Day 20 - 22: Chiang Rai Hilltribe Museum, White Temple and Black House

It's been a busy but enjoyable three days. Chiang Rai was our destination after Chiang Mai, and it's an odd little city which mixes the western bar vibe of Kanchanaburi with more traditional Thai aspects. The centre is quite small and we soon became familiar with the layout, unlike Chiang Mai which boasted a dizzying number of sois (side treets) and where you could quickly lose your bearings.

The first place we hit was a small museum dedicated to the hilltribes of Thailand, and which also provided some insight into the opium trade over the centuries. For instance, I didn't realise that we took control of Hong Kong becase Britain defeated China in a war over opium (we wanted to keep trading it, they wanted to ban trade of it as they considered it dangerous). Similarly, we learned that the longneck Karen people (Paduang) you may have seen with elongated necks covered in rings are actually Burmese refugees who have been presented with the choie of deportation back to Burma, or working in tourist zoos for people to stare at and take pictures. It's both shocking and saddening, and like the Death Railway museums we saw, makes you wonder about our humanity. Unlike the railway though, this is still happening to the Paduang and all I can say is that under no circumstances should you encourage this kind of barbarism by visiting their "camp" on a tour - it would only cause their masters to exploit them further.

We ate at a roadside cafe the first night for the princely sum of 60 baht (£1.20). I had a green chicken curry with which I was also offered some small dark cubes of something the server described as "but". I thought it was tofu of some variant, but when I cut into a cube, it looked suspiciously like liver. Then I realised that she was actually offering me "blood". Yummy. I gave it a try regardless, it didn't really taste of anything - possibly because I was trying to swallow it as fast as possible to avoid any potential nastiness. I didn't die, so I guess it was OK. Gilly went for a fish curry but forgot to ask about the spice level and consequently spent the meal suffering from heat sweats. She won't be making that mistake again. to make up for it, we decided to try out Swensen's ice cream parlour. We'd seen a couple of these in Thailand but didn't want to get too "westernised" when we first arrived so never ate there. This was a mistake. They do unbelievable good ice creams and desserts; I went for a stcky chocolate sundae, whilst Gilly opted for a waffle filld with banana and three different types of ice cream. Sadly we didn't have our cameras to take photos, so we may have to visit again to rectify the situation...

The next day we went to the White Temple, a phenomenally impressive work of art set in immaculate grounds. All sweeping Gothic spires and pristine white carvings of the grotesque and fantastical, it looked like a twisted version of a Gaudi building, covered in icing. The photos don't do it justice, but there a few at the bottom of the post to give you an idea.

The whole place is the brainchild of Chalermchai Khositpipat an incredibly prolific artist and sculptor who at his peak was churning out 200 works a year. A little eccentric by all accounts, he has the plan for the finished grounds completed and expects his masterpiece to be ready in 2070, long after his death. He has about 60 acolytes working who he is training in his unique style. And I do mean unique - where else can you find art that mixes Buddhist iconography and modern-day characters such as Superman, Harry Potter, Spiderman and the Predator within its murals? If you see one sight in Chiang Rai, make sure it's the White Temple.

We ate last night at da Vinci's after getting another craving for some western food. We shared a huge pizza from their wood-fired pizza oven, and a massive mixed salad that came with a mountain of bread, all enjoyable. I would suggest if you want something different, go down the street to Aye's; they are part of the same chain and we saw people ordering food from da Vinci's having it delivered by a guy from Aye's, presumbly after it was cooked there. Very odd.

Today we went to the polar opposite of the White Temple: the Black House. Created by another famous Thai artist Thawan Duchanee, the contrast to to the first location couldn't have been starker. Here, everything was horns, skulls, pelts and dark teak. Stone carvings were weathered, and the teak buildings were strewn haphazardly over the grounds. It had a more organic feel than the White Temple, but I still preferred the clean lines and more intricate attention to detail of the former site. That's not to say the Black House isn't worth visiting, far from it. A tuk tuk there will cost about 250 baht, but go after 1pm as they close for lunch between 12 and 1.

And this almost concludes travels around our first country. Tomorrow we are getting a bus to Chiang Kong and then crossing the border to Huay Xai in Laos. Our first stint in Thailand has been very, very enjoyable. The people, food, sights....all fantastic. I can only hope the rest of SE Asia is as fun!

White Temple:

Black House:

Day 19 - Chiang Mai Thai Cooking Class

We decided to learn how to cook Thai food, following a recommendation from Hayley. This was a fortuitous decision as the day was overcast and then started to rain later on, whilst we were a good half hour away from Chiang Mai on the Thai Farm. Before that though, our amiable teacher, Turian (don't snigger, Mass Effect fans) had taken us tp the local market and explained the various rices and sauces we will be using in the class. We then drove to the farm itself, and were given a tour of the well-stocked garden, as Turian showed us all of the organic vegetables and herbs used in the dishes we would be preparing. The menus we selected were:

Rob:
- Tom Yam soup with shrimp
- Green chicken curry
- Stir-fry chicken with basil
- Spring rolls
- Bananas in coconut milk

Gilly:
- Thai vegetable soup
- Yellow chicken curry
- Stir-fry chicken with cashew nuts
- Pad Thai
- Mango with sticky rice

We picked a few things from the garden, but the majority of the ingredients were ready for us to start chopping and using courtesy of the frighteningly efficient farm staff.

It turns out that Thai food is very easy to make. Stir-fry chicken with basil literally took 5 minutes to chop the stuff and about 3 minutes to cook. The soup was even quicker, and the bananas were literally a minute. The only thing that took me any time was the curry - I had to make my own green curry paste by smashing stuff up with a pestle and mortar, mix it with the chicken, then chuck the whole lot in a pan with veg and water. Dead simple really. It tasted far, far better than the stuff we get in jars back home. Also, people who know me will know that I hate soup. Hate it. Today was no exception, even though I made it myself. I dislike pretty much any food you have to drink. Soup, custard...no thanks. Hopefully this will put to rest any badgering to try more soup from Gilly - if I don't like the stuff I make myself, there's no hope.

Anyway, here's some before and after shots for posterity:

Soup (before and after)

Green curry (before and after)

Stir-fry chicken with basil (before and after)

It turns out that I'm not very good at making spring rolls despite my best efforts. The cornpaper simply wouldn't stick, no matter how much egg I used. Turian kept saying "spring roll FAIL" which was amusing, if hurtful. I jest, she was fantastic and incredibly patient with us all.

Of course, we ate pretty much everything we made so by the time the course finished at 4pm, we were completely stuffed and still had some Pad Thai and spring rolls left over to snack on in the evening.

We had a fantastic time, and I can highly recommend Thai Farm to anyone visiting Chiang Mai!

Day 18 - Yeepeng Lantern Festival

October 29th was a rollercoaster of a day. We'd heard from one of the girls that a lantern festival was happening somewhere near a university, but after a bit of research by her boyfriend, it turned out that it was a fairly closed religious festival and that the monks were not keen on tourists going along to it. We had also heard that a more open event was taking place by the Three Kings monument. After a bit of thought we decided to go to the monument. There were lanterns there but after investigation with some locals it turned out they were in preparation for the "main" lantern festival on November 10. Dilemma! Further soul-searching abounded and we decided to risk it and head to the festival at Mae Jo university. I thought it would be worth checking with Dao (hereafter known as Magnificent Dao) at the Libra; it turned out that she had already organised 3 bus loads of people to go there! Tourist-free festival my arse. Magnificent Dao leapt into action, flagging down a songthaew (red pickup taxi thing) and negotiating a 200 baht return journey for each of us - Gilly and I, Hayley, James (an English guy Hayley met on a cooking course) and Nevo, an Israeli guy we struck up a conversation with in our guesthouse at lunch.

The journey was an exercise in frustration. We got about 1.5 miles away from the entrance and hit masses of traffic, mainly songthaews full of farangs (foreigners) and dozens and dozens of bikes and scooters weaving in and out of them, slowing things down. It was about 7pm and had got dark, and we needed to stay in the songthaew in order to find out where he was going to park in order to get back to him when we left. There followed a torturous journey around lane after lane of grass paths as the driver was directed from one traffic helper to another. We could see the lanterns being released into the sky a mere 300m away but were helpless to get closer. We finally ended up in a pitch dark field, and had to work our way back to the festival entrance. Fortunately Nevo had brought a torch, but it didn't stop my ankles being made a meal of by whatever biting things we were walking through in the field.

It was worth it though; once we got to the festival, we were treated to a breathtaking show of fire. Thousands of torches lit the ground, their flames being used for people to light lanterns to release. Jaunty music was piped out of huge speakers, and the area was covered with people, Thai and farang alike, taking pictures. The atmosphere was one of both calm and awe, with monks and non-monks alike mixing to light lanterns. It didn't feel like we were intruding at all, indeed it seemed like tourists (and their cash) were expected and welcomed. I love playing with fire so was more than happy to take the opportunity to buy, light and release two lanterns with Gilly, and watch them join the multitude of others in the night sky.

The festival music stopped at about 9:30 so we found our way back to the songthaew with some acrobatics over a gate which was previously open and now locked, and went back to the guesthouse road. We grabbed some great food from Chiang Chabaad Cocktail Bar, just round the corner (massaman curry for me, yellow curry for Gilly) and turned in for the night, relieved that we hadn't missed a fantastic evening.

Day 17 - Chiang Mai Halloween Party

After enjoying a lazy day after the trek, we went to town and splashed out on some Italian food in the evening at Pum Pui. Garlic bread to start was followed by a basket of complementary bread, a massive pizza for me, and a huge bowl of pasta for Gilly, washed down with a half-litre carafe of white wine, all for 16 quid. We felt like splurging on some western food; I love Thai food to bits, but there's only so many stir fries and curries you can eat without craving something a bit more homely.

