this weird thing watching the entrance and the guard and when I arrived to see it ,,, oups/// Life is all about organisation@@ Anyway I went to see others exhibitions and monuments of the capital city and had a great time (I bought a ball of Seh pa ta kro,,, this acrobatic football volley, but I still haven't watch a game so far). To be better organised, I decided at night to take the over night train to Penang an island at the north of Malaysia to make my way to Thailand ''' would you be surprised if I tell you I couldn't sleep>> to save about 1 euro,, I went for the cheapest version :: 40 people in a dorm ("I know mum, it wasn't a good idea") the couchette were of course asiatic size so I had to sleep in a foetus position in order to fit in the bed with my bags as I wasn't too keen in letting them in another place. The lights never swished off, the guy underneath was snoring, it was pretty stinking, and I was really scared to not wake up for my stop at 5.30 am, so I basically only managed to sleep in Penang as I arrived in a room I was sharing with a drunk english and a drunk Denish // I'll skip the details. Penang was very nice with all its temples and Mosques, it was great to visit it. After Penang I took the boat to Langkawi; another Malay island from which I could take a boat to Satun (Thailand). Langkawi was meant to be a small paradise and it looked like it.. just I had a paradise monsoon rain, as I was negociating the price to rent a scooter... So I basically only saw my hotel room and some Malay television// oh well I'll have my islands in Thailand.
sa ya read me there.

Sid to Sing

Did anyone tell you Sydney is>> beaches, sun, no stress and quality lifestyle...... yeh right!! out of 5 days we had 4 of intensive raining... so much that the news scared my mum ("flood in Sydney..."). The good thing was that we arrived for the Sydney film festival; so our main day attraction were museum and cinema,,, whereas the night attraction were ponctuated by clubbing and meeting the locals ::: Bianca (friend from Sydney I know from London) and her friends... It was really fun to see her there at some crazy party. With the rain we couldn't throw our weapons the boomerangs/// bouhouhouh! well at least we didn't kill anyone.
On sunday,,, we flew to "Singapore lah!!" and it was time to take off our sweat shirt//// as we didn't need them to sweat.... sweating is not the right word I would rather say melt like an ice cream..... caraca at least 35 degrees and as humid as a hamam.... but what a fantastic start for Asia!!! I loved Singapore///everyone told me I should stay to the max 3 hours but we staid 4 days heheh. It is an amazing mix of all asiatic culture: indian, chinese, malay, japanese, etc. I adore the things I don't know, and there I didn't know anything// I have never been to Asia before //FANtasTIC. But of course what made the experience what it was, was the locals ( Kai and Dino friends from Singapore I know from London) hahah after the first day were we went with Gil to the night Safari (the Singapore Zoo at night >> really good but we were not allowd to use the flash to photograph the animals // so my pictures look like some dark grey stains in the black//ye right),, Kai and Dino brought us to the none turistic Singapore /// dodgy lively lahhh// We had so much fun discovering the whole Karaoke culture where you see some pseudo romantic chinese singers in the video and you hear some guy yelling in the microphone to impress the ladies, who they normally pay anyway!! Hahahah really cool to see that. Timing was perfect as we were in Singapore for the arts festival>> loads of happenings everywhere in the city in weird places... ok now the little anecdote>> As all the doctors prevent us from the diseases in Asia,,, we were a bit mistrutful to eat street food and were concerned when to start our malaria pills etc. one of the show of the festival sounded pertty interesting so we decided to get there as we arrived closer to the last place, we suddenly realised it was happening in the last place you would like to go when you are scared of diseases >> the general hospital of Singapore.... hahah as we were crossing the various halls of the hospital, we started to feel a bit unwell and as we sat, we were the only persons not wearing the hospital pale blue green suit every patients were wearing.. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! the skin started to hitch us and we got nausea,,,,, but the show starts "welcome to all our patients...." we looked at each other and couldn't stop laughing//// my god, how on earth did we manage to arrive in the place!!! the weird show starts ,,, a few people desguised in sheeps begin a bizarre dance,, at some point tehy come down and look for people to make them interact on stage >>>> ok that is a bit too pushing as we come a bit too much out from the lot >>> we flee rapidly from this embarrassing situation. That was really surreal!!! At night we went to the Ministry of sound of Singapore for a good night of clubbing// and there we discovered another aspect of Asia we didn't know::: "the Ladyboy" OH MY GOD!! not one or two but loads, and to be honest they look amazing;;; we had to question ourself each time watching a girl if it was a boy!! Gil saved me at some point as one was grabbing me /// thanks for that, because we saw other foreigners im problematic situations hahahahahahahahah...... anyway, Singapore was absolutely fantastic and really rich in emotions. Thanks a lot to Kai and Dino /// a propos:: in Singapore, there is one yellow lemborghini and one white land rover defender >>> Kai drives the Defender!! show de bola!!
The following day Gil took a flight to Bangkok and me the train to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) we will meet again in about five days to enjoy some Thai islands (Israeli are not welcome to Malaysia).... Kuala Lumpur>> the Petronas Tower /// that is where Wendy lives (friend from London again)/// yes Central St Martins was a pretty world wide experience but I realise even more now, it is amazing, when you see a country you start to understand your friend whoi comes from this country differently.
KL sa ya, read me there

