Category: South East Asia

Wat Arun and a Myanmar visa

Day 56, Wednesday 29 Feb 2012, Bangkok

Leap year this year, huh – Wahoo, 0ne more day of travelling!

Today we go back to the Myanmar consulate to (hopefully) get our visas. We have booked flights to Yangon from Bangkok on the 12th March, with me returning to Bangkok on the 27th and Mike flying to Kuala Lumpur to head to Europe.  In the meantime we will do a quick tour of Cambodia and head off by bus to Siem Reap tomorrow morning.  The consulate opens at 3.30 so a slow start to the day.

I spent some time on the internet this morning, updated the blog “The Plan” page with the new details and caught up with a mass upload of photos to Flickr, as I was way behind, all this interneting is time consuming, and I still owe a few people some emails – so sorry!

We left the hostel around mid-day and stopped at a hawker stall on the street for an absolutely delicious banana and chocolate crepe, for the massive sum of about 40 cents. Auckland really needs to have this sort of street food – of course it would be against some food or health regulation ! We took a couple of trains back out to the Chao Phraya river and caught the ferry again up to the Wat Pho stop like the other day. This time we jumped on another ferry that just went back and forth across the river to Wat Arun.  Not sure if I would eat this guys catch to be honest.

Skippering a ferry across the river is not that exciting obviously, when we set sail and were aimed in the general direction of the far bank, he continued his knotting and steered with his knees.

Obviously nothing sexist about the dress code! Personall,y I think shorty shorts should be encouraged, with conditions attached of course.

Wat Arun translates to temple of the dawn, and it would be fabulous to be there at sunset, though I think I would really struggle to get there at the moment, cannot get enough sleep and feel really groggy in the mornings. The Prangs (the large towers) were built in the early 1820’s and are decorated with shells and bits of porcelain. We spent an hour or so wandering around the site. There is info  on it here.

http://www.watarun.org/index_en.html

In the cloisters, under the encircled buddha figures are hundreds of photos, I am assuming of people whose ashes may be in the cloisters, I could not find any information about it, the site itself has very little information available in English sadly.

Climbed the very steep staircases, it was great to be to get close to the detail.

For some great views over Bangkok.

I took a lot of photos of stone heads again; they had quite a few different ones to Wat Pho and the Grand Palace. I have posted these in a prior post as there were a few : ) but I do think they are cool.

We then caught the ferry back to the other side, had a quick lunch and caught the ferry back to the  train and the train back to the Myanmar Consulate where we got our visas – Yes !!! mission accomplished, a day later than planned, but at least we have visas and can now fly to Yangoon in 12 days knowing we wont get kicked out at the border.

After the consulate it was a train back to the hostel and some lying down, very tired tonight, we had an early dinner. We were planning on going back to the place we ate at last night as it was so good, however it was closed. I really wanted rice as I had a noodle dish for lunch, but none of the rice options appealed so we went to the cafe we had dinner at a couple of days ago. Sadly it was not great, very greasy pad thai. I left feeling bloated and blah – hope it is not something coming on, as tomorrow morning we leave for Angkor !!  Early night.

The music bit…

As promised – The Subliminals.  I first got into The Subliminals through Michael and Chantal, two of my bestest friends.  Jared, the bass player was a friend of theirs and after hearing their EP and seeing them live I was hooked.  The music speaks for itself, just fabbo!, lots of droney post rock, with the odd vocal track thrown in.

This clip is from the recent Flying Nun 30th anniversary gig and I am still kicking myself for not going to this show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiCEU0vlrNw&feature=autoplay&list=AVGxdCwVVULXeE02xMfqJG3Z-xzf_DvPIa&lf=list_related&playnext=1

Down day in BKK

Day 55, Tuesday, 28 Feb 2012, Bangkok

Woke up feeling a wee bit jaded but not too bad, the worse thing was it was hot last night so I did not sleep in the sleeping bag liner and am now covered in itchy mosquito bites, thank goodness for tea tree oil or I would have removed a fair chunk of skin from my foot, it was that itchy.

Today was planned to be a down day so we didn’t do much in the morning.  I was talking to someone over breakfast about the sunrises and sunsets over Angkor Wat and she has convinced me to not send my tri-pod back to New Zealand, I would be kicking myself over and over if I did. I did package up a few things I no longer use to send back and will get them in the post tomorrow.