Yesterday we decided to be a bit more active and walked the best part of 5km to the Chiang Mai University Art Museum in the baking heat. We were almost wilting when we arrived, with the mercury close to 32 C. The art was a little all over the shop, and not really our thing (it was a gallery of exhibits made from recycled / raw materials - noble, but a bit bland). It killed a couple of hours though. On the way back we found an excellent little art cafe called Minimal which had some superb photos in, and made the trip that little bit more worthwhile. After stopping off for a customary Cornetto lunch (ice cream lunches are the best) we headed back to the guesthouse to hit the pool and cool off. Typically, the minute my toes touched the water, the clouds gathered and the temperature dropped about 5 degrees. I can't get a break. We said goodbye to the two Pauls and two Toms who were heading out to Laos on a 16 hour minibus drive - something we'll be avoiding, methinks - and then went over to Hayley's guesthouse (Kavil) for some food.

A couple of the ladies that run the guesthouse were heading out for a Halloween party, and invited us to join them. They cracked open a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label and were liberally sharing it around. When I say liberally, I mean that by the time we left the guesthouse, there was only half a bottle left. The owner was a lady called Eve, and she was joined by a younger girl named Benny. They were both completely nuts, and had a fantastic sense of humour. We also saw Max - Eve's younger brother - who was painting a mural in one of the back rooms, which looked stunning. The food at Kavil is great; we shared a plate of chicken with cashew nuts, a penang curry, and a pad thai between 3 of us, with a plate of spring rolls to finish, all cooked from scratch. To say we were stuffed would be an understatement.

We weren't planning on doing much that evening, but have taken the attitude of trying to say "yes" to any invitations we get, in order to broaden our experiences and meet new people. So after food, we waddled out towards the Halloween party which was a good 3km away, whilst Eve cajoled a group of German guys en route to join us. Fortunately, the rest of the Johnnie Walker had made its way into some plastic bottles mixed with water to ensure we didn't get thirsty on the way(!). I love whisky, but generally only when it's neat or - at a push - on the rocks. So this watered down stuff tasted pretty bad, but it's probably for the best as I wanted to have my wits about me in case the club was dodgy. There was nothing to worry about as it turned out, and we were treated to a club full of the most amazing costumes we'd ever seen. The creativity that went into some of these was insane.

Unfortunately the music was dire (I believe it was "techno" but to me it was just a very loud, bassy beat/noise) and it meant that we only stayed for an hour or so before grabbing a tuk-tuk ride/crazy death-trap adventure back to the guesthouse. Tomorrow we will be taking it easy in the daytime before heading to a lantern festival in the evening.

Below are a selection of the best pics from the evening:

Day 14 - 16: Chiang Mai Trekking and a Rest Day

We spent a wonderful, if exhausting, two days trekking near some Chiang Mai villages. After booking it through our guesthouse (Libra), we got up at 7:30am and headed straight to Mork Fa waterfall, which was magnificent. I think I preferred it to Erawan waterfall, it seemed a lot less touristy. In fact, we didn't see another tourist or group for the entire trip - one of the reasons we went with Libra. After the waterfall, we went to a hot spring which was incredibly hot - we couldn't sit down in it for more than 5 minutes without getting cooked. The amount of heat that is generated by a geyser is amazing, I wasn't expecting it at all. Once we were done there, the actual trekking started. This was tough. It took us about 3 and a half hours of walking through jungle, with 4 - 5 five minute breaks. Most of it was hilly (up and down) and whilst the distance to our destination as the crow flies was 9km, we must have walked a good 11-12km, if not more due to the path we took. The heat was sweltering, and we were thankful that most of the walking was out of the direct sunlight, as it would have been unbearable. We visited two villages which were mostly empty as the villagers were out farming, and took in some great sights of the mountains. However, we were not smelling our best when we finally reached the Karen village at about 5:30pm. Our guide was a Karen native called Noo, who had left to help run the trek with the guesthouse - he was great fun. He cooked us some very tasty dinner (chicken and potato curry, stir-fried chicken and lots and lots of rice) and taught us the word "Abuya" (a-boo-ya) which means Hello, Goodbye, Thank you, Cheers, and a number of other things. Quite handy really. He also gave us some "happy water" to try...this is basically home-brewed white spirit with an ever-so-slight fruit tang, and was one of the strongest drinks I've ever tasted. We built a fire, and sat around playing cards with the other trekkers who had joined us at the Libra - Paul, Paul, Tom, Tom (all 4 from the UK), and Monique - a UK-born American who works as a professional clown in Colorado. They were a great group, and we had a lot of fun over the two days.

At about 9:30pm the lights suddenly all went out, and we were plunged into pitch dark. This was probably because the village uses solar power to generate electricity...it was pretty terrifying when it happened though. We'd brought torches, but didn't spend too much longer outside as the various bugs floating around made a bee-line straight for the torchlight. We did get to see a firefly though, something I'd never seen before. Our lodging was a hut in the village, furnished with sleeping mats, a couple of pillows and some old duvets, all covered with mosquito nets. It wasn't the best night's sleep I'd had, but the trek had tired me out enough to get a good 7 hours before morning.

The next day we had breakfast (a mountain of toast and fresh fruit) and then the elephants were brought down from the mountain to get washed in the river. I got up on one of them and poured water over it, I'm not sure if it minded or not but it didn't try to shake me off so I took that to be a good sign. After the elephant bath we then got to ride them. They really are beautiful, gentle creatures and are very intelligent. The one Gilly and I were riding grabbed and broke off a nearby branch with its trunk and proceeded to scratch its head with it. After an hour or so riding, we came back to the village and fed bananas to them which was hilarious. Our elephant crammed loads into its mouth and then took some more off Gilly and held them curled in its trunk whilst munching the current mouthful...greedy sod.

We headed back to the river and got on a bamboo raft. This is basically 19 bamboo logs secured by what looked to be banana leaf. It was controlled by Noo at one end and another villager at the other, with the rest of us sat in a line down the middle. It must have taken a good 2.5 hours to get down the river; the two guides were fishing with a bit of fishing line and a carrot attached to a bamboo cane. Noo caught nothing, but the other guy - who couldn't have been older than 13 - managed to get a fish. He held it in his mouth until it died, then tied it to the raft. Lunch for him was sorted, then. I had a go fishing and managed about as well as Noo. I don't think it's a sport I'll ever fancy doing. Unfortunately disaster struck on the river when Gilly slipped getting on the raft, and lost her sunglasses. If anyone finds them in the river, please let me know. Otherwise, there's probably going to be a really cool fish swimming around right now.

After lunch (noodles, chicken, veg, and a papaya salad which was insanely hot), we got kitted out for some whitewater rafting on the Mae Tang River. Now, our insurance covers us up to Grade 3 whitewater rafting but because of the recent floods in Thailand, the river was pretty turbulent, and was around Grade 4...we decided to do it anyway. I'm glad we did as it was fantastic. The only other rafting we've done was in Wales which was about as calm as you could get - it was good, but not particularly adrenaline-filled. This was the other end of the scale, and whilst we didn't fall in or tip over, we got a massive soaking on a number of occasions down the 10km trip we took.

Wet and tired, we piled into the van and headed home. It was an amazing trip, and we were glad we took the opportunity to do it. It was also very reasonably priced - about 50 GBP each for the whole thing, including rafting, food, accommodation, the works. Outstanding. The shower I had in the guesthouse was very, very welcome though. We'd also amassed a decent pile of laundry to do so we gave that to our guesthouse to do all at once rather than have us try and scrub it in the sink. Handwashing is OK for the odd thing, but sometimes it's worth letting the professionals do it, especially if the clothes smell as bad as ours did...

Today we are taking it easy. We've moved a couple of doors down to SK Guesthouse which has a pool and is also cheaper. The 4 guys we went trekking with have also moved, so we'll be heading out for some beers and cards tonight I think. We went shopping in the main Chiang Mai shopping centre and I picked up another t-shirt, but Gilly had no luck finding sunglasses she liked so we'll probably have to wait until the Sunday market again.

As expected, the monstrosity of awfulness which is Santander has screwed us yet again by not letting us withdraw money on our debit card from ATMs. This is despite me confirming twice that we were going travelling. I'm now going to have to get a SIM card and call their horrendous customer service line to try and get things rectified. It makes my blood boil how utterly incompetent one bank can be. Fortunately we've got enough cash to keep us going for about another week, but whoever picks up the phone when I call is going to get an earful. If I can give you one piece of consumer advice it would be don't ever, ever, EVER use Santander. Ever.

Day 12 & 13 - Chiang Mai

Arrived at Libra Guesthouse after a short flight and taxi ride, at about 11pm. Not a good start, the room wasn't bad but we had twin beds despite booking a double room, and were joined by a cockroach in the bathroom. Woken at 6:30am by people walking past our room outside (we were on the ground floor), talking, making noise...and then the workmen across the road started up. But then things got better.

Dao is the lady that runs the guesthouse, and as soon as I told her we didn't sleep too well, she apologised and immediately moved us to a double room on the second floor. She had been having an argument with her staff about whether we were two guys or a couple and eventually settled on the former (note to self - specify this when emailing guest houses in future). She then got out a map, and sat with us for about 20 minutes pointing out the highlights of Chiang Mai, things to do and see, and places to eat. We've booked on a 2 day/1 night trek with the guesthouse which promises to travel a less well-trodden route and includes a stop at a waterfall (can't get enough of those...) a stop at a hot spring, a trek with some elephants, some bamboo rafting and an overnight stay at a Karen village. To date there's only 3 of us booked on the trip, but a few Germans may be joining us. It'll either be Tuesday or Wednesday depending on when we can get the numbers together. It's pretty reasonable too - it works out at about 70 quid all in, including food and accommodation.