Melbun >>road trip to Sidni

I often think of all of you and miss you/// it is nice to meet new people everyday, but sometimes you are just happy to have some old friends on your side;;; and guess who came from the grey London to share a few weeks experience in Australia???? epppa Gil my old friend from London arrived the following morning absolutely pissed off because all his clothes arrived completely wet... hahaha yes we spent half a day finding a laundry to clean and dry them> nice start!! A bit of clubbing, a bit of boozing and off we were// we rented a car for a week to do the coast from Melbourne to Sydney.... youhouh what a fantastic trip starting with the great ocean road to see the 12 Apostles and its other beauties// then Philip Island, Lake entrance, Merimbula, Jervis Bay and finally Sydney... After 7 months away from my mother country:: What would I have given for a good bottle of Bordeaux and some amazing cheese ,,,, well we had to force our destiny so we went to a winery to do some tasting heheh, as we were tasting the Aussi wine I told them that in France we normally have cheese with wine and that if they would have some it would be amazing <<<, that was a great idea oh yes because their answer was :: why don't you join us we are having lunch mainly cheese with a bench of friends hihihihihi youpiiipipipi.... I was so happy,,, hard to describe: I was at home. ok another lucky adventure:: as we were really struggling to find a place to stay at night the following day in Jervis bay (the only hostel in 50km around had closed .....) we asked to two people in the street if they would know of anything ::: and they happen to manage some very nice cabins for holiday which they would be able to offer us for a backpacker price as we were a bit in the sh***! hehehe We ended up in a luxury cabin with terrace two double bedroom plasma screen etc. life can be so great, not too bad init?? After this great night in this amazing bed,,,, we went the day after for the aboriginal experience...>>. throw the boomerang bro" We went to a special place to meet an aboriginal guy who sold some Boomerang eppppa >>> I always wanted one now it is done >> a boomerang by Laddie Timbery (his grandma did one for Queen Vistoria <<< see it is someone)... my god the throwing was an experience heheh it is not really easy to know where it is going to fall so once it ended up in the garden of someone who wasn't here and I had to enter without permission in the garden in order to get my weapon back... the neighbour called the police and we left before they arrived ..... a bit of emotion there.. after, we had to climb a few trees to get our boomi down and I finally managed to knocked my knee alone trying to catch my boomi;;; but at the end of the day I am still walking and we still have the two boomerangs heheh fantastic... loved it!!
We arrived tonight in Sydney.
sa ya read me there

Ozzzztralia

G'day!! Like everyone say to any stranger in the street or in the shop.../// Welcome to Australia!! I arrived in Brisbane and I was back in the heat..... mmmmm nice actually, it is a great fealing to be able to put havaianas and shorts again youpi!! The prices here are the same as in new Zealand but the currency is different: the australian dollar is worth more than the kiwi one haaaaaaaa,,,, it is even more expensive!!! Brisbane is a real city /// high buildings, not many old ones.... stress and expensive cappuccino around each corner. It is nice but that is it! So I decided to stay only a very short time there and to escape to the one the brochure fantastic Fraser's Island (120 km north from it). In order to minimise the cost I took a tour to get there and for the whole experience: self drive 4x4 during 3 days and 2 nights on the island with 10 other people. The tour started from Rainbow beach: the closest place to the island. My group was made of 4 english girls, one english guy, 2 german girls and 3 german guy,,,and me the french swiss lost in the middle..... In the car they had a mp3 compatible system which was really nice as everyone had its own Ipod/// the only problem is that my compilation of french and brasilian experimental music was not of the taste of everyone and we had most of the time some really commercial ***!! We had some funny emotions driving the 4x4 on the rough beach but nothing bad happened to the car. For the first night of camping we joined loads of other 4x4 and made quite a party with about 40 people.... as most of them were english or irish, there was loads of boozing involved various drinking games etc. I felt a bit old and went to bed pretty early>>>>>> oh my god I remembered I swore once a few years ago to never camp again but I wasn't sure why anymore..... welll easy to know.> Before going to bed we had to scare the dingos(wild foxes the size of big dogs,,, but not really aggressive), then the tent they gave us were not exactly new or good///mine was probably about 1,50m long and to fit I had to fold myself in three...... In the morning I woke up, went out my tent and tried to move my head:::::: impossible!!! I was like Robocop I had the worst "torticolis" in french (you took a bad position while sleeping and you wake up not being able to move anymore,,,, absolutely horrible) haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Christ !!! I had to spend the day on the 4x4 with all the bum without being able to turn my head!! difficult to look really cool in this situation. I let you imagine// On the second night I decided to sleep in the car::: and that wa one of the best Idea I had in a long time, because in the middle of the night, the wind started to blow harder and the roof of our tent went off (well the tent were I was meant to sleep with the other english guy) he first thought it was cool because he could watch the stars... hahah but 30 min later it stared raining like mad and he run into the car shaking every part of his body!!! The last day we saw the most amazing bit on the island: the Lake Mc Kenzy,,, I have never seen such colors it went from white to deep blue but looked completely artificial,,, astonishing, that is definitely the image I will remember from the whole experience with the dingos!! Finally as we came back to the hostel in Rainbow Beach, it was saturday night so of course everyone drunk more than a lot.... and the english drink more than a normal "more than a lot".... I went to bed and I got awaken in the middle of the night by an drunk english who went for a piss and went to the wrong bed::: he was so drunk that he didn't notice me and lay down next to me in my bed and started to sleep straight away!,,,,, oh non de dious!!! You can imagine that he wasn't exactly welcome and that I might have forgotten my politness to get him out of my bed !!!!! fucking******* helll!!!!!! The following day I went back to Brisbane and managed to go in the afternoon to the Koala sanctuary..... yes I know ..... but it was really cool I enjoyed a lot seing all these koalas and kangoroos,,, look at the pictures >>> I am in Australia!!!!
On monday I flew to Melbourne.
Sa ya read me there.