Late morning we caught the train back to Siam Square so I could have the mandatory jaded McDonalds and do some basic shopping. After numerous failed attempts I finally tracked down some more zip lock bags, yes ! it has been a mission i can tell you. They are not as good as the trusty Glad Bags but at least I can get my phone and mp3 player in one so they don’t get damaged in any sudden downpours. Also picked up a whole bunch of other bits and pieces on my list, so shopping all done – except a new umbrella, haven’t found one yet, bloody Cebu airport! We had a walk around the square and I photographed a few of the sculptures.

Awesome, a special place for the indy kids to hang !

I just loved this piece of art on the wall outside the gallery.

This guy was really good, he got some great sounds out of these buckets.

After the mall and Siam Square it was back to the hostel and booking accomodation for Siem Reap in a couple of days and flights in and out Myanmar – just hoping those visa applications are approved! The smoothie  cart near the hostel.

After getting flights booked and some basic plans made we went and checked out another of the food stalls up the road from the hostel, think this may have been the best food in bangkok so far. A very tasty yellow curry.

The music bit…

Yesterday I said I would do a bit on The Subliminals, however last night over a few plastics (in lieu of glass) of cheap whisky I found the below link (actually i was looking for illegal downloads of a couple of NZ bands – though I do own the originals, honest!).

Jay Reatard RIP (1980 – 2010). Jay did a show at the Kings Arms in Jan 2009, which I photographed for the cheeseontoast website. It was a great show, two awesome bands.  I really enjoyed Jay’s slice of poppy punky music, some of his songs reminded me of the best bits from the Mint chicks (oooo, must mention them soon) . Jay’s untimely end was a real loss to the music scene. Jay @ Kings arms hotel in 2009.

I didn’t know this track existed till tonight.  This is a Toy Love song, Chris Knox was the vocalist (and well deserving of an entire blog post), I think this track may have even preceded Toy Love and may be an Enemy song, whatever it is a stone cold NZ classic punk track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ClsZo3T9yU

Toy Love –so good ! and as much as they hated it, the album was awesome.

Holy shitballs, Youtube is great! here is The Enemy on Radio with pictures (the best NZ music show ever) and I was right – it was an Enemy track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ntB_b0BYMs

A day at the embassy

Day 54, Monday 27 Feb 2012, Bangkok

Grrrrr, lousy sleep again, so tired again today, I really wish I could just go to sleep any where and any time and sleep till I wake up or the morning – whatever is more important at the time. It is so frustrating.

Today was Myanmar visa day, so Mike and I set off soon after 8.30 to the Myanmar embassy, it is conveniently located close to the Surasak Skytrain station which is the station before Saphan Taksin, where we caught the boat yesterday, in fact the skytrain almost goes over the top of the embassy. (subtle hints for anyone thinking of a Myanmar visa)

In rush hour being a monk would be a good thing, as long as you were first on.

 The embassy opens at 9.00 and we arrived at 9.15, there was already a big queue waiting to get in.

The word on the street was to go up to a small shop just up the road to buy the visa form for a few cents so it can be filled in on the street while waiting. The shop will also photocopy the front page of your passport and take the required two passport photos (and sell you a pen) if you need all that stuff. It was a nice little business for them, and handy for tourists, so good for us travellers to support those who show initiative – and don’t try to rip us off…

It took about thirty minutes to get to the door of the visa section, luckily we were in the shade as it was hot already. Mike getting excited about getting into the air con !

Once inside we queued for another thirty minutes or so, just to get a number so we could sit and wait some more…. after almost another hour our number was called, we handed over the passport and the money and left, two hours after we arrived. Passport pick up was between 3.30 and 4.30. it was now 11.30 so Mike and I decided to catch the boat again and head up to the infamous Khao San Rd to check it out.  KSR is not infamous for its girly bars it is primarily famous as the backpacker hub of Bangkok, but for the beer guzzling, party all night type of backpacker, not the forty somethings interested in temples and stone heads type, hence we are not staying there.

This monk was obviously second on the train this morning!

KSR is a couple of streets away from the river and we stopped for lunch at one of the big backpacker cafes, I had a very nice chicken cashew and banana/coconut shake. We started to see the first signs of KSR habitués here, a few dreadlocked and tattooed teenagers drinking large bottles of cheap Anchor beer for lunch. It is definitely a more bogan area than the hostel we are staying at– and I imagine a hell of a lot noisier at night, though the day time liveliness is good. We only had an hour so it was a quick walk around.

Loved these phone boxes.

While waiting for the boat I had a wee walk around and found Phra Sumain Fort, built in the late 1700’s. As part of the defence of Bangkok –  a moat was built around the city, with fourteen forts at strategic points. Only two forts now remain – unfortunately you cannot go into them.