We checked out the Chiang Mai cultural centre yesterday afternoon which told the story of Chiang Mai's history and had plenty of things to read and listen to, but it was presented in quite a dry format and wasn't as stimulating as the counterpart in Bangkok. We also visited Chiang Man, a fairly ancient wat on the way there (almost 800 years old).

In the late afternoon, we went back to the guesthouse to sit in some hammocks in the shade; the heat has been blisteringly hot, and really takes it out of you. We met a fellow resident - Hayley, from Melbourne - and decided to join her in the evening as she was headed to the massive Sunday market that Chiang Mai hosts each week. We met some of her friends en route: Eli and her partner Huey, and Eli's friend Anna, all from Australia. It's been great to chat with new people and get ideas of places to visit when we eventually head over there. We've all arranged to meet up for the Lantern Festival next Saturday, which promises to be excellent. We saw a few hundred of the lanterns set up next to the Three Kings monument in Chiang Mai, and I imagine they will look spectacular lit up.

The Sunday market was amazing. I cannot even fathom how people can cram so much "stuff" into one street. It's probably a good kilometre or two long, with arts, crafts, clothing and food all lining the street, and two huge food courts either side. Everything is crazily cheap, and pretty good quality too; I could quite easily see myself coming back with two massive suitcases and filling them with beautiful pictures, carvings and clothes. But unfortunately not on this trip! Gilly went with the intention of getting some light trousers, and succeeded. Somehow, a new dress also ended up getting purchased. Ah well, on her back be it. The food in the food courts was amazing. We ate some of the nicest samosas we've ever tasted, and filled up on various rices, chicken balls, odd sausage-type things and prawn toast. Delicious.

Today we went up to Doi Suthep and had a wander around; a lovely building, but something about the nature of the Buddhist culture makes me uneasy. Everything I've seen appears to revolve around money. Donation boxes line the walls, and giant "trees" made out of banknotes abound in many of the temples or wats we've visited. Locals come to pray to the Buddha and throw numbered sticks on the ground to get "lucky" numbers they can use to play the lottery, and hundreds of boxes promoting good fortune are available for you to buy anything from a long life to happiness (depending on the boxes you decide on). This clashes uncomfortably with the solid gold idols and monuments which are on display, as well as the stupid amount of wealth flaunted in the many, many palaces around the country. I make no secret of my atheism, but I feel that a religion which promotes the purchasing of happiness with hard currency is perhaps not as sacrosanct as it would like the wider world to believe. This is just my opinion, however.

We're heading to a little restaurant around the corner from the guesthouse tonight with Hayley for some yummy dinner. I probably don't need the qualifier...it's always yummy. We'll find out later if the trek is on for tomorrow, otherwise we'll probably head out of the old city and check out some of the outskirts. As we're going to be here until Saturday at least, we've got plenty of time to wander around at our leisure. It's nice not to feel rushed. Our visas expire on November 10th so we definitely need to have left and be in Laos before then.

Day 10 & 11 - Kanchanaburi Creams

We're sat at the airport, filling the 4 hours until our Chiang Mai flight. Thankfully, we have a puzzle book, cards, and the all-important Kindle. It was touch and go whether we'd actually get here today. We had booked a minibus yesterday with Toi's Tours (opting to give a competitor to Good Times our business, since the lady running it was very smiley whilst Good Times appeared to be the Tesco of tour operators, ad didn't have the trip we wanted a few days back). Great, we thought - we can relax now and just hop on the bus today. We were woken at 7:30 by the woman who had travelled down the road to our guesthouse and had a frantic look on her face (according to Gilly anyway, I was basically still asleep..).

The minibus wasn't running due to the floods.
Crap. How can we get to the airport?
You could take a taxi.
For a 3.5 hour journey...how much would that be?
1800 baht (£36)...

...which was 800 more than the minibus. Not outrageous, but to put it into context, two nights' stay in our Chiang Mai guesthouse is only 700. We had no option, of course, luckily our budgeting included a fair amount of contingency for emergencies like this. We'll just have to eat at some more street vendors for a couple of nights to get back on track, and the food is so good anyway, it's not exactly a hardship.

Speaking of food, we avoided the Jolly Frog guesthouse in Kanchanaburi due to a number of recent reviews mentioning bedbugs. However, we went there for some drinks last night and watched a fundraising band comprising mainly children play (really well) in aid of Baan Dada children's home, Maybe I should ease off the XBox when I get back and pick up the guitar that's been gathering dust for 8 years. We then went back today for lunch, and it was huge, filling, delicious and cheap. Even if you don't stay there, you can do a lot worse for mealtimes.

I mentioned in a previous post that ants are not our friend. This turned out to be an understatement after I got bitten three times on one foot and twice on the other. These bites aren't painful, but by the gods do they itch. Of course, the bites are located exactly where my sandals rub against my feet, meaning I'm in an itchy stupor every time I walk. I've smeared Anthisan cream all over the bites, and can only hope that reapplying it every few hours will sort them out. The ants here are practically indestructible. Gilly thought she'd killed one by squashing it this morning, but a minute later it started moving again. She smashed it to a pulp with some tissue against the table, opened the tissue and it was STILL ALIVE. I think they must have some sort of metal exoskeleton or something. I wager if you threw one into the fire it would melt into a pool of quicksilver before reforming again, like a goddamn Terminator.

Ice creams here are lovely, and there's so much more variety than the UK. This is probably due to our summer lasting 4 days, but there's definitely a market for black cherry Cornettos back home.

Looking forward to Chiang Mai, it's smaller than the capital and supposedly a lot more laid back too.

Day 9 - Kanchanaburi: Lessons Learned

We are still in Kachanaburi and will be now until Saturday.

Things we've learned:

- Travelling involves a lot of forward planning when it comes to travel between places. When you have the bare bones of an itinerary and are effectively making it up as you go along, last minute decisions to skip flood areas and jump on a plane to a relatively safe city can be tricky to organise. Case in point: we wanted to book a flight to Chiang Mai last night for today. We could have done so if we hadn't left the cards in the safety deposit box which was unavailable until morning. This morning we found almost all flights for today and tomorrow had sold out. So now we have booked another two nights at Ploy, and will be getting to Bangkok airport to catch a 9pm flight to Chiang Mai with Air Asia on Saturday. We've also attempted to book a room at Diva Guesthouse for our arrival and will hopefully be staying there at least two nights. For me, Chiang Mai seems more appealing than Bangkok. Everything aside from public transport appears to be cheaper which means we can indulge in the things it is known for: expeditions. It may still be quite touristy, but we both want to spend a day with some elephants and there appears to be plenty of places offering just that.

- Washing clothes by hand is difficult if you are expecting the same level of freshness you get from a machine. It simply won't happen. My quick drying clothing is acceptable, but until we decide to risk a boil wash in a local laundrette, we will probably have to make do with a fragrance of Eau de Damp (avaiable in Boots now).

- We should probably keep at least one card with us at all times in case some spontaneous purchases are required.

- Ants are not our friend.

- Mosquitos have some sort of cloaking mechanism which renders them invisible just long enough for them to have a nice meal on (and of) your leg, before buggering off.

- The humidity can be draining. It has been a sticky 26-27 today with no breeze, and little respite. At least in Bangkok we had a few storms each day to clear the air. Probably not too good for the locals though.

- Gilly is inordinately good at playing Cribbage. Considering her vocal distaste for anything involving maths, this is perplexing.

- The Kindle has been a lifeline. It's allowed us to keep on top of the flood situation and also find our way to places and book them. I would hate to think what a RTW trip would have been like to undertake 20 years ago, reliant solely on word of mouth to find recommended digs. Trip Advisor has come in for some stick, but it is in my opinion the best travel review site I've used, bar none.

- I'm getting a taste for Asian beer. I've never really been a lager fan aside from Corona, but the two main lagers here are not far off that taste: Singha is probably my favourite at 5% but Chang at 6.4% isn't too bad either. At just over a quid a bottle, they are good value too. I haven't dared touch the wine here. Red wine in Asia is likely best avoided unless it's imported; a guy came into the bar last night clutching a bottle off Penfolds red like it was a 30 year old single malt.

- Air Asia is one of the worst websites I've used for booking flights. They make Easyjet's costing system look transparent. You have to opt out of buying insurance not once, but twice during the booking process. You also get pre-allocated seats you have to opt out of if you don't want another bundle of costs added to the total. Doing it in an internet cafe was bad enough; I fear if I try to do it on the Kindle there may be a Kindle-shaped hole in the bedroom window after a couple of minutes.

We now need to fill today and tomorrow with things to do...or not. Truth be told, it's nice having a break from hitting the sights every few days or so. Kanchanaburi is a quiet town, and since we won't be spending as long in our first run of Thailand as first planned, we can rest up a bit and take our time when we get into Chiang Mai.

Day 7 & 8 - Kanchanaburi

Checked into the Ploy Guesthouse, our cheapest accommodation yet, and also the best. Thai-style beds, free drinking water, a massive en suite, breakfast included, marvellous. We visited the Death Railway Museum not long after arriving. This told the shocking and moving tale of the building of the Thailand-Burma railway, where the Japanese used POWs and drafted in Asian labourers to toil away, often around the clock and under brutal conditions. The museum pulled no punches, it was very matter-of-fact and I would highly recommend visiting if you came to this small town.