ze big blue

"I am a man, if you see what I mean!!!" told me the old Nick, looking at me intensively in the eyes, with a close space of about 10 cm between our two faces. I could smell this great lager smell coming out of his mouth... heheh yes, we met the old Nick after a fantastic treck on Queen Charlotte's track close to Picton north of the south Island of New Zealand. He chatted us (me and a dutch guy who I was with for the treck of the day) up with:: if I were you I'd get the happy jug of lager,,, it's the promotion of the day. So we took the jug of course and then he started his whole life story>> he was with 21 years old volunteer for the Vietnam war and told us all about it ;;; that is why he is a maaaaan!! It was quite amazing and enjoyable to speak with someone like that>> from everything I'll remember one of his life advice:: "if you want to be rich, just look where there is a war by the americans and go there with 100 prostitutes >>> you'll be a rich man!!!" ho my god I told now everyone how to be rich, but I couldn't resist to the pleasure of sharing this life advice hahaha! He was so interesting that we actually almost didn't get our boat,,, we were just drinking jug after jug after a long day treck waiting for our boat..... hahha it had already left when we steped out of the pub,,, then in 100 meters we run so fast ( but not straight) screaming that we probably lost all the calories of the beers we drunk before. The boat came back,, thank the lord! That was really close!
Coming back to an amazing hostel with spa, I met frenchs from the islands >> from polynesie francaise, and from Vanatu << I never heard of those Islands before,, apparently it was the only french and english colonie, now independent. It was actually really nice to speak a bit my native language for a bit and I decided to jump in the car of the Vanatuans for a day (although it wasn't the direction I originally planned) but it ended up being a good choice because it was extremly fun and instructive about Vanatu. The following day, I went down the west cost by bus and then took the scenic transalpine to reach Christchurch... I was anoid from the treck from the other day (the one were we met the old Nick) because everyone on the boat saw some dolphins apart from me; although I was chasing them with my camera in the hand!!) ... So I decided to do something about it and booked the day after a excursion to swimm with the dolphins heheh.... And it was absolutely amazing!!! but so cooooooold I was completely frozen although we had wetsuits. These dolphins are the smallest in the world and only live in new Zealand, they are called the the Hector's Dolphins. The water wasn't really clear so you would see them only when they came really close to you... one passed under my arm, I wasn't allowed to touch him as they have really sensitive skin but I would have liked to,,, anyway it was for me a great highlight before my departure from New Zealand on the next day..
I flew to Brisbane (Australia) the day after,,, moi Aussi << hahah
read me there sa ya!!

c'est parti mon Kiwi!!!

HAHAHAHA I can't believe it!!! You arrivew at the opposite end of the globe to find my old lover on the notes,,,,, yes queen lizi is on every note here.... hahahah.... sorry but I found it hilarious.. What a strange feeling,,,, new Zealand is really particular it is a mix of londoner with Maori.... Maori are not really incas, I think you can easily fit two or three incas in one Maori. The lovely girls are normally about 180 centimeters,,, actually they don't look that tall as they weight roughly the same in kilograms<<>> I just took 200 New Zealand dollars out and went for breakfast. I saw a nice place reall busy on the harbour.... woaw that looks good!! yes give me this breakfast with a cafe please.... ok I pay no problem> 35 dollars; then I went to see the exchange rate///// I almost fainted.... 35 dollars is about 25 euros....Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! breakfast for the price of three days of leaving in Bolivia. Yes, I think we can say it New Zealand is really expensive (like Europe or more),,,, so that was quite an emotion:: you pay for everything,,, I am not used to that anymore!!! ho ooo and the food,,, Jesus Christ I am horrified,,, you have basically the choice between expensive burgers or expensive fish and chips>> you pay a lot but at least for the price you get fat<<<< very nice/// bybye my greek canon body!! hahahaha. I left Auckland for Rotorua as soon as I managed to handle the jet lag. That was pretty cool I must admit::: the region is volcanic, there are vapors coming out everywhere in the parks,,, little hotsprings where you are scared to to go bathing, amazing earth colors, water colors, geysers,,,, and spas with lots of old chinese who love to speak to me, I don't understand this phenomenon/// pretty much each time I was enjoying a peaceful moment in the spa an old chinese who chat me up, and explain me all his life "... oh really waow so your children are going to uni,,, nice!!" I had to pretext of hot water or othre subtilities like "oh look a bird there!" to escape them... Rotorua was really really nice actually, I have never seen anything like this before//// danger is handled the same way as in america, there are panels for everything, the pathways are like mini highways hahah there was a panel " you have to be physically fit to go on this pathway" (oh yes indeed, there was a 10 steps stairs hahahahha) compared to machu pitcchu where nothing was written and you could have died without anyone knowing it, it was pretty safe. Teh day after I went to Taupo, but unfortunately the weather was crap and I couldn't do the big famous treck in the national park. I have now landed in Wellington, the capital and I will cross to the south island tonight
sa ya, rid mi thire.. < just taking a piss of the new zilind accint,