While reading some ones blog on applying for Myanmar visas this morning I found a reference to Bangkok’s ghost towers. Apparently there are (were) a number of unfinished and therefore deserted towers scattered around the city, they have collectively been called ghost towers and are popular with a certain type of photographer. We passed one today….

We got back to the Myanmar embassy just after 3.00 to join the (not so) happy throng waiting to collect their visas, it was stinking hot so we all gathered on the shady side of the road, away from the visa section door. At about twenty past a couple of people started to gather near the door and then there was a sudden rush to queue in the sun, luckily they opened the doors a few minutes early!

And here the story turns – well, not bad, more – frustrating.

After five minutes of queuing I got to the counter and handed over our ticket to collect our freshly visa stamped passports, and….. was advised that ours would be ready on Wednesday as we had paid for a three day turn around and not a one day…. F**K. There was not one single sign or notice of any kind inside the embassy advising on visa turnaround times or how much the visa cost, when I handed in the forms was I was told 1820 baht so that is what I handed over… Oh well, back to the hostel and hope we can get two more nights (we could). We had planned on another day in Bangkok as I want to do some shopping for travel things, insect repellent for instance and I also want to post some stuff back to New Zealand, all the clothes are clean mum – honest. Guess we get another day of sightseeing – yay more temples!

We headed back to the hostel and I managed to find a cardboard box at the local hardware store, I have tried a few places lately, so I can package up things to post – going to send the tri-pod back as it is getting heavy to lug around and I am not using it enough , along with some clothes and all the tickets and brochures and crap I have collected over the last few weeks (most of which I am sure I will toss when I finally get home !).

After a wee lie down we wandered up to the supermarket where I bought a bottle of whisky – no need to rush out of bed tomorrow and a packet of Pringles.  Though I did stop and get some satay chicken and salad for dinner on the way back to the hostel.

Another night in, blogging, emailing and drinking cheap scotch!

The music bit.

Loves Ugly Children were a Christchurch band from the late eighties to mid nineties, they released two or three great EP’s (I have two and may be missing one) and a couple of great albums and remain one of my favourite NZ bands.  Flying Nun records are apparently about to release a compilation CD, which I will look fwd to getting.  Their sound moved around a bit, but underneath the noisy/punky/thrashy sound was some great pop song writing. Simon McLaren has to be one of NZ’s best un-heralded musos, he was in The Subliminals as well, which I will do tomorrow I think. I will also confess to a wee crush on the bass player Fluff back in the day….

Sights, sites, pets and food

Day 53, Sunday 26 Feb 2012, Bangkok

Not my finest blog post, certainly not a post the day deserves, I really enjoyed the temple and the palace visits, but have run out of blogging steam tonight. Will let the pictures tell some of the story – so warning – lots of images in this post…

As I sat down to type this post and entered the date I realised that today is my second month anniversary of travelling – well done ME !  Five weeks ago I wasn’t sure I would make two months, but in a reasonable groove with it all now.

I had a good sleep last night for a change so up at a reasonable time, a quick breakfast and then out the door by eight for a day of playing tourist and visiting the Grand Palace and Wat Pho, two of the key sights in Bangkok.

We took a couple of trains to the Chao Phraya river where we waited a while to get a ferry bus up river.  The river boat was pretty full with tourists though it was a good ride upstream. Saw Wat Arun out the side of the boat which I will aim to see another day. Today was supposed to be 33 degrees and sunny, so two sights today was going to be plenty.

Wat Arun

We got off the boat near Wat Pho, and were fortunate to get there early enough to miss the worst of the tourists, though the same cannot be said for the Grand Palace later in the morning…

I loved Wat Pho, if it wasn’t so hot and there wasn’t so many people I could have spent the day there wandering (and wondering) around looking at all the stone statues, the buddhas, the stuppas and the buildings, it was just very cool.

It is the largest temple in Bangkok and its key feature is the temple of the reclining Buddha, the Buddha is 46 metres long and covered in gold leaf and was spectacular.

As you would expect there were many Buddhas!

More on Wat Pho – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Pho

After a couple of hours at Wat Pho and suffering an increasing number of tourists, we took a walk up the road through a solid line of hawker stalls to the Grand Palace.  Mike is easy to spot with the bright yellow dive bag !

The palace has a strict dress code of no shorts or open toed shoes, so it was long pants and shoes for the day. It is rigorously enforced.