We ate at the Apple Guesthouse Restaurant last night, a place we may have stayed at if they hadn't been booked up. As it turns out, the Ploy exceeded all expectations. The restuarant was also excellent, however. I had chicken with basil, chilli and rice, and Gilly went for fried rice with pineapple, chicken and cashews. Yum.

Today we went all touristy and booked a tour out with a local shop. It made sense really, most of the sights in Kanchanaburi are spread out (probably a 100 mile round trip all told), so a tour took us to the main places we wanted to visit: Erawan waterfall, Hellfire Museum, a ride on the "Death Railway" and the River Kwai bridge. The Hellfire Museum was dedicated to a specific cutting through the sheer rock face that the POWs had to labour around, by drilling and then blasting rock. Hundreds of thousands died building the railway due to the conditions; it was very humbling.

The railway ride was hot but scenic, but unfortunately the bridge area had been turned into a tourist hotspot for souvenirs and other associated junk. The bridge itself was not particularly impressive as a structure, but if you consider what went into building it, that's another matter entirely. In an attempt to keep our budget from spiralling out of control, we went to the Night Bazaar not far from the guesthouse and grabbed some tasty freshly cooked food from a stall.

Ayuttaya is now off the agenda thanks to the floods, so we are going to need to review our travel plan. One option is to somehow get to Chiang Mai where the flooding is no longer an issue, but that may mean going back to Bangkok. Much last minute planning awaits...

Day 6 - Thai massage and Chinatown

Currently writing this whilst being driven at breakneck speed in a minibus to Kanchanaburi; I don't think the waist seatbelt will do me much good if we hit something. I count myself lucky - Gilly doesn't have one. To be honest, in an accident at this speed neither of us will know much about it, which I take some comfort in. Driving in Bangkok is nuts. People cut in front of each other, overtake on either side and use indicators sparingly. If that's not enough, the road markings appear to be more of a rough guideline; I've seen a couple of roads which have one way arrows on them, whilst traffic freely flows in the opposite direction. Yet no-one seems to use their horn. Maybe it's some sort of Buddhist fatalism I'm not aware of, and they assume that when it's their time to die in a 12-car pile-up then so be it.

I neglected to mention our trip to Siam Centre in downtown Bangkok, mainly because we didn't actually visit any of the shops there. It was basically an upmarket Khao San road, but didn't appear to have much we were interested in. We did have a conversation with a guy outside a bank who claimed he worked there and gave us a talk about the floods in the area, before then trying to get us to go to a "Tourist Office" where we would no doubt have been fleeced.

We also, by chance, stumbled across the Big Buddha late at night a couple of nights back. This would be the Big Buddha that all of the scam artists and tuk-tuk drivers would try and get you to visit as they have a load of gem merchants and whatnot gathered in the area, but apparently not at 9pm. Good news for us. True to its name, it was big, but not as big as the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.

My back has been really sore over the last couple of days, so we decided to indulge in a 1 hour all over Thai massage at the hotel for a bargain 4 quid each. It wasn't as painful as I'd expected and we both felt a good kind of ache afterwards. Sadly my back is still not 100% but I bought a pot of tiger balm from the masseuse which tingles and warms when rubbed over my back, and this should hopefully keep me going until it feels better.

We travelled the length and breadth of Khao San Road trying to find a pair of light long trousers for Gilly. Some of the temples and attractions have a strict dress code policy of not showing any leg from the knee up, but even Gilly's long shorts which came down to her lower calves weren't sufficient for the Vimanmek Palace who seemed to be rejecting women's outfits regardless of length and directing them to the conveniently located sarong stall where they could purchase one for 40 baht (80p). Very handy...one would think they were taking advantage of tourists.

Sadly, most of the clothing was pretty rubbish, and the trousers were more MC Hammer than Princess Jasmine, so Gilly wasn't too keen. I was on the lookout for some polyester shirts as they are lighter, dry faster, and help with heat much better than cotton. Khao San road only appeared to sell cotton. We were advised that Cambodia was the place to get wicking tops, so it may be a few months before I can trade off some of my cotton t-shirts.

At night we went to Chinatown on the recommendation of Gilly's masseuse, and enjoyed a fab meal (albeit under cover from the rain) of curried crabmeat, chilli-fried prawns and rice. It was delicious.

Kanchanaburi awaits!

Bangkok Day 4 & 5 - Vimanmek Palace, Queen's Gallery, Jim Thompson House, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre

Whilst not a sewer, Green House is possibly the worst place I've ever stayed in. Beds as hard as concrete, pillows uncomfortably lumpy, a dangerously rusty bathroom door in a fairly grim en suite, and worst of all, it faces a street which has "singers" performing until around 3:30am. If it wasn't hard enough to get to sleep with all of that, I was woken at 4:30am by some American pillock trying to get one of his friends to come out with him. She wasn't too keen, but was still more than happy to give him a rundown of her day's events, the highlight apparently being when she bought a taco. "They're like sooooo AMAZING!!!" Super.

We trekked over to Vimanmek Palace in the morning, which was built by King Rama V, the most beloved and progressive king that Thailand had, and it was crazy. Acres of sprawling gardens filled with magnificent buildings, all glorifying the Thai monarchy. Two of the buildings were photo galleries comprising pictures the reigning monarch (Rama IX) had taken. The blurb accompanying these photos was sycophantic to the point of propaganda. Every shot he had taken was for a reason and allegedly incorporated one moral or another, or showcased his wonderful ability with a camera. Apparently he was so technically proficient as a photographer he developed his own camera filters and revolutionised Thai photography. He also plays about 5 different instruments. What a guy. The centrepiece of the Vimanmek Palace was the Ananda Samakhom Throne Hall, a ridiculously decadent building filled with more gold treasures than the mind can comprehend. For his 80th birthday/60th year of reign hundreds of artisans spent 1 - 2 years crafting each piece, from a golden latticed longship, through to gold carriages, intricately carved wood panels stretching up 15-20 feet high, huge tapestries studded with diamonds, emeralds, and other gold and silver gubbins. There was literally tens of millions of pounds worth of gold on show, all in glory of this chap on the throne. I half expected to find the Ark of the Covenant stashed away in the corner. Sadly photography was forbidden, and I didn't want to risk stealthily snapping a few things in case the King's guard got mean.

We also hit a few arty places in the last few days. I love galleries. A lot of modern art doesn't do much for me; a couple of lines on a bit of canvas with a splodge in one corner isn't something I could enjoy looking at. Realism and some of the more fantastical paintings though, that's another story. Both the Queen's Gallery and the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre had these in abundance, and they were fantastic. I'll be sticking some of the more eye-catching paintings up on Flickr soon. The upload speed for Flickr isn't great so I'm probably going to be playing catch up for a few months.

Yesterday we went to the Golden Mount, a huge bell-shaped temple which still houses monks in the surrounding area. Monks are everywhere in Bangkok, and anachronistically can be seen riding buses, smoking fags, calling people on mobile phones, and fiddling with MP3 players (Note to Dad - an MP3 player is like a Sony Walkman but smaller and without the need for cassette tapes). All very bizarre.

Following that, we went to Jim Thompson House, a wonderful collection of houses interlinked and made from teak, all meticulously preserved. He was an American entrepreneur who got rich from the silk trade and was adopted by Thailand as a hero for helping promote their export business. He then disappeared one day, aged 61 and was never heard from or seen again. There's a bit of a legend surrounding him simply because of this. Some say he went to a Buddhist temple, in a Rambo-esque fit of pique. The guidebook optimistically suggests it was more likely he was hit by a car whilst out walking and buried at the side of the road. Either way, it was all a long time ago now so he's probably not in the best condition whatever happened.

We checked into Thai Cozy House for the next couple of nights, which was a lovely change to the last dump. For an extra 2 quid a night, we got free bottled water, a 15 minute Thai massage each (I'm going back tonight for a full hour as my back is killing me) and breakfast. Nice room, nice bed, nice pillows. Woke up today completely refreshed.

Food-wise it's been too hot for us to feel hungry in the day so we've taken to eating breakfast and then getting a decent meal at night. The last two nights we have eaten at the same place - Lotash Seed on Rambuttri Road. Run by a local family, it has fantastic Thai dishes made by the owner's sister who gave us some good recommendations, and the owner (See) who spoke excellent English and spent a good hour talking to us about Thai life. It's a wonderful place to eat amongst the lasagnes, chicken and chips and other English garbage food offered in the tourist district.

Tomorrow we're getting a minibus to Kachanaburi (home of the River Kwai), and staying in a guesthouse there for a couple of nights. From there we'll try and get to Ayutthaya, but it depends on the floods. It has rained consistently and persistently every day we've been here which has broken the humidity nicely, and hasn't actually bothered us that much. However, I think we're ready to move on from Bangkok. The constant harrassment from tuk-tuk drivers, people asking where we're going and trying to direct us to one flavour of Buddha or another (we've had Black Buddha, Golden Buddha, Big Buddha and Lucky Buddha to name a few) and more recently tailors. Every other shop on the Khao San road is selling tailor-made suits. Even two streets along in the hotel complex we're staying at has a bloody tailor attached to it. One of the guys running it tried to pitch to me this morning as we were eating breakfast. Incredible. Obviously where tourists go, hawkers follow. I'm hoping for a bit of a break from the hard sell in the next destination, but won't hold my breath.

Bangkok Day 2 + 3: Grand Palace, Wat Pho, Wash Out.