chilllllllllll out

Would you be surprise if I told you I had an awful bus journey between Arequipa and Tacna at the Peruvian Chilean border..... right this time I had a massive peruvian guy next to me, with about 6 scars on the face and not exactly the smiling guy... I was a bit scared for my bag of course but not only; he had the window so I was on the corridor side, and full in south america doesn't relly have the same meaning as in Europe..... full is when there are seats (that is normal) plus the corridor full of people standing ( not normal). I had the pleasure to have a fat peruvian lady standing next to me with a bsket of discusting enpanadas, which was knoking against my head in every curve. It ws impossible to sleep... not surprising but theonly thing I could do was to watch the peruvian music videos shown on the screen (( and that is actually really funny))) normally there are three camera plans: one close to the meulette face singer, one of him playing some flote with its whole body, and one of the whole band with half traditional clothes in front of the mountains.... well it si funny the first half an hour after..... about 30 min before the end of the trip the bus driver decided to put a film on apocalipso which I was quite keen on watching. Do you know how frustrating it is to see only the first half of a film when you want to watch it and you think you just had about 5 hours of peruvian singing videos..?..right. Anyway, after Tacna we had to go on a txi to cross the border to Chile and reach Arequipa. As soon as we crossed the border, I understood tht we were not in Peru anymore, there were lights on to enlight the road about 10 km before arriving to Arica... what a luxe!! Chile is by far richer then Peru, at least as an impression. There is nothing to say about Arica really apart that this is where I first saw the pacific Ocean... youhouhouh. new part of the world!!!!, We then took a flight to go to Santiago, as the only idea to take another bus for 27 hours arouse all sorts of bad emotions. Santiago was pretty cool, it is not like Rio but it looks lively and the people look happy. I met a frind who I met in Cusco before and went for dinner at her place with her family.... really relaxed and fun atmosphere..... almost too relaxed I got really impressed but quite unforgetable in the end. Yesterday night I flew off from Santiago to Aukland, and crossed the mythical date line!!! that is really exciting for me, like a child who plays with a switch of a light I would like to pass my head from one day to the next one on this line... it is like time travelling!! Anyway, I just arrived in Aukland absolutely nacked at 4 am. I left south Amrica, this continent which I loved so much,,,, I am pretty sure to come back there sometimes,,,, with excitments and a bit of sadness.
Aukland// new Zeland
sa ya, read me there

AAArequipa and the three volcanos

Back in Cusco,,, we went out of course!!
A quiete day followed ponctuated by the champions league game AC Milan Man U (english men in the crew). We took a night bus to Arequipa... pretty nice for once. We arrived at the same time as the sun, and its rays made us discover "the white city" build out of the volcano stone sillar. Beautiful city!! The big stress of the day was to know if my card would be waiting for me at the Consulado Suizo,,, at this point, I had about 5 euros left........ Youpi!!!! it was there, that was a very good news...... ( just for the story..... the bolivians are not tieves anymore.... my mum received a phone call from a swiss guy who found my wallet under the bed where I must have lost it in Santa Cruz..... """any comment will not be accepted!!!!"""",,,,, I know it dosn´t make me look very good on that one but it is just to apologize for the bolivians). Anyway, we went to see the enormous monastery of Santa Catalina (Santa Catalina was the 24th of a 25 th sisters and brothers family..... Jesus!!!)....
Yesterday, we went to the famous Cañon del Colca. Really nice and different than the landscape seen before during this trip, the three surrounding volcanos create a moon atmosphere at first, everything is white then it turns into red and green... at night we went to the thermals ..... I cooked like a egg for at least 2 hours. This morning, we woke up pretty early to see the flight of the condors,,,, and that was just absolutely gorgeous!!! I thought I would hae the same experience as in Puerto Madryn with the orcs..... but the three meters wide birds were flying above us as if noone would be there really close maybe 20 meters up... quite scary at some point but really magic!!! loved it!
tomorrow we are going to Chileeeeeeeeee heheh I´ll leave the pisco sour for a minute to change for good wine!

sa ya, read me there!

