AWOL Geordie - Steve’s global adventure

Here are some pics from ages ago:

A pub crawl Laos style. Vang Viang.

Jungle clad karst mountains in Laos.

On one of my jungle expeditions. Pretty steep.

You have to protect your shrines from the powerful sun. These things are evrerywhere in Laos.

Floating down the river on an inner tube.

This is one of the swings - pretty big.

I got lashed in this lovely riverside bar.

From Luang Prabang to Pakbeng. Mekong river cruise. This is a typical Mekong village. I’m sure I can see a pub.

Looking down a Mekong valley. Gorgeous.

Another village. Class.

This internet cafe looks like the dog’s bollicks eh?

After further investigation I found it WAS the dog’s bollicks.

NHS cuts.

Nice spot to dry your clothes. A house with a cliff for a garden.

The spiciest food in the World - ever. The chopsticks are starting to melt. This is Som Tam or Papaya salad. It can be used to power space shuttles as a cheaper alternative to rocket fuel.

Some cargo boats berthed on the Mekong at Pakbeng. See the Laos flag?

The suburbs of Pakbeng. Quite noisy when its raining.

Idyllic Pakbeng in the middle of nowhere, Laos.

Do you need a slow baot? For 0900, read 1000-1200! Asia time!

The Laos-Thai border. Back to civilisation. ATMs, cafes, shops, electricity, roads etc etc.

Look at the difference between this small Thai town and Laos. It is like travelling through time.

A view from my balcony in Mae Hong Son, NW Thailand.

Into Burma. My friend Rene from Bali with Alex our trekking guide from Kalaw to Inle Lake.

An old woman in one of the villages we passed through.

What time is it? Bath time by the look of things.

A bunch of canny bairns.

My 5-star accommodation for a couple of nights - loving it.

Preparing the fields for rice planting. No tractors here. No cars, motorbikes, roads or electricity either - wonderful!

Cruising down the Ayerwaddy river from Mandalay to Bagan. Can you see the golden stupas? They are everywhere in Burma.

A young lad wearing the thanaka paste on his face on this packed boat.

The kitchen is at the end but how to get there?

A welcoming committee at one of dozens of stops.

Using cattle to bring goods from the village to the boat for further transportation. These loading/unloading operations take quite a while. It’s best not to be in a rush!

The boat kitchen.

Unloading a motorbike style tractor. Where are the dockyard cranes I here you ask? This is Asia’s 3rd biggest port after Shanghai and Singapore.

The Pakkoku ferry terminal.

Bagan - breathtaking.

More Bagan.

Bagan.

Bagan again.

With a young friend who has thanaka paste smeared all over his boatrace!

Lovely little lasses hawking George Orwell’s Burma Days book. Aren’t those smiles wonderful?

In traditional garb. Burma rocks man. I loved it there.

Best

I have just arrived back from Tainan in the south of Taiwan where I visited a friend. I crossed the imaginary line known as the tropic of cancer on the way here. This line marks the northern most point at which it is possible for the sun to be directly above your head. This phenomena occurs at 1200 on the summer solstice (22^nd June) due to the  23.5∘(almost) tilt of the Earth. People here speak Taiwanese as opposed to Mandarin so again I understood nada! We visited salt mountain which does exactly what it says on the tin. A 20m ‘mountain’ made of salt. They used to mine the white stuff from the plains around here. Apparently this activity is no longer economically viable (sounds like Thatcher in the 80’s talking about the black stuff) so now it is a salt mining museum (sound familiar?). There was even a house made of salt. I visited some magnificent Chinese style temples. These were huge and decorated as ornately and as impressively as any Buddhist equivalent you might see in Thailand/Myanmar. I ate the most incredible seafood I have ever tasted in the old part of Tainan city. Here, oysters are a staple dish and I ate many of these omelet style. The mussels here are gargantuan – the size of your fist. I had a massive bowl of them – absolutely delicious. Loads of fresh oysters and mussels for about 3gbp for two people – mmmmmmmmm! Next we went to Jiading beach for a ‘splodge’. I watched the sun go down over the watery horizon and lamented the fact that I am stuck in Shulin when I could so easily have been here. People were constructing huge bamboo frames on the beach but I could not work out why. There were a few people kite surfing here but it was not as spectacular as the displays I saw in Vietnam. The ubiquitous kites were here in there hundreds too – Asians love flying kites man!