The Grand Palace was started in 1782 and was the home of the Thai King and the centre of government for 150 years. The detail work, both here and at Wat Pho was extraodinary.

It was really crowded here and I kind of gave up trying to get shots without hoards of people in them.

One of the key sights of the palace is Wat Phra Kaew, the temple of the emerald Buddha. The Buddha is carved from a solid block of jade and was made in the 15th century. The temple is the most sacred Buddhist site in Thailand. I am wondering if the hitting yourself on the head with a bit of wet fruit is a tourist thing…Painting the walls of the temple.

The walls of the ordination hall are covered in panels detailing Buddhist history, the murals are quite ornate.

I was trying to get a photo of this soldier and finally gave up waiting for this group of kids who individually getting a photo taken, so I shot them too.How’s my blue bandana 🙂

Mike decided to head back to the hostel and I wanted to return to the market from yesterday to see if I could pick up some more t-shirts and see the pet section as Mike heard about it last night and heard stories of snakes and baby crocodiles. We parted at the train station and I jacked into some headphones and gave my ear drums a blast of punk rock for a while. The market was more crowded than yesterday morning and a lot hotter inside as well, I was already pretty warm after the sweltering morning so it was a rather sticky hour spent wandering around the mass of stalls. SadIy I didn’t get any more t-shirts, only found a couple I liked today and nothing was in my size !  I did find the pet area, no crocs, but I did find some small snakes, and some piglets.  There were a lot of “no photo” signs, round the snakes so I grabbed a hasty and pretty bad shot.

After a couple of hours chillin in the hostel and getting a whole load of washing done and shooting a sunset, Mike and I went out for a meal at the local hawker stalls just up the road from the hostel.

 

Making my Pad Thai..

The hostel street from the Skytrain bridge.

Auckland band Kitsch have been around since the mid nineties and still gig now and then, a great pop-punk band, they deserve way more recognition than they ever got. This song 11 11 is off the great 2002 release “love songs for romantic punks”

Gallery – things tourists wear.

Seen at Bangkok Grand Palace

Two camers – each !!!  WTF are they the paparazzi ? was there something on I missed ? No – just photogs with too much cash, note one is Nikon the other is Canon.

Ok, I am sorry, I know I am no fashionista and photographing people purely to mock them is wrong, but come on guys, no-one should not wear hippy pants, yes it was friggin hot today, but you look stupid!

The worlds biggest market

Day 52, Saturday 25 Feb 2012, Bangkok

As seems to be the tradition lately I had a lousy sleep, if I  slept at all.  Up earlyish for an explore of the hostel and to see if they had free breakfast at or at least coffee –  they do.  The hostel is nice, roof garden, good views and a nice little shrine out the front. We are on the 4th floor, under the roof garden and there seems to be a good number of, mainly young, people here. It was a good choice I think, hard to choose hostels on the internet.

After breakfast I got the wireless log in and checked my email and had a message from an old friend Trudi.  I travelled Europe in a Volkswagon Kombi van in 1987 with Trudi, two of her sisters and my then wife, Deana. Trudi is Australian and is working for their immigration service out of Colombo in Sri Lanka and has come to Bangkok for the weekend with her daughter Bella. We made a plan to meet for a meal later in the day, it will be great to catch up as I have only seen Trudi a couple of times in the past twenty five years.

The plan was to go and see some of the key sites this morning and then head to one of the big malls for some aircon, lunch and for me to get a few things, zip lock bags, new board shorts, t-shirt and more USB drives being top of the list. However the hostel manager told us to go checkout Chatuchack, supposedly the worlds biggest market, which is only open on the weekends and a convenient ride away on the Skytrain – so we did…

The market is huge ! 9000 booths selling a mix of clothes, shoes, bags, shoes souvenirs, fake watches, jewellery, household items and general tat. I loved it and could have spent a day there perusing and shopping. The t-shirts were amazing, the best range I have ever seen of t-shirts that I would buy for ME to wear, I may go back tomorrow and buy a load to post to NZ, at about $5 a shirt you cannot go wrong. I did buy some new O’Neil brand boardies ($10) a t-shirt ($5) and a pair of shorts with zip pockets ($6), that I wore tonight and may be a bit small, damnit – i think it was all the beer 🙂

Not one of the shirts I would wear, but i did like it.

We walked around for a while and then stopped at a food stall for, what was an awesome, chicken noodle and cold drink lunch.

One of the things I really enjoyed about the market, especially after the Philippines, was it was entirely smoke free, even outside ! Bangkok – you are awesome.