Game, Set, Machu Picchu

Rafting on a bus!!! have you ever done that?? As I said in my last post, we decided to go for a really non touristic way to get to the Machu Picchu; that was the plan: big bus from 8 pm to 3 am (Cusco to Santa Maria), then a van from 5 am to 8 am (Santa Maria to Santa Theresa), then a jeep from 9 am to 10 am and finally a trek of 3 hours to arrive to Agua Caliente (the city to reach the Machu Picchu)--- this way we would save about 40 dollars. We jumped on the first bus where we were the only tourists of course... this time I had the good idea to seat next to Josh so I would be sure that no big mama would seat next to me.. The trip starts and as the road is really shoppy I don´t really manage to sleep... the others probably exhausted succeeded quite well and I was soon the only one awake,,,, watching the road..... CARACA it would have been better not to, stones were regularly falling onto the bus, we went through proper rivers the size of the bus in its length, we were permanently going from up of the clouds to down in the fog with high speed and all this about 10 cm from the cliff.... At some point the almost fullmoon let me see a shape strangely looking like a car down the cliff,,, I think you have probably understood that I was sweating and I produced enough adrenaline to wake up all Paris. We finally arrive after changing a flat tyre. Thank the lord we could wait until 5 in the next van and as we were the first one we laid down for 2 good hours. We had to brutally wake up as the bus got full. Did I say I sweat a bit in the first bus,,, well that was nothing compared to the following van..... It was a van just because the width of the mud road leading to Santa Theresa was the exact size of the van´s width... It was amazing as this bus was actually for local to go to work, everyone was speaking in Quechua, the radio ... in Quechua of course ... the bus was full of old men and ladies with almost no white hair and cowboy hats on .. As those people were going to work the driver couldn´t allow himself to be late so he did a rally throughout the trip. I was, of course on the cliff side of the road again... but this time I think that my body couldn`t produce anymore adrenaline so I was more accepting whatever would happen and contemplating this absolutely amazing jungle landscape in the mountains!!! fantastic. We had to stop of course to change the flat tyre.... pretty normal!! After a breakfast in Santa Theresa we took a local open truck to finish the trip,,,, everyone standing at the back,,, unbelievable landscape again and a really pleasant journey. The road was blocked at some point because of massive stones which had fallen down on it. So we started a long treck (because of the lack of hours of sleep) following rails to reach agua caliente... Three hours.... genious landscape but "I am bored" said Deck... true following the rails got a bit boring after a while ,,,,,, we were really happy to arrive.
After a big night of sleep, we had to wake up at 5am to catch the first bus to the Machu Picchu. So we arrived there pretty much in the first ones. The lady from the tourist info the day before told me that we had to go very quickly to the Wayna Picchu (the young mountain next to the site...) as they would allow only 400 persons per day there... and that was a golden advice!! WE run then in the direction of the Wayna Picchu to arrive at the begginning.... only a japanese had entered before us,,, so we had now to over pass him!! God that was a hard treck almost climbing, (not for fat americans!!), we passed the japanese at midway,,, the poor sixty years old had to stop out of breath... heheheheh youhououououh we did it, we arrived the first ones at the top of wayna Picchu..... there is no word for the feeling it was. fantastic!!!
After a good 7 hours of visit we went down to agua Caliente to wait for the train to go back to Cusco,,,, no crazy bus anymore!!
sa ya read me there

Quechua!!

my bag is so happy!! he is at home with all his little quechua friends::: well that is a joke that probably only the french knowing decathlon can understand. Anyway to come from Copacabana to Cusco we took the bus ,,, and what a bus!!! We entered the bus, it was full of Quechua or Aymara women all of the cubic meter format but really friendly ( golden teeth´s smiles)... it was weird because they had so many things, it looks like they were moving or something like that about ten bags of soft toys, tyres, various clothes,, . I had a free seat next to me... soon the reality set a general laugh in the bus from sll the different gringos behind me. The fattest of all the peruvian woman entered the bus with another ten bags with the determination to seat next to me_____haaaaaaaaaaa!!!! she had about 15 layers of sweat, pullover, jackets etc. As the clothes were to small for her ( jacket for eight years old) she could bend the arms she looked pretty much like a moving snowman !!! I stood up the time she installed everything ,,,, and she prepared as well a seat for me ::: she took a jacket folded it in 4 and make a energetical sign for me to seat on it..... Josh added " I wouldnt mess with her". For the first time of my life, I felt really thin. I was skizzed for the next ten hours between the seat and the lady next to me who told I should learn Quechua and Aymara. At some point we stopped and some of the passengers had the marvelous idea of charging 10 boxes full of fish on the bus!!! I let you imagine. I was more than happy to arrive in Cusco in this lovely hostel over the city with an amazing view. From there on we were this group of five I mentioned earlier, and we would go to the Machu Picchu a few days later together. Cusco was really nice, the incas, the architecture, the good going out places, the nice food etc. We heard of a non touristic way to go to the Machu Picchu by bus..... a cheap version of the tour;,,, as I didn´t have a card, it sounded to us like the ultimate solution: for seeing the Machu Picchu as the normal Inca trail cost about 300$.
sa ya read me there

copacabana the rebirth

I was really happy to leave La Paz as you may well have understood... Arriving at the bus terminal, two policemen came to me to warn me that this place was pretty dangerous and that I should look really carefully my bags/// haaaa ..... cararacacacacac// Anyway the bus starts under a real tropical rain and slips around trying to go up the hill... A bit later it stops because of a flat tyre.. the two children on board were as well the mecanicians, they went under the bus to repair it pretty unsual. I met a nice Israeli guy in the bus and we decided to find a room together for the nights in Copacabana. The first views of the titicaca were amazing the lake is so big that it looks like the mediteranean see. I have the impression to be in Ibiza or in Greece, really nice!!! In the morning we went to the Isla del Sol and did a treck of 5 hours: Absolutely amazing, the colors were changing the earth goes from white to red, the sea from blue to green. During this march I met some brazilians chatting up every girl on the Island, a french guy from Montpeliers (Christian), a londoner (Josh), a girl from Santiago de Chile (Viviana) and another english guy from Bristol (Deck)... I don´t know it back then but this will constitute the Peru team. I am not sick anymore and I will get my credit card in Arequipa normally;;; I fell so good I have the impression that the unluck went away and that I am now back on a lucky tornado.
the day after we went to Cusco (Peru)
sa ya read me there.