Bangkok is an interesting city. Going by my own experiences of travel, it seems to be a mish-mash of Western consumerism coupled with a wide range of eateries similar to Greece and the kind of hard-sell you'd find in a country like Tunisia. However, the hard-sell ranges from blatant to downright devious. Yesterday we decided we were going to visit the Grand Palace. On the way there, we were stopped by a tuk-tuk driver asking us where we wanted to go and upon telling him he informed us that it was a "Buddhist holiday", so only Thais could enter in the morning and tourists could visit at 2:30. Instead, he suggested we took a trip with him to the Standing Buddha which is apparently a massive 40ft Buddha statue. I'd read about this kind of con in the guidebook (i.e. telling you something is closed and shepherding you somewhere else, usually via a gem shop) so we were just about to move on when another guy came over, shooed him away and then proceeded to look at our map and tell us about the various sights we could visit. He said he worked in the government, and that there were a lot of people scamming you on the road. He gave us some advice on the quality of clothing and other tat on Khao San Road, and said we should best avoid it to not get ripped off. All seemed like reasonable advice. Then he started asking questions: If you took a tuk-tuk to this site, this site and that site, how much do you think it would cost? Alarm bells started ringing. It would have cost 60 Baht (about 1.20). All we needed to do was hop in a tuk-tuk. But we want to go to the Grand Palace! Ah yes, but that's closed. You didn't know? Ahaha, it's a Buddhist holiday - it opens again at 2:30 for tourists. He then started pointing out the various modes of transport on the road and whether they were official or not. Taxis with meters in? Not official. These yellow tuk-tuks? They are official government tuk-tuks. You want to get in one? Erm, no thanks...time to move on. As we did, we went past the original scammer who had pulled up in a tuk-tuk expectantly, as if he was convinced the "government official" would have convinced us to ride in his 3-wheeled death trap and visit a load of cheap tat shops run by his mates. He was disappointed.

It didn't stop there though. As we continued to the palace, we were verbally greeted by a number of people, one was a "doctor" who told us the palace was closed whilst we were waiting to cross the road. Another was at a temple we passed - she told us her name was Chanarwa. Little old lady, on holiday from Chiang Mai. Had been to Bangkok 3 times in her life, and was here again on holiday for a week. Took us into the temple to see rows of Buddhas, showed us around the courtyard, all very nice. Sat us down in the main part of the temple and proceeded to point out on our map the Standing Buddha (45 ft high - it must have grown since earlier in the morning), and also informed us that the Palace was closed until 1:30 for tourists (I guess they had so many expectant tourists, they decided to open it for us an hour earlier - very nice of them). At this stage I'd had pretty much enough. We got up, went out to the courtyard and wandered around taking photos, as she followed and tried to herd us back outside. In the end she gave up, and when we finally arrived at the palace we found it was - shock! - open. Imagine our lack of surprise.

The Grand Palace was a bizarre mix of Thai and Chinese architecture, the majority of it covered in gilt, mosaic and glass. Ostentatious probably doesn't describe it; it was like an authentic version of the kind of thing you'd find in Las Vegas, all spires, garish colours and weird ornamentation. The photos in my Flickr feed will probably explain it better than I can. The main highlight was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which appeared to be made out of jade. The mercury rose uncomfortably in the afternoon and we staggered on through the heat to Wat Pho which had similar architecture, slightly less loud, with the centrepiece of the site being a massive (and I mean massive) reclining Buddha. This thing was monstrous, and barely fit within the temple that housed it (also huge).

In the evening we went out to a restaurant called The Flow, which had lovely food but a waitress with a permanent scowl. I told her (in Thai) that the food was delicious, and she said "You speak Thai?". I said "No", and she made a face that was somewhere between a grimace and a sneer, like I'd comically fallen into a cesspool. At least I was making the effort to try and speak the lingo. When we were in France, the locals loved it when you made an effort. To be fair, the staff at the guesthouse were delighted when I said "thank you" in Thai; I guess most tourists don't bother trying.

Today we were going to go to Museum Siam - the Museum of Discovery. Unfortunately, the only thing we discovered was that it was closed due to the worst floods Thailand has seen in 50 years. I wouldn't say that this was unusual for us. We tend to bring out extreme weather in the areas we visit; when we went to Skiathos, they had a month's worth of rain dropped on the island in the space of 30 minutes. When we went to Barcelona, they had the first snow they had experienced for 9 years. I guess we should have been expecting this. We were caught in a torrent shortly after we found it was closed and managed, somehow, to get a #53 bus back to the road our guesthouse was in. It was an odd bus, in that the ticket lady was holding a clipboard and marking off how many people got on and off the bus, but not actually collecting money. We got to our stop and she ushered us out, and I was expecting to pay someone at the bus stop...but there was no-one there. Free bus ride - woohoo! It went some way to make up for horrendous drenching we got. Typically, as I sit typing this the weather has much improved.

Tomorrow we're moving away from the Sivarin Guesthouse to Green House which is on a road parallel to Khao San Road. By all accounts it's not going to be as nice, but it'll be cheap and in the centre of the backpacker community which is something we've not yet experienced. Plus, we've only booked one night there so if it turns out to be a cockroach-infested sewer, there's plenty of similar sewers to choose from in the area.

Bangkok - Arrival

We arrived in Bangkok at 3:40, tired but well fed.

Despite a brief moment when the check in monitor gave us a glimmer of hope that we may have some extra legroom, we were crammed into a massive sardine tin with cattle class space to manoeuvre. Tesco farm hens would have looked at us and smirked (if one can smirk with a beak) before flapping their wings in the luxury of their massive barn. We had the inordinate pleasure of being seated half a metre from a screaming shit, regaling us with piercing shrieks just because he could, whilst Gilly was lucky enough to be positioned in front of a toddler who kicked her seat back every ten seconds.

There was a point where we thought things may go wrong when the check in assistant in Heathrow said we needed to have an onward flight. We don't have an onward flight until April which is obviously outsidde the 30 day window for visitors. Luckily after a phone call to check, she said it was OK. We need to be in Laos by November 10 at the latest but otherwise the Thai authorities didn't care. We got a taxi to the Sivarin Guesthouse which is a nice, fairly basic place by UK standards but I suspect a bit pricier than many of the tourist flophouses which are bound to be dotted around.

Had a second crisis when Gilly found her camera lens coated in a weird sticky film which may actually have come from the camera itself. Easily wiped off but a little worrying. Mine appeared to be unharmed so we at least have one camera if the worst happens to hers.

Looking forward to the breakfast in the morning, hopefully followed by a trip to the palace. Right now though, I'm mostly looking forward to sleep.

Farewell to Wimbledon

I spent a great night in the company of friends in Wimbledon yesterday. After a couple of drinks in the Hand and Racquet, we went to Han restaurant in New Malden for food and karaoke. The food was excellent, but the service unforunately wasn't. I might be picky here, but if someone orders food it doesn't bode well if the waiter forgets to tell the kitchen to cook it. Still, it worked out in the end as we got an upgraded karaoke booth and no-one paid for their food. Quite a maverick business model, but probably not a recommended one. Everyone had a great night (I believe, anyway. After the second bottle of wine things got a bit hazy...) and I'm going to miss the Wimbledon gang very much. Also had a smashing curry at lunchtime courtesy of a cracking cafe near Mo. It will be interesting to see how curries differ in Asia compared to the UK.

I took out the stuff I'll be wearing and also ditched some sun cream and a few cables, and the bag is now a lot more manageable. Less is definitely more in this case, I've estimated a 12.4% reduction in the chance of a slipped disc, and a 35.1% reduction in likelihood of me throwing the damn thing in a Bangkok river two days after arrival.

Speaking of rivers, we've now booked our first three nights' accommodation at a guesthouse close to the river, specifically the Sivarin Guesthouse which is about 1km from the Khao San road and about 2km from the Grand Palace. It's very reasonably priced and includes breakfast, whilst not being in the centre of the tourist hub. I'm now starting to get excited about the trip. With the last few weeks of sorting out work, the car, the house and all the associated admin that comes with being out of the country for a year (something the government can't seem to comprehend- "You want to leave the UK? WHY? How are you going to support yourself? You must tell us everything immediately!"), I haven't really had time to think about the trip itself. Now I can finally start looking into some of the fantastic things we're going to be doing. Three days to go!

Stuff, Addendum

Today we walked from Harrow and Wealdstone station to Gilly's parents' house. This is a 1.1 mile journey. We did this whilst carrying our fully loaded backpack/daypack combination, and have come to the following conclusions:

- Not properly packing your backpack can result in pain.
- Not properly adjusting your properly packed backpack can result in pain.
- 12kg worth of stuff is not fun to carry on your back for any length of time in an ill-packed, ill-adjusted backpack, as it results in pain.
- 12kg worth of stuff is probably 4kg worth of stuff too much to take with us.

Tomorrow's task will be a concerted effort to shave off precious weight from an already fairly sparse inventory. I'm now only taking flip-flops and wearing the Keens (sod the trainers...), and I'm going to seriously reduce the amount of over-the-counter medicines I'll be taking. I also need to decide if I have too many clothes. The answer is probably yes. I've got about 6 bottles of sun cream for both of us. Plus a bottle of after-sun. I think that's 5 bottles too much. I may burn more easily than a Tesco Express during a UK riot, but I'll be damned if I'm going to put my back out lugging 5 litres of the stuff around. I'll just wear more clothes. That'll make my back lighter, need less sun cream, and make me feel like less of a tourist. Granted, I'll probably sweat more, but I hear that backpackers are supposed to reek anyway otherwise they're not considered hardcore. I've got some wicking tops. It'll be fine. It'll be completely fine.

