After three days of intensive city soaking, it was little surprise that Saturday and Sunday nights brought cats and dogs down from the sky, almost as if St. Peter up there also wanted to play along at the Songkhran festival, but came late. Preceeded by strong winds, the rain on Saturday caused everyone to hurredly pack up their booths, leaving the wonderful markets deserted that night. Fortunately, Sunday's rain wasn't so strong, and the famous Sunday night market in Chiang Mai did take place after all -- when the first showers had settled, almost all merchants came back out onto the road and the shopping could continue. I witnessed a funny moment on the market in the afternoon: the speakers, which are installed on almost all lamp post and sometimes blast horrid music onto the streets, started playing the national anthem. In response, everyone stood up and still for its duration, almost as if time had been frozen. When the last chord stroke, the the people continued at what they were doing and the familiar buzz was quickly restored. We spent yesterday in cooking school, the same one I had been to a year before: the "Thai Chocolate Cookery Centre", which I can recommend to anyone. I chose this place again because I did not want to run the risk of ending up at one of the tourist ripoff places, but next time I shall try a different one; apparently there's a cooking school outside the city on a farm, where yuo get to harvest all herbs and fruits yourself prior to the cooking, instead of the market tour commonly done in the beginning of the day. On our way home, stuffed after 8 dishes of Thai food spread throughout the whole day, we stoped by our guesthouse from last year: the "Chiang Mai Garden Guesthouse", to say hello to the owner, Pissamorn. I was happy to find her remembering me, and all the more happy when she honestly advised us not to try "just any bamboo rafting" -- I had been spoiled by the trek she organised for us last year, which involved a morning of bamboo rafting down a river from the middle of the jungle, which you cannot reach by car. I have no problem believing her that the other travel agencies which organise rafting trips dump you just somewhere along a road on slower rivers with a far less beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, neither time nor the heat really allow us to go on the three day trip through the jungle, so we postponed the rafting to our next trip. Nevertheless, I feel very good about having Pissamorn as a reliable contact in Chiang Mai, for future trips, and in case of any problems! She also referred us to a Thai silk factory and told the owner to treat us with respect, so today (Monday), we let them pick us up and placed an order for a bunch of comfy trousers, and some silk button-down shirts; Aline got herself a nice blouse and a wonderful dress. We now have two and a half days left in Chiang Mai and have no real plans. A 1-2 day trip to Pai still seems like an option, but it's supposed to be unbearably hot up there. We'll see. A keep having recurring thoughts about my dream to move to Southeast Asia (Hanoi, to be exact) to start a computer school, and even though there are no concrete plans yet, I feel like my motivation to finish the Ph.D. rather sooner than later is on a steep incline. I could imagine tearing down my "tents" in Switzerland and to go to Vietnam for half a year or a year of language school, then see whether I manage to meet the right people to allow me to set up an existence. Alongside the computer school, my dream includes visions of a nice and comfy guesthouse where you get what you pay for, concentrating on quality rather than quantity, which by the way is what the Chiang Mai Garden Guesthouse seems to be doing. For me, that's the only way to go about anything if you want success and satisfaction, be it consulting, teaching, or a guesthouse in Asia. Again, thanks for reading along.

We spent eight hours today, starting at around 10:00 o'clock, completely soaked with water. I had read about the Thai New Year celebration "Song Khran," but I would not have believed it to be as extreme as it turned out to be. But let me start where I left off: Phitsanulok. Following the recommendation of the director of the lower northern Thailand Tourist Authority (TAT), we spent the evening by the river running through Phitsanulok, where the Thai were celebrating the "food festival" -- it seems to me that the Thai, or Southeast Asian folk have a festival for almost anything to make it around the year... The road along the river was banked with little booths selling just about everything, from edible to handicrafts, with fair booths offering games such as darts, jumping castles, and live bands in between. Strolling around, we had a bite of the most appealing things -- I did stay away from roasted cockroaches, maggots, and other bugs this time, for I had already sampled them in Vietnam and felt no particular need to repeat the experience, although it was not revolting back then at all: it's just a little meat with a lot of crust that you don't want to eat, and the taste isn't particular. An excellent meal of noodles with some sort of sweet-spicy sauce, together with a beer and the company of some young Thai boys ended the evening for us and we returned to our hotel rather soon, with the intention to get up early to finish our errands and make a run for Sukhothai. So with our plane tickets and some fresh cash, we set out for "Sgt. Tawnee's Folklore Museum", a private collection of traditional Thai "things" -- tools, traps, toys, instruments, clothing, ... just about everything... Sgt. Tawnee was a poor soldier who realised that people were forgetting about how their ancestors went about to solve everyday's problems and consequently started collecting anything and everything -- a truly remarkable and beautiful collection! After a so-so Thai massage (see forthcoming blog entry), we quit the city by bus to arrive in Sukhothai about an hour later, where we were met by the pickup van of the guesthouse we had booked, also following the recommendation of the TAT director: we are staying at the Ruean Thai Guesthouse, a place with cozy rooms, a swimming pool, and very friendly staff, for about 10 EUR a night -- the best guesthouse I have been to in three vacations in Southeastasian countries, three thumbs up, I can recommend it to anyone coming to the area! We had just settled and taken a shower when the hotel clerk notified us that the director was waiting downstairs to take us to the "light show". We boarded his van, together with his family and colleagues, and drove about an hour to Srisatchamalai Historical Park, where we arrived just in time to witness an impressive ceremony, part of the New Year celebration: old people were sitting in rows on chairs, and younger folk passed from one to the next, pouring drops of water into their hands as a form of respect to the elderly to help them stay cool in the dreadful heat of the month. Naturally, we lined up and did as the others did -- and found us filmed and greeted by a television crew afterwards for an interview. Not wanting to be a burden to the director and his family, we followed the suggestion to stroll around in the park for about an hour, until we returned to the agreed meeting point. There, we found that mats had been rolled out on the lawn in front of one of the temples, and maybe 200 Thais were sitting and dining. The director invited us to join them, and we enjoyed Thai cuisine until dusk, when everyone got up for the national anthem and the show began. At first, a famous Thai singer (so we were told) performed a couple of folk songs and we learnt that, (to my knowledge) unlike European folk songs, the Thai sing songs telling real events in history. A fashion show of old, traditional Thai clothing followed, and finally, the stage was set for a performance of the history of Sukhothai. People were all over the place, fighting, dancing, or just "ruling" (as the king(s) would do), and a voice recounted the story, which one of the director's daughters translated for Aline, I was busy taking pictures. Fireworks accompanied the scene, along with flying objects consisting of a real flame underneath a balloon made of rice paper. Most flew high and far away, some got stuck in trees and went up in flames. After the show, I had a chance to see some of the costumes and must say that I am deeply impressed, not only by how Thai people used to dress, but also by the love and care the people put into the show to make it as authentic as possible. Interestingly, only one other tourist ("fallang") was at the event, something the tourist director wants to change in the future -- good thing we witnessed the "pure event"... I seem to prefer places not frequented by tourists, and in the Thais seem to be continuously surprised that we are not heading for the beaches in the south following our time in the north. Back at the hotel, we fell into bed, exhausted