La Paz or La Guerraaaa

SO GIVE ME A DAMM COFFE THEN!!! said I knocking my fist on the bar making a scandal so that all the waiters had to come to me to calm me down..... but let us come back a bit to understand how the situation lead me to lose my temper this way. I left Santa Cruz on friday night and jumped on a bus to La Paz. A really stincky old bus with quite a local atmosphere.... I was the only foreigner in the bus. Next to me sat an old bolivian really nice who explained me all the problems of Bolivia he was really nice and as we stoped for dinner to one of the dirtiest place I have ever seen in the world ( the pissoir was full of baratas....) it was impossible to say that I would try the local sandwich and the local drink with some weird molded fruit inside... heuuuuu si cclllllaro:.. aiaiai I though that I would spend the rest of the bus trip on the toilet...... more fear then troubles really. In the bus I had behind me my big bag for security reason, but as a matter of fact I couldn´t put the back of my seat down and so had an horrible night. In the morning, the old man woke me up to go for breakfast for the last stop before La Paz... At this precise moment we are above 4000 meters of altitude and I just had an horrible night so I leave the bus with precipitation in a zombi state and left my bag with my value just hidden in the bus. I had my first mate coca (with coca leaves) and when I come back into the bus starts a nightmare:::: my wallet is gone and the guy who was sitting in front of me as well... All my bank cards gone, driving licence, identity card gone... thank the lord I have some Euros I put in another pockets. We finally arrive to La Paz and I then now have to rush to cancel all my cards do all the shitty crap..... and find an hostel. The first three are all full and I ended up in a fourth one exhausted ( there is no air at 4000 meters and I was carrying my big bag climbing the different streets of La Paz. hahaha what and hostel!, when I said I am swiss the guy looks at me very weirdly ,,,, I didn´t understand quite why at first... it was an israeli only hostel I was the only person fro the whole hostel not hebrew speaker, so I had two culture shoks for the price of one: the Bolivian and the israeli. Anyway, I went eating in the street some weird food..... I guess it was that or the chinese in the evening..... fact: I got a real bad turista... and was pretty much two days in the bed with as only dicvertissment my back and forth movements to the toilets... so now we arrive at the beggining of this post. The second day I had to rehydrate and wanted to add some sugar and salt to my water. I went down in the hostel's restaurant to buy a water and ask for sugar and salt. I bought the water a fortune and ask for a sugar:: answer : no... I thought the guy didn´t understand so I repeated a few times but hwe always said no....ººº if you want a sugar you have to buy a coffeeººº WHATTTT!! That was too much I had fever I was almost passing out and this real bastard didn´t want to give me a sugar I lost my temper:SO GIVE ME A DAMM COFFE THEN!!! all the waiters arrive to calm me down as everyone in the restaurant was looking.... They told me, they were not allowed to sell sugar and that I had to go to the market outside.... Haaaaaa this market so dirty !! I wanted sugar in a package not this..... So I went there almost falling down on every step and bought a pound of sugar that an old lady took with a dirty spoon... I would have killed those guys from the hostel.
Anyway, the day after, I finally got better and managed to go to the embassy and sort out the paper work for getting new credit cards etc. I just wanted to excape from this city where everyone looked in my situation like a potential thief and every bits of food like poison. I relly wanted to have a good sleep before taking the bus again for my last night,,,, the only problem was that it was independence day for the Israeli so there was a big party in the hostel and the loud music lasted until 4 in the morning. Now the best part,,, Around 2 in the morning, a guy comes in my room carrying one of the Israeli girl of my room under his arm.. he said something in hebrew and left... So I tried to sleep again... The sound of puke woke me up`... she started a nonstop puke on the floor of the room,,,, and soon the whole floor got filled up with vomit... the smell was very very nice after a turista... plus her unregular breathing obliged me to check every ten minutes if she wasn´t doing a coma next to me ....... I don`t want to have dead person in my room.... kenel what an horrible night at some point she puked again and started some delirium in hebrew ( I think she was calling her mum or somethihng like that) I told her to
speak in english .... she just said it is fine.....yeh right ver fine... So you see my experience of La Paz wasn´t the best so far and I hope this week will be the worst of my trip.
I took the bus the following morning to Copacabana to go to the titicaca or ( titi ckrackra léau elle aime ça) lake.

sa ya, read me there.

Santa Cruz de la Sierra BOBOBOBOB

hahah now the stories of my Arrival in Bolivia>>
I arrived in the middle of the night as usual, without knowing where I would sleep or anything like that.... Bolivia is not like Argentina, a bit more third world like if you see what I mean...Here everything is smaller: the buses, the prices , the people ( if I stay straight and I look up I don`t see anyone), etc. But the people are extremly friendly and helpful. Anyway I took the local bus to arrive close to the center of the city. the bus drop me with a couple of english in the middle of a strange crossing.. We looked at each other and started crying!!! There must have been some sort of march that the police dealt away a few seconds before with some tears gaz::: it was horrible!! welcome !! So I walked until my hostel crying like a child. When I finally arrived there, I noticed I did the so far most stupid thing of my travel:: I put a brand new tooth paste in my luggage before taking the plane..... as you can well imagine with the pressure it exploded and I am now a living advertising for Colgate, I have got peaces of toothpaste everywhere.... After that I went out for dinner..... and happened one of the most funny thing I have seen in ages:::
I was really thirsty as the temperature here are about 35 degrees ( last week in el calafate 0// a bit of a change again), so I went to a little shop holded by two old strong bolivian women to buy a bottle of water. They gave it to me did a few meters and tried to open it>> impossible!! I tried everything for more then 5 minutes ( for a man it is really humiliating to not manage to open a plastic bottle of water.....) anyway I came back a bit ashamed saying that I couldn´t open the bottle..... they looked at me and tried as well oh god they have tried believe me,,,, but impossible! they tried another one and another one>>> no way those bottles just wouldn´t open we were all laughing because it was ridiculous ( 3 persons trying to open bottles) but I litteraly died laughing when one of the woman started trying to smah the bottle against the walls of the shop or against the columns .... ho my god I would have loved to film these unbeleivable scene.... At the end we still didn´t manage to open the bottle, they wanted to give me the money which I would have given for this laugh but they were insiting and I had to find another place to buy the water from. ok one more funny story,,, this morning I went for breakfast and started speaking with other foreigners,,, suddenly something bite my big toe... I jump and look down it was a Toucannnnnn, yes would you believe it!! they have toucan as domestic animal in this hostel ( they might have cut the wings otherwise I don´t see how they would stay there... but anyway it was pretty amazing. I am going tonight to La Paz...(4060 meters altitude)