Other things I've learned in the last few days:

- If you have voicemail switched on whilst abroad, and someone leaves you a message, you will get charged for it...even if you don't listen to it. My provider's tariff du jour is 60p per left message, regardless of length. Here's a fun wheeze - if someone you dislike is going abroad and you have their number, help rack up a massive phone bill by leaving a crazy amount of voicemails for them. Not only will they have to sift through 35 messages to see if anyone has left them anything worth listening to (which will cost them), but they will get landed with a bill on top of that, just for the courtesy of having the messages there in the first place. You're getting charged for something completely beyond your control, which is madness. The sooner there is a global crackdown on this kind of nonsense from network providers (as there has been in the EU), the better.

- You can SORN your car online. That is, as long as the DVLA isn't busy "upgrading their system". Apparently, this can take up to 48 hours. That's one hell of an upgrade.

- You don't need 3rd party fire and theft insurance for cars being kept off-road. You just need something called "laid-up cover" or "off-road cover" (depending on who you talk to). I learned this to my cost after buying TPF&T and later fuinidng out I could buy laid-up cover at a fifth of the cost - thanks Fi! - from certain insurers. I'll be using Footman James, but Direct Line will do it for existing customers, and there are a couple of others too; have a look on Google if it's something you'll need.

- Santander have possibly the worst telephone customer service I've ever experienced. This is in stark contrast to their branch staff, who couldn't be more helpful. If there was a way to transpose the two, this would help our journey immensely. As it is, I fear I'll be forced to navigate the murky waters of Santander's telephone banking on a frequent basis to unblock cards, ask why money hasn't been transferred, and tolerate "supervisors" who have even less inclination to help than their call centre monkey subordinates. Tip:- if you are with Santander, move. You probably haven't heard it here first, but there's a reason why they are consistently in the bottom three banks for customer service.

- Kindle 3G connectivity in the UK rocks. Fact. I hope it's the same worldwide...

- The Student Loans Company want you to tell them if you're out of the UK for 3 months. This is presumably so they can send a P.I. after you and check you're not busy making lots of cash waiting bars abroad, whilst neglecting to pay them. They also want you to prove how you're supporting yourself. For us, it's not a problem as we've saved up so can show them bank details. If you're staying with family and/or friends though, I'm not quite sure how you can "prove" this...

6 days to go and still lots to do. Tomorrow we have a whole day free so should be able to get the rest of the admin work done and make a start on converting heavy bags to light ones. Perhaps I can get a small canister of helium and fill up the bag. Hmmm...I may have stumbled upon a possible Dragon's Den pitch. I think I'll call it Heliobag. I've just checked and no-one has trademarked that name. I can practically hear Bannatyne salivating as I type.

Stuff, and the accumulation thereof

It turns out that we have a lot of stuff. I'm not entirely sure how, but in the 4.5ish years spent sharing a flat, we've managed to gather enough things to fill 12 carloads. This includes two estate cars and also takes into account us chucking away (or freecycling) another two carloads worth of crap. In less than a week we'll have the equivalent of less than 1/3 of a car seat strapped to our back, which needs to keep us going for a year. To put it into perspective, when we went camping in June, we took an entire boot full of stuff. For two nights.

We're not hoarders by any stretch, but the sheer amount of items we've accrued makes me wonder if we need it all. Now that I've got a Kindle, I could theoretically get rid of my book collection, but I like books. I like the feel and the smell of them, and the Kindle strips them down to some sterile entity which, whilst retaining the essence of "story", neglects the tactile pleasure in having the thing in your hand, and turning crisply printed pages to reveal the gems within. "A real page-turner!" has become "A real right-arrow clicker!". Call me picky, but it doesn't feel the same. On the other hand, I currently have more books on my Kindle than I could fit into our second bedroom, floor to ceiling. I guess there are pros and cons both ways.

I imagine when we decide where we ultimately want to live (which may have vastly changed after our time away), some hard choices will need to be made. As much as I would love to spend a week travelling from Harrow to Milton Keynes via Bromsgrove, Widnes and Liverpool simply picking up our belongings only to move them to a spare room/cupboard/attic/the bin, I'm hoping that living on nothing but a week's worth of clothes will help us realise that we don't actually need that much. I say that, but I'm sure once we're back in the thrall of first-world consumerism, best-laid plans will head straight down the newly-purchased eco-toilet (with built-in flush sensor, MP3 player socket, and synonym checker for those trickier crossword moments - all absolutely essential).

I may have been a little hasty with my praise about Kindle blogging - the email version I got seemed to have stripped out the apostrophes when viewing it on the Kindle (but oddly, not on a PC). If any readers are viewing this on a mobile, iPad or similar, do me a favour and leave a comment letting me know if the apostrophes are alive and well.

Stuff, I can do without. Having the Kindle make me look like I have the grammatical ability of an eleven year old with ADD is beyond the pale.

Jobless

I've been out of work for two days now. I'm not sure if i was expecting some sort of revelatory sense of freedom, but after a day pulling up weeds, cleaning windows and hoovering up more spiders than should even be possible to find in a habitable dwelling, I'm wondering when the actual fun times are going to start.

We're moving out on the 3rd, a date which looms ominously close. I can't express in words the oddity of packing for a RTW trip. It's like if you are going away for a fortnight in Greece, but instead of picking two weeks' worth of your best clothes, you are picking about 5 days' worth of stuff you don't really care about, ensuring it is all lightweight, easy to wash and dry, and under no circumstances white. I haven't actually tried packing my 70L pack yet, always finding some reason to put it off. When the beast is filled though, I'm expecting to immediately want to halve the contents for fear of herniating my back. In the unlikely event that this isn't necessary, I will consider it a Good Thing and forget all about it until we get on the airport bus.

Writing this on a Kindle isn't as difficult as I imagined. I wouldn't recommend trying to write a novel, or even use the keyboard for any great length of time if you're not a fan of hand cramp, but in small doses it does the job well. how good it will be when I'm 6000 miles away and reliant on 3G connectivity remains to be seen.

Saying "Hello"

A few days back, I was walking along my road and as I walked past a gentleman who must have been in his 60s, he said "Hello!" This took me aback somewhat, and I managed to stammer out "H-hello!" with a quick smile before we passed. I'd never seen the chap before; he was complete stranger. The fact that I was taken aback in itself took me aback...why should a simple friendly greeting be so odd?

It is though, isn't it? As a country, we are renowned by Americans for our "British Reserve" when it's actually a combination of shyness, ignorance and a fear that has been drilled into us by everyone including schools, the media, and even our parents.

"Don't talk to strangers!"
"If you see someone you don't recognise and aren't sure about them, cross the street."
"Be wary of overly friendly strangers, they could be terrorists!"
and so on.

We don't talk to people on the street that we don't know. We rarely talk to them on the bus, or the train, or the tube. Tube journeys especially are an odd experience when travelling alone. Hundreds upon hundreds of people standing around, earphones blocking out any chance of conversation and acting as a warning not to interact with their owners. As a race, humans need interaction with their fellows to survive, so why do we take such pains to exclude it from our lives?

I write this, as very soon we'll be solely reliant on strangers for survival, and it is going to take a concerted effort to break the social conditioning of keeping your head down and marching on, in order to get by. We'll need to talk to strangers to get directions, to get food, to get lodgings. We'll need to make conversation with people we've never met before and may be reliant on them at some stage for one thing or another, and will need to learn to trust them in a short space of time when there is no good reason to do so and which, in our current society, would be considered "madness". Does that scuba diving trainer actually know what they're doing? Has the bungee jump runner definitely attached the harness properly? Did the guy who directed us to a hostel really send us the right way?

In context, a man saying "Hello!" to me on the street is trivial. He perhaps lives on the road and may have seen me previously. He may have simply been being polite. Whatever the reason, it certainly highlighted the change in attitude I will need to make in the next few weeks.

Back up and running

Well it's been over 5 years since this was updated. So here's a new post.

This blog is probably going to get a bit more exciting in a few months.

Orange belt!

I passed my second grading today, and got my orange belt. Although I did a lot more than my yellow belt grading it didn't seem as hard, perhaps because I had an idea of what was coming this time. I have another lesson tomorrow, but hopefully it'll be something unrelated to the syllabus as I'm sick of doing katas right now.

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post was that on Feb 26th I went to see the incomparable Daniel Kitson. This chap is possibly my all-time favourite comedian, and this is the only the second time I've ever seen him. The first was back at uni, in 2000. I'd never laughed so much in my entire life...until tonight, that is. His humour ranges from the crude (he says c**t more than anyone I've ever known), to the intellectually fulfilling (the guy has a vocabulary the size of Encyclopedia Britannica). Gems included a 10 minute hysterical rant on the dangers of smoking, and a deconstruction of reality TV shows that encourage cruelty, such as Pop Idol:

"What did you do today, daddy?"
"I shattered someone's dreams."

The show was about 2 and a half hours with a break, but I could have listened to him for twice that. Quite simply, Daniel Kitson is a genius and if you get chance to see him live, you need to go. Even if it means stabbing someone in the face with a blunt pencil to get a ticket. I hope I don't have to wait another 6 years to see him again.

A few films I've seen recently:

A History of Violence - excellent little thriller, where a smalltown diner owner (Viggo Mortensen, minus a sword) becomes a hero when he fends off two armed robbers who break in and threaten his staff. This sets off a chain of events that affect him and his family, right up to an interesting and original final scene. Whilst quite gory in places, the film asks questions such as "How much violence is too much?" and "Is it right for good guys to be violent, and bad guys not to be?". I've been deliberately vague about the plot, since even reading the smallest spoiler could ruin it for you. It's well worth watching though.