We then caught the Skytrain to the MBK mall which was on the way back to the hostel, this mall is again huge with over 2500 shops!

But similar stuff to the market, though I did pick up another dry weight t-shirt for a couple of bucks and will send some other less useful clothes back to NZ tomorrow – though mum,  I will wash them all first time ! I sent mum a package from Miri in Malaysia with some not quite so clean articles in and it just arrived the other day, I think mum had to wait a couple of days to build the courage to open it.

On the subject of packages, earlier this week I also received an email from the shipping company in Auckland advising that the box of stuff I delivered to them before Christmas to ship to the UK (my good camera, laptop and winter clothes) finally left on Feb 24th!

 Outside the mall there was a group of what appeared to be uni students, doing something, not entirely sure what, there was a small march and some “singing” and dancing and some dressing up, I dont think all the girls were girls 🙂

After the mall we went back to the hostel and I did the usual catching up with blogs and emails and talking to friends. I also gaffer taped over the video record button on my camera as I keep accidentally pressing it and recording hours of video of the inside of the lens cap – and flattening the battery. I finally found a use for the small amount of gaffer tape I brought with me! Some bits around the hostel.The neighbours.

I caught up with Trudi and Bella at Asok station, couple of stops up the line from where I am staying, we had dinner in one of the local food places and it was the hottest noodles I have had – had to have a couple of Singha’s to wash it down. Great to catch up with Trudi and I am tempted to go to Colombo on the way over to Europe. I will see what flight options there are.

The view from Asok station.

After dinner I had a beer on the hostel roof with Mike and then called it a night.

A good first day in Bangkok, clean, easy to get around and reasonably hassle free – it was much better than I expected.

Auckland band Muckhole were around in the late nineties but I only saw them once. It is a big call but I think they are my favourite ever Auckland punk band, I mean I loved the Spelling Mistakes and the Scavengers, The Warners and a string of other bands, but these guys were cool and their records were well made and sounded great. Muckhole – Cool guy

Umbrellas are deadly weapons.

Day 51, Friday 24 Feb 2012, Cebu – Bangkok

Last day in the Philippines today, shame to have spent it in Cebu, I would much rather have my final taste of the place on one of the dive islands – but it is too risky to rely on getting from anywhere to the airport in time for the flight to Manila and then on to Bangkok. I have mostly enjoyed the Philippines, I have done some great things here and met some good people. The poverty in parts did get me, but that was possibly more because I was on my own and it was more in my face. I will have to get used to it as it is no better than in many other places I am going to visit soon.

I had breakfast with Mike in the hotel and we booked some accommodation in Bangkok,  hoping they get the message in time as we probably wont arrive there until close to 2.00 AM and most places lock up at midnight – well the quieter ones that I am attracted to anyway.

After breakfast I spent some fruitless time on the slow internet in my room trying to do some emails as I have a big backlog to reply too – sorry 🙂 and doing my weekly data backups to usb drives etc.

The hotel was covered in icons, awesome.I checked out at 12.00 and spent a couple of hours in the hotel cafe using the internet and planning a loose route for the next month before Mike  I caught a cab to Cebu airport for the first of the days two flights, firstly to Manila and then on to Bangkok in Thailand.  The blind boys of Cebu were playing in the airport, they got all my change.

Airport check in went OK but as we were going through security to the departure lounge and had our bags x-rayed and we were told we were not allowed to take umbrellas on the plane. I said “What ! my umbrella is 6 inches long” I was told it was Cebu airport policy. I got my umbrella out and threw it on the desk and got told off for being grumpy, I said that this was my 10th flight in 2 months and I had never had an issue with my umbrella – I walked off and had a coffee… Very annoying ! My mum bought me that travelling umbrella and it was really useful in those sudden downpours.

Loved the guitar centre in Cebu airport, Auckland – you are missing out by not having one !

The flight to Manila was pretty smooth and we landed on time, just on sunset.

One of the key features of Cebu Pacific Air is the ‘fun’ time in the middle of the flight, where the crew host a group activity, often this is some people – either the crew or volunteers, singing a song until someone guesses the title. It was amusing, and on this flight we had a woman who could actually sing !