read me there, sa ya

Buenos de nuevo

So I arrived in Buenos Aires from where I would fly to Santa Cruz de la Sierra ( Bolivia) two days later. I arrived under a tropical rain and I had the genial idea to take the bus to go to the center.... I waited under waterfalls in about 30 cm of water, every single passing car giving me a free shower. ..... . loved it of course. Then started a long bus ride to the center: at each single station about ten persons would run into the bus,,, Ï don´t think I have ever been in a so busy bus in my life; everyone was sweating ( so hot) we couldn´t open the windows because of the rain.... now the funny part, I had to go out and squizz me through all these people with my massive rucksack.... just seeing the situation averyone stated to laugh in the bus (I was quite at the start of the bus ( maybe 3 meters, so I had to pass about 30 people) I passed them one by one fighting with my bag doing some ninja tricks. We tried to push my bag from the window but it was too big.... When the bus arrived at the station I wanted to go out>> about 15 people had to jump off the bus under the pissing rain to let me through but everyone was laughing of the situation. perdona, permiso, desulpe, gracias,gracias. I then struggled to find an hostel as they were all completely full but I finally arrived in a pretty nice one appart from the smell of my room kenel!! The following day I went to change my tickets to New Zelnd to try to get to see the matchu pitchu. So now I am flying from Santiago to Auckland on the 9th of may, from Christchurch to Brisbane on the 21th, from Brisbane to Melbourne on the 28 and from Sydney to Singapor on the 8 th of june.. After that I have been burning the dancefloor with a brasilian friend in the "museum" night club,,, really nice but I didn´t sleep much as I had to wake up pretty early the next day to catch my plane ( about 3 hours)... I was really pleasantly surprised whe I arrived at the airport and saw the label "on time" next to my flight... on time my butt!!! there was a manutention strike and then they had to change the crew so we flew off 5 hours later.... I was like a zombie as we entered the plane and slept pretty much the whole flight. I arrived still quai unconcious in Bolivia.
sa ya read me there

colonia suiza

Chocolates, mountains, lakes, high prices for Argentina ( god I am in Switzerland).... Well Bariloche si really nice and swiss like... I couldn´t leave it fo fast. So I didn´t go to mendonza at the end and decided I would take the plane to go straight to Bolivia to Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
But let us come back to Bariloche ( I am furious, I just lost the whole entry so this one is going to be shorter sorry) Bariloche is pretty amazong with all these lakes around. I then decided to go on a treck... I met some Israelis I met before in Rio at the federal police for my visa problems (I staid three months in Rio illegally) really cool guys but without any notions about trecking.... They were planning to do a 30 km treck on a tough mountain in a day with a bottle of water and 1 sandwich. I managed to convince them to do a much smaller one ( 3 hours normally) .... After one hour, we had to stop they were absolutely exhausted and me too...(so much for the 30 km treck). We then decided to walk until we reach the snow ( about 50 meters away) and then to come back. I think it was the first time they touched the snow it was really emotional they were like little children! Bu what amazed me more was to see for the ffirst time a condor!!!!! they are so huge and calm >> they are the kings>> it looks like noone and nothing can distrub them. After that we had a great barbecue at the hostel were I learned everything about the kiboots and a few bad words in hebrew which I already forgot....
I am now off to Buenos Aires.
sa ya read me there

fucking hell

I just lost a massive entry I just wrote for the last hour

coooohhhh.....it´s cooooold

woaw my bag is so light!! normal, it is empty, I have got all my clothes on.... it is absolutely freezing down there in front of the Perito Moreno (0 degree, snowing and windy... ideal!)... But the "little dark dog" translation of Perito Moreno (actually the name comes from the guy who was meant to discover it and has got nothing to do with dark dog, but it was just to show that my spanish is improving heheh),,,, heu I can't remember what I wanted to say about it.... ah yes well it was really amazing I loved it. The landscape in Patagonia is just extremely inspiring, the colour combinations are completely different than anything I have seen before: the mountains are dark with some snow at the top (pretty normal until there) but the vegetation goes from yellow to brown. The whole thing on a colorful sunset created an unforgettable image. At night we went for a local LOMO (I didn't say a local homo....) the Lomo is the Argentinian steak,,,, you might say I am a bit cliche but it was unbelievable: a 5 cm thick steak melting on my tongue like heuuuu,,,like a steak can melt on a tongue...( note the appropriate choice of vocabulary linked to the glacier "melt")After this blowing day, I had to see how my trip would go on....the next place had to be Bariloche (still in Argentina) and I started (at 5 in the morning) an horrible 30 hours bus ride with as only exciting moments the two bus changes of this trip..... I sort of slept probably 24 out of the 30 hours but I arrived this morning in Bariloche absolutely exhausted under a London rain... I realized during the bus ride that it might be really hard to manage to do the end of Argentina, the whole of Bolivia, the whole of Peru and Chile until the 2nd of May.... So now start the troubles, I will have to chose between the beauties. bouhoubhouhouhouh.My normal plan is to go to Mendonza tomorrow night... have some good red wine there and think again about the trip with a new perspective....
read me there, sa ya

puerto Madryn "the whale´s world"