Rounders - No, sadly not a gratuitous, "no holds barred" look at the all-girl UK team who play the game of the same name; this film's about poker. Not so interested? Well, it'd be a shame to miss out as this one's a treat. Mike (Matt Damon) is a law school student paying his tuition by winning poker games; that is, until he loses everything on one game against a Russian mobster, Teddy KGB (John Malkovich). 9 months on and going straight, his friend and old poker partner Worm (Edward Norton) gets out of prison with debts to pay, and soon drags him back into the game. It's an effective, gripping little comedy-drama with great acting, but Malkovich steals every scene he's in. I've not seen a supporting actor put so much into hamming up a role since Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham. His accent is ridiculous: what is that? Ukraine? Uzi? Yet, it matters not, because the film is worth watching for him alone.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - Gilly's choice (it has Robert Downey Jr. in it...), this was an entertaining and very funny film noir tribute, complete with narrative. The plot is far too complicated to explain and has more twists than I can remember, but even if you don't fully understand what's going on, you'll still enjoy it.

Timecode - There's not many films I've given up on. Creep was one of them, and that lasted about 45 minutes. With Timecode I managed 26. No, it's not a wacky time-travel film, nor is it about a bomb. If only. This is one of those pretentious "arthouse" movies that look interesting, until you realise that if you keep watching you may actually slip into a coma. The screen is split into 4, similar to the way 24 lays out its different stories. The main difference is that with 24 the scenes that are happening simultaneously are shown on screen together for a maximum of five or six seconds. With Timecode there are 4 different continuous shots of four different stroies going on all the way through the film, with the volume being raised in the section of the screen that the director wants you to pay attention to. When you consider that each of the sections was done in one continuous take with improvisation by the actors all the way through, it all starts to sound impressive. The main problem is that every one of those four stories is deathly dull. They all apparently converge near the end of the film but in order to get the viewer hooked, there needs to be something to grip them. There was nothing. It says something about the state of a film when Salma Hayak making out with another woman still doesn't keep my attention. So there you have it - 26 minutes. Maybe you'll like it and last longer than I did. Good luck to you.

I finished my first Philip K Dick book recently, Vulcan's Hammer. It was an interesting short story (only 150 pages or so), and so I decided to buy a compendium of five more of his best. Should be here in a few weeks. Meanwhile, I've got the last book of Phillip Pullman's series to read (thanks Gilly!) and then I think I may finally start Chainfire by Terry Goodkind. His new one - Phantom - is out in June.

Started playing a really freaky point-and-click adventure today: Sanitarium. When a game's installer gives me the creeps, I know I'm on to something a bit disturbing. 2 chapters in, and it's not bad. The voice acting's a bit dodgy but the general weirdness is refreshing and makes it a lot easier to play than Syberia 2 (which I'm still struggling through).

Right, that's about all for now. After a weekend practicing and then performing Bushido, I'm in need of some gaming time.

The Passage of Time

Almost two months since my last post...wow. Things have been busy; perhaps a little bit too busy for my liking. So here's a quick summary of the most important things that have happened since I last started typing here.

Ray Meredith, James's father, unfortunately died from a heart attack in February aged 83. A lovely man who I had known for almost 20 years, he will be sadly missed.

Bushido: it looks like my hip is fine, so it's lots of painful stretching that is needed in order for me to kick higher. I went to a weapons seminar last weekend and did 4 hours of bo staff training which was good fun, although my left leg decided it didn't want to work too well for the next couple of days. I've got two weeks until my orange belt grading, and I think I should be OK, but lots of practice and stretching will be needed.

My car cost £250 to get through the MOT. But it's still alive, thankfully. I really can't afford another car at present. I may even get round to washing it sometime. After 3 years without a soap sud near it, even the birds are giving it a wide berth.

Gilly is appearing in Iolanthe at Portsmouth's New Theatre Royal on the 15th-18th March. I'll be there for the final night. Go and see it (if only to see the costume she's being forced to wear...) ! :o)

Oh yeah, I guess there was the small matter of my birthday in January too. I went up to Castleford to check out Neil's new house with almost a dozen other Miltonites and we went for bowling and a curry in XScape. It's a pretty cool place, there's a bar overlooking an indoor ski slope so you can watch people falling over as you drink your pint. Marvellous.

Wayne and I are both trying to brush up on our writing skills, so I cunningly came up with a writing "challenge" where one person would pick a topic, and we would both then write something around that topic. I chose "Thief" to start with, and you can see my effort by clicking here. It wasn't a bad first attempt, the overall setting could have used some more atmosphere as it basically could have been set anywhere. Wayne chose "The Pilot" as the next topic, and I opted for something a little different. This will probably mean nothing to those of you that don't visit the DVD Forums but I've added it for the sake of inclusivity. This month's topic is "Fairy Tales", and I've got something even more interesting planned. Whether I can pull it off effectively or not is a different matter.

Speaking of writing, I've worked my way through a few books recently. I didn't mention finishing The Dumas Club but it was a good read, and far, far better than the film that was based on it - The Ninth Gate. Since then I've read Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman, and am now onto book 2: The Subtle Knife. I also finally got round to finishing A Feast for Crows, which was a little bit more padded out than George R R Martin's other books, but very enjoyable nonetheless. I assume book 5 will be similar, as it will be building up the story of the other half of the cast which didn't feature in this book. Then hopefully books 6 and 7 will round things off with a bang (when they're published in the year 2020, or something). There was even time to squeeze in The Rule of Four which was little more than a clone of The Da Vinci Code but without the exciting parts. The ending was limp too, but then so was Dan Brown's book. So in that respect at least, it was a successful replica.

From time to time, I even manage to dip into The Complete Calvin and Hobbes which my lovely girlfriend bought me for my birthday. Cartoons never get old. I say "dip", because this collection contains every single cartoon that was published in syndication; 10 years worth of material exquisitely bound into three huge volumes (450+ pages each) and stored in a sturdy illustrated box. Absolutely fantastic - thank you Gilly :o)

On to television...here's the rundown:

24 - Wow. This season kicked off with a stormer of an opening episode, perhaps the most intense yet, and the pace has certainly kept its momentum through the 12 episodes shown so far. Last week's double header (in the US) ended with a jaw-dropper, and nicely set up the remaining half of the series. Ignore the fact that Jack has a pocket teleporter, and enjoy the most exciting series on TV at the minute.

House - After watching the first couple, the show got me hooked. I devoured the first series in the space of a week, and I've now caught up to the current series. As expected, the rest of the cast were developed nicely and there's usually an interesting twist each episode with regards to the personal lives of the staff to keep things bubbling.

The Thick of It - Only seen one episode of this political comedy and the satire was bone dry, unsurprising since it was penned by Armando Iannucci. It's less immediately accessible than Absolute Power but I think, like a good wine, it will mature nicely to give a more rounded flavour in the end.

The IT Crowd - Slated by critics, Channel 4's new geek comedy had me in stitches through the first two episodes but the third and fourth were pretty awful. When you have lines delivered by Chris Morris such as: "That's the kind of place this is, Jen. Lots of people not doing much, and having affairs." then it's hard not to laugh. It's just a shame he's hardly in it.

Lost - Finally getting its act together and realising that back story, whilst necessary, can't actually divert the viewer away from the fact that people are stranded on an island. You can only ignore it for so long. I hope the end of the series actualy gives us something of interest to make up for all the filler.

Alias and Commander-In-Chief are out till April, Prison Break is back on the 20th, Everwood returns next week, and The West Wing resumes tonight, so there's lots to look forward to. Bones is still trundling along in the category of "drama that's worth watching if there's nothing else on", and Joey really needs to get canned as soon as possible. If it makes it to a 3rd series, it will be a disgrace, especially when Firefly didn't even get the benefit of a full run.

Which leads nicely on to Serenity - the DVD sales of which have pushed the film into the black, and made up for its (relatively) poor theatrical release. Good news? Possibly. Fox still own the rights to Firefly so a new series is unlikely. But I don't think fans will want another film if there is any sort of chance of a new series. So I guess it will depend if Fox and Universal discussions take place, which will most likely depend on how Joss's next films (including Wonder Woman) turn out cash-wise.

A few films I've seen recently:

Robots - amusing animation, pretty much carried by Robin Williams, but good fun for a night in.

The I Inside - Decent psychological/time-travel flick in the same mould as The Jacket, but actually better even if it does star Ryan Phillippe, and it has an ending that makes you go back and re-evaluate the little clues that were left for you to find. Well worth watching.

Bushido grading is in two weeks time, so I suppose I better go and get practicing.

Toodlepipski!

2006!

Another year trundles on. So what have I learned from 2005? Well, natural disasters were the "in" thing for the Earth, which hopefully means that the globe will choose something different for this year's fashion. And of course, the usual nonsense of people killing other people in the name of "religion". Give it a hundred years or two, and the human race might actually start to see sense and abolish the whole notion of religion.

The first thing I've taken from 2006 though is this: Super Size Me is one of the most important documents produced in the 21st Century thus far. It should be made required viewing for ALL prospective parents, and any children over the age of 12. The eye-opening portions of the film aren't so much the effect that fast food has on Morgan Spurlock, but the way that companies like McDonald's and GMA operate in order to a) keep people coming back and b) make as much profit as possible. The imprinting at a young age has more psychological significance than one would think possible.

New shows I've been watching recently:

Arrested Development - Recently cancelled by Fox to the outcry of millions (TV networks tend to do that, I've noticed), I watched the first couple of episodes of this quirky comedy. I'm not sure what to think; it's quite amusing but is missing the sharpness of Scrubs or the good nature of My Name Is Earl. I might give it another go sometime soon.