We had a three hour wait at Manila airport so occupied a corner couch in an Italian cafe and used their, mostly hopeless but free, wifi. Just before the flight to Bangkok I managed to knock an almost full glass of red wine over my shorts, ran round in a panic trying to find a new pair in the airport shops, but nothing really fitted or appealed – I need a new pair of boardies as mine now have a hole in them. By the time I had found there was nothing to buy the wine had dried and wasn’t too obvious so I just rolled with it. The flight was delayed anyway…

Not a bad flight, a bit bumpy and a bit squashed for three or so hours. I couldn’t sleep even though it was 1:30 am when we arrived in Bangkok. Immigration was all straightforward, though long queues but our bags were there so we grabbed a cab and headed for our hostel – HI Sukhumvit, and hoped they stayed up to let us in !

Sukhumvit is a road in Bangkok, that has an area named after it, our hostel is on one of the many small side streets, and our cabbie really had no idea… The main drag was very busy, traffic jam at 2.00 am ! you first hit the street at the western end and for me it was an OMG moment – and not in a good way. We passed girly bars, street bars and scores of older men with young Thai girls at the street bars. It was all my Bangkok nightmares come true, and I was really thinking if this is what Bangkok is like I am gone tomorrow! Fortunately, that is only one end of the street and a few kms down the road (after a miss turn or two) we found our nice YHA hostel in a very quiet residential street, and they let us in at 2.30 am as well….

We had a three person room booked as there was no two’s left but it is still cost effective has aircon and the wifi works ! it also proved to be very quiet too !

Ah, bed – but little sleep.

Time to step away from post rock today, had a wee bit of a noisefest session late this afternoon when Mike went out for some food as I was meeting an old friend for dinner. I am writing this post tomorrow, is that confusing ?

God bows to math are an Auckland noise rock band (named after a song from the brilliant old school punk/alt rock American band The Minutemen). They release their first album at the end of 2011 and it is pretty damn good – if you like noisy guitars and yelling – which I do…  Slow decline

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL3fBv26vjI

Diving over – back to semi-reality

Day 50, Thursday 23 Feb 2012, Malapascua and back to Cebu

Last morning in Malapascua, shame to leave as it is a nice place, could have done with a few more English speakers for it to have been great. I was surprised at how little I spent considering I stayed in  a resort, did seven dives and my advanced open water certificate. After a final breakfast I packed up my stuff and went down to the beach to find a boat back to Maya.

I didn’t have to work too hard on the boat and was soon being made offers for a ride, but was only interested in a shared boat at under one tenth of the price of a private boat.  I got on board one and spent a good thirty minutes waiting for more passengers as they only leave when close to full. Three Poles arrived and we were chatting away when 2 (I think, they were defiantly tourists) Filipino’s arrived with two motorcycles… This was going to get interesting…..

These guys are obviously used to moving large and heavy objects off the bangka boats as both bikes made it on board with no dramas.

Had a good ride back over to Maya and when we arrived the tide was out so we call had to move to a large dingy to get to the wharf (of course for a few more pesos). I was really interested as to how they were going to move the bikes….

But again no dramas!

The Polish trio and I agreed to share a private car back to Cebu, significantly quicker than the bus and with the four of us it was only a couple of dollars more and we got dropped at our hotels. They have pretty much convinced me to visit them in Warsaw in June when the football European Cup is on, so I am likely to take them up on the offer, if I have any money left by the time I get to Europe. I have pretty much been convinced to go dive the Red Sea on the way over as well…

The road to Cebu

Back to the Mayflower Inn again, different room with lousy internet this time. Caught up with Canadian Mike, who I met on Malapascua, at the hotel and we are going to travel together for a few days and see how it goes, we are on the same flights from here tomorrow afternoon to Manila and then Bangkok. It will be great to travel with someone again!

We spent a couple of hours discussing travel options and trying to find some last minute accommodation in Bangkok for 4 days. We arrive at midnight Friday so will stay the weekend and then try and get Myanmar visas on Monday morning. Plan from there is to go to Angkor Wat for 5-6 days and then on to Myanmar for 2-3 weeks.

Had dinner at a local bar, food was OK but it was thick with cigarette smoke and just too unpleasant to stay in. So back to the hotel and a night in front of the TV and my first shave in nine days – that took some time !

If you have been reading my blog for the last couple of days you will have read that I am a big fan of instrumental post-rock music, today’s post will be the last post rock one for a while, don’t want to over  do it 🙂

Sora Shima were (I am calling them split up, though an album is coming) are from Hamilton, New Zealand and I have seen them quite a few times, and photographed them more than any other recent band. This track “tornado versus trailer park” is probably my favourite post rock track and this video was shot at the last gig I attended at the Kings Arms Tavern in Auckland, a great venue but lousy for photographers. I was standing next to the videographer and those early flashes were me, though I hate using flash at gigs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epHpnfuYt2Q