Bueno,
I have left Buenos Aires already a few days ago and I am continuing my trip to the very cold.... In the bus a very strange phenomenon happened: I grow up 20 cm in the night, well that is the impression I had coming out of the bus... I am a head and a half bigger than everyone here: I feel like a giant, hard to look like a local. My spanish well one of my favorite joke is when I speak to someone here with my awful portoñol,,, people start to speak very slowly and nicely to me, a 20 sec sentence transforms into a 3 min one and at the end I say in castillan "vale, vale" in a perfect spanish accent ( noone says "vale" here it is something from spain for "ok"). then they all have the same look at me like: "is he a really retarded spanish guy?"...
I stoped for a few days in the famous Puerto Madryn; famous for the pinguins, the sea lions, the orcs and the whales, well I would say famous for the pictures in the hostel of pinguins sea lions whales and orcs,,, kenel!! I have been there on a tour// ok that was what the guy from the tour office told me before (the guide speaks english, portuguese, spanish, italian....) and to the question of what are the chances to see orcs, the answer about 80%. Now the reality of the tour the next day: an old retired argentinian comes to pick me up in a truck; he didn´t understand when I said "hello"... he spoke of course only spanish without articulating because he lost his teeth, he had a good smiling face but it was a bit limited for explanations. For the orcs look at the picture you´ll get it. Anyway the pinguins were cool and the sea lions were there.
I am continuing tonight to the real cold ( which I caught already, I have a bit of fever and a flue... well I´ll have a 24 hours bus trip to recover heheh) I am going to the glaciers of the south El Calafate, that should be really amazing and I am pretty sure that the glacier will be there.
read me there, sa ya.

Mc Gyver`s land

Yes that is it,,, I know it now, the hero of my childhood Mc Gyver is argentinian there is no possible doubt anymore. Hahaha I am sure some of you already understood what I am refering to..... of course the fantastic Mc Gyver´s hairdress known under the name of: Meulette. I havn´t really made a stastistic but I would say that more or less 60 % of the people show off their Meulette with a certain confidence in the street... It is amazing, Buenos Aires is like a national park for Meulette, their are everywhere, it is a reserve for every species every colors, young, old, rebel, business... a paradise for Meulette. I know it is illegal but I have started a Meulette hunt in Buenos Aires with my camera, but the most beautiful phenomenons are really wild and run away from my camera.... ( I can´t upload right now the "best of Meulette 2007 by Boris Brullmann" because I don`t have my camera cable but don´t worry they`ll be soon enough online).
Otherwise, I left Montevideo 2 days ago and went to Colonia (Uruguay) a nice little city protected by the world heritage, then I took the boat to Buenos Aires and managed to arrive really late 11 oclock at night without map, guide, spanish or any information about the city.... it doesn´t look like I am really organised like this heuuuu right I am not ... So I started to speak with two germans on the boat to try to get infos,,, and it was a good idea, they were really helpful and told me where to go with which bus etc... I then arrived around 12 at a first hostel which was full /// I said back then in a perfect spanish miiiiiiiiiiierda... I was then turning around in the area trying to find another place with my 20 kilos bag on the shoulder. A big blonde finnish girl then came to me to ask if I was looking for a place to stay (heheh sounds good isn´t it, actually, she wasn`t that good looking but very helpful ) she then called a friend of her who is living in an hostel,,, and that is how I arrive in this really cool hostel (It looks more like a shared flat than an hostel ) It has a great terrasse and the people are nice. There was yesterday a barbecue on the terrasse with some very nice argentinian wine:::: thank the lord! It has been a while ... I am not going to mention brasilian wine here. After that, we have been to the worst club (well I hope for them that it is the worst club) of Buenos Aires where the average age was 15 maybe, the lighting from the seventies and the music, well I can´t remember but it must have been very bad. I think I drunk a bit too much to be honest because today It is really hard to focus on anything ( apart from Meulette hunt of course and a really cool exhibition of David Lachapelle).
At the barbecue, a girl told me "you look very happy in your life, what do you do?",,,, yes indeed I am enjoying a lot this fantastic trip.
I´ll be saturday night in the bus for Puerto Madryn,
read me there,
sa ya.

montttteeeevbbbbbideo

Ola desde Montevideo,
Gone I am. I arrrived sunday in Montevideo (Uruguay) or like my brrasilian flatmate said in " U r gay// You are gay"... well the plane from Porto Alegre had a good old 5 hours delay So I think I know the portoAlegre airport better then anyone....( it is pretty small/// I was so bored that I started to work...) Anyway, I arrived pretty late in Montevideo,,, thing that I really wanted to avoid as I speak spanish as well as chinese and I was scared that the tourist office would be closed... but the girl working at the tourist office was very nice and spoke portuguese. I decided to go by bus to the center (it is always more interesting then taxi....) and indeed woaw it is so different than Brasil// this is were I really realised that I had started the tour/.. I met a few foreigners aat the hostel and went for some weird local drinks.
Monday I walked pretty much around the whole city.// It is really quiet, nicely relaxed and not dangerous>> I am wearing my clock back : it has been 6 months ( Rio is Rio).. But otherwise I think the city is really fade compared to Rio... Let us see what Buenos Aires has to offer tonight ( A lot of expectations)... I'll go to Colonia by bus and from there I'll catch the boat to ARGENTINA!!

Read me there sa, ya