Prison Break - One of the best "action" dramas I've seen since 24, this one had me hooked through every one of the 13 episodes broadcast so far. An architect whose brother is on Death Row and who is due to be executed in a month gets himself locked away into the same prison in order to break him out. The twist? He designed the prison, so knows it in detail. Helpfully though, he also has the blueprints tattooed on his body (in a gothic-type design, that won't attract attention), and he also has enough information about some of the prisoners to get them to help him do what he needs. Once you've bought into that plot device - which Prison Break subtly convinces you to do - the show rattles along and breakneck pace. To counterbalance prison life, you also have the girlfriend of the Death Row inmate fighting to get him freed (which is handy as she's a lawyer), and who tracks the "framing" of the accused to a rather surprising place. This returns in March for the back 9 episodes, and I'll be glued to the screen. How they can come up with a second series, I have no clue, but I'm sure if the show's a hit and enough money changes hands, it may be around for a while.

House - I caught 5 minutes of this on Channel 5 a few months back and the only thing that registered was Hugh Laurie's astonishing American accent. Aside from that, I thought it the usual run-of-the-mill medical drama. I came back to it this weekend, and two episodes later I'm impressed. The writing for Laurie's character is excellent, and he is totally convincing. The other characters are OK and will surely develop as the series progresses, but it's Laurie that makes the show watchable. It's certainly a far cry from his days as George in Blackadder.

Absolute Power - Hugh Laurie's old comedy partner Stephen Fry starred with Rory Bremner's pal John Bird in this painfully near the knuckle satire about the machinations of a PR company with a finger in every public pie. It goes more for sly chuckles than outright laughs, but it's one of those shows that makes you feel smart if you understand the jokes. So that's good enough for me.

Boston Legal - Watched the pilot for this show purely to see the great William Shatner in action. I came across this purely accidentally after seeing it on a billboard; I've never been a fan of legal dramas, I never watched Perry Mason and I've never seen the show that spawned this spin-off: The Practice. However, after watching this episode...I still don't like legal dramas. Shatner's managed to tone down the ham, and James Woods is excellent. But the whole "law firm" premise just doesn't do anything for me.

Going back to superb shows, 24 season 5 starts tonight in the States with 2 episodes, followed by another 2 tomorrow. So I'll have plenty to digest this week.

I have my orange belt Bushido grading in March to look forward to. That, of course, was sarcasm. I'll be finding out in tomorrow's lesson whether I actually have a hip problem that prevents me from kicking at a certain angle, or whether it's just muscle tightness.

Also this week, I need to get an MOT booked before Feb 1st. The car will be in a Fiat garage on Wednesday in order to get its brake pipes replaced for free (since it's been recalled), and after that I'll just be hoping that it gets through the test without too much wallet impact. Otherwise I may just have to eBay it and get another. Not ideal.

Fingers crossed!

Happy Christmas!

My last post for a few weeks, since I'll be splitting my time between Bromsgrove and Harrow over this holiday period. Have a great Christmas, and let's hope the human race gets through 2006!

Bon Nöel.

John Spencer: 1946-2005

A sad time for fans of The West Wing - and I count myself as one of them, if only during the first 4 series. John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry - Bartlett's Chief of Staff, and more recently the Democratic VP - died of a heart attack yesterday. It's sad for many reasons; firstly because Spencer was an accomplished actor who appeared on the small and big screen (from LA Law to The Rock), secondly because the similarities between Spencer and his character were acute - both were recovering alcoholics, and in series 6 of The West Wing McGarry suffered a heart attack and survived - and thirdly because John Spencer was the only thing worth watching during these later, tepid years of the show. Whether it was the embarrassed smile or the casual shuffle of a walk, his mannerisms made Leo a human figure in a show that had seemed to have more and more actors simply sleepwalking through their roles as it progressed. I hope the writers do his character the courtesy he deserves and give Leo (and John) a fitting send off over the coming weeks.

It's been over a month since my last entry...time flies, eh? I finish work on Monday until Jan 3rd. It's going to be a hectic Christmas period. I'm at Lou and James's 24th - 27th, then on the 28th I have the Bushido Turkey Burn-off where I'll most likely pass out from 2 hours of solid “exercise” (read: Hell on earth), then I'm at Gilly's from the 29th to the 2nd for New Year.

TV:- I'm on to series 3 of Everwood, a series that is becoming more and more like a comfort blanket - something to slip into when you just want to chill out and let a small town wash over you.

West Wing seems to have hit the "mundane" button on the keyboard. Series 4 is where this show should have ended. Familiarity with the characters, a will to see it out to the end and now the unhappy loss of Leo is the only thing that's keeping me watching.

Commander in Chief is still finding its feet, whilst Bones feels a little ancient now, even with all the high tech and improbable gizmos on display. The real surprise is Alias which just kicked into an unexpected plot twist in its final series. I doubt much of the Rambaldi plot will be explained but at least it will go out on a high. Hopefully. Joey has been put on hiatus until March, and since the recent episodes have been pretty lackluster, I can’t see it staying for a 3rd series. Lost had a slow start but is finally kicking into a decent plotline. Unfortunately, I’ll have forgotten what it is by the time the Christmas period is over. Thank goodness for recaps, eh?

I finally completed The Longest Journey and am now working through Syberia 2. Gilly’s already completed it, but then that’s because she cheats and looks at online solutions. Pah. Some people have no willpower.

I’ve started studying Zen philosophy (not to be confused with Zen Buddhism, which has a more religious aspect). I’m currently reading “Nothing Special – Living Zen” by Charlotte Joko Beck. She has an interest take on life, but as any Zen philosopher would tell you, Zen can’t be learned by reading a book – all it will do is give you some background to the general concept. But if you’re interested, it’s well worth a read. It ties in well to the philosophy I’ve also started looking at in Bushido.

All my Christmas presents are bought, all the wine and chocolates are ready to go, and I have one more day left at work. I beat Nadeem 5-4 at table tennis today, which surprised me since I haven’t picked up a bat for 6 months, and he’s something of a regular. Henbury Leisure Centre is new, and the paint fumes were starting to get to me after an hour, not an experience I’ll be repeating weekly, but a rematch is in order in January.

On Tuesday it’s the Christmas do of the people that run our offices, they invite all the resident buildings down to the main office for wine and a buffet. I’ll be heading in for that despite my holiday, firstly because I wouldn’t dream of turning down free wine and secondly because I’m lining up a 4 player game of LOTR Risk straight after in our office. Nadeem, Lucy and Mark are the other contenders, but I am determined that Middle Earth will be MINE. Mwahaha. Gilly’s pretty good at it too. I think she's a closet geek.

Last Friday we had the WHA Christmas do. We went 4x4 off-roading in Chew Magna which was great fun (link to photos to follow soon), and that was followed by a great meal at The Hunter’s Rest. It looks like a great place to stay for a quiet break too.

Tis the season to be...ill

Ah, the approach to Christmas. Coldness. Not being able to breathe through my nose. Incessant sneezing. No, this really isn't my favourite time of the year. It makes me thankful that my room is so small, it keeps the warmth in nicely.

New shows ahoy! I've been catching up with some of the new US shows released this fall (sorry, autumn):

Bones - David Boreanaz in "not typecast" shocker! OK, so he basically does what he did in Angel but he gets to wear cool shades and walk around in the sun. The show's not bad either, a refreshing change to the glut of CSI sequels and clones hanging around of late.

Commander In Chief - I tried not to compare it to The West Wing. I really did. But 7 episodes in, and it just seems like West Wing Lite. Rod Lurie is certainly no Aaron Sorkin. It's also a miracle you can understand Geena Davis as she mumbles through her clenched teeth and trout lips. All said though, it's growing on me. The West Wing would have you believe that the White House occupants did nothing but have meetings, work late and look stressed. This show seems to have the president hanging around the kitchen sipping tea and going out on lakes, whilst doing that official-type stuff in her spare time. I'm not sure which to believe, but my relief at Donald Sutherland managing to get a role and not ham it up has been tempered by his character's insistence on saying "Bloody hell" every episode. William Hill should set up the "Nathan Templeton Sweepstake" - person closest to the minute he says it each week, wins.

Everwood - Not strictly new, but new to the UK (although we decided inexplicably to change the name to "Our New Life In Everwood"). This one is intriguing - a "family drama" where very little happens each episode, but it still manages to get a grip without resorting to melodrama. That said, I've only seen two episodes thus far, and both have brought tears to my eyes. I can't think of another show that's ever done that, but then I guess there isn't another show that has a family situation so close to my own. It's well-written, funny and moving.

Aside from this, there's the usual weeklies of Lost (this week's episode was a bit of a shock - at least to me, since I avoid all spoilers), Alias (improving slightly now that we have some sort of boo-able bad guy), The West Wing (the live debate episode was excellent), and Joey (umm...never mind).

I also found time to watch William Hartnell's second Time Lord appearance in Doctor Who and the Daleks. Unfortunately, the show was appalling. I can't imagine who would willingly want to watch the black and white Doctor Who shows now, since they are so ridiculously dated. But onwards, I must press, if only to get some decent backstory.

On the bookshelf these days? Well, Wayne recommended me "The Dumas Club" by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, and in return I pointed him to "A Game of Thrones" which he seems to be enjoying very much. In between illness, TV and work, I've not had much time to read Dumas but I'll be sitting down with it soon enough.

Games-wise - GTA: San Andreas is a big improvement over Vice City. I know I had my reservations at first, but it's so much better in every respect that I'm really not sure where they can take the series from here.

Anyway, my bed awaits and I have Bushido tomorrow night. Toodle pipski.