 

With a sad heart I caught the 4hr bus back to Taipei. I feel compelled to comment on the bus. A return ticket for this four hour journey costs 1000ntd (about 15gbp). Expensive? No way. For this you get an extremely comfortable sofa style single seat with air-conditioning. It reclines electrically and can even massage you at three different speeds. You have your own TV display where you can choose from about 10 channels (yes, they even have English movies!). There is so much room, it is like sitting in your house. Sometimes I think the UK is years behind Asia in many ways. I think their standard of living here is better than home. For example, my rent is 90gbp/month for a smart new place with AC/fridge/cable TV. I eat out every meal for around 1gbp a go. In fact everybody seems to eat out here. It is the done thing. A great way to spend the warm evenings. In the UK rent is extortionate and it is seldom that people go to restaurants. I earn much less than I would in the UK but the money goes a lot further here giving you an ultimately better lifestyle. I pay a scandalous 6% income tax. Council tax? Don’t be stupid.

 

Some men here like to chew the infamous betel nuts (though not on the scale of Myanmar where a white tooth is a rarity). The peculiarity here though is that young sexy La Mei (spicy girls) sell them from roadside glass cabinets wearing bikinis. It is awesome – really brightens up a long trip. However, rather disappointingly for me, the Taipei council has banned it in Taipei county. They reckon it projects a negative image or something. The rest of Taiwan can sell betel nuts in bikinis until their hearts are content – another reason to lament being in Shulin which happens to be smack bang in the middle of Taipei county - Arse! This was an unexpected pleasant surprise on my trip south!

 

I was teaching the other day and I was trying to engage the older kids in conversations on global affair topics like terrorism, globalisation and climate change etc. etc. I was confounded when it transpired nobody knew George Bush or Osama Bin Laden. After drawing the ‘9/11’ Twin Towers and maps of the World (highlighting Washington DC and Afghanistan) the penny finally dropped. However, the confusion arose from the way the Chinese transliterate (change (letters, words, etc.) into corresponding characters of another alphabet or language) from English. It turns out English is a far more flexible language for transliterating. Our language can give a fair representation of most Chinese words and sounds eg. 台北 = ‘Taipei’ which does sound like how the locals say it. However, this ease of transliteration is not reciprocal. Some words and sounds in English are very difficult to say with Chinese characters. My name does not really sound like Stephen when represented in Chinese. Goerge Bush becomes Goergee Bushee! Of course the kids know who George Bush is but you cannot say his name as we would say it in English. This provides a few challenges when I am trying to explain some names of people and places. There you go, some more useless information for you courtesy of my brain which is over flowing with bollicks.

 

On Friday night I have to dress up as a pumpkin and compere a Halloween party for 150 kids. We have a paddling pool and about 300 apples for all the kids to try apple bobbing. I have to go to the night market and hand out fliers for the party (and try to drum up some more business for the school). This is all very well but I am cringing a bit with embarrassment – dressing up as a pumpkin and speaking over a PA system to 100’s of Chinese kids and adults! I also set up and installed the school’s new PA system with amplifiers and wireless microphones etc. This job gets more bizarre the longer I am here! Also, the kids have all voted that I will win the apple bobbing competition – why? I have no idea.

 

Georgee Booshee (George Bush??)

 

牛肉麵 – niu ro mian - my favourite dish (Beef noodle soup)
大 – da - big
水 – shui - water
小 – xiao – small
炒飯 – chao fan – fried rice
fengshui – this means wind/water and spiritual types reckon that putting a plant pot on the tele can help you win the lottery.

It is the afternoon before I head to Taipei in order to find a nightclub with my Armenian buddy Tigran. He is currently pleased the US authorities have apparantly decided that the Ottomon crushing of Armenians last century is to ... [Continue reading this entry]

Oh yeah. England lost in Moscow - Bollicks. My work had no internet on Thursday so I had to wait a looooong time to establish this scoreline although I now wish I hadn't bothered. Hindsight eh? I see qualification is ... [Continue reading this entry]

I never have. I remeber being 16 at school talking to the 'Careers advisor'. What a load of bollicks that was! I joined the Royal Navy with no real idea why. 'To see the World' I suppose although that was ... [Continue reading this entry]

Well, another week has passed and I have progressed in my ability to teach English. I actually got paid today for the first time in 2 years - what a feeling. I forgot what it was like. My last pay ... [Continue reading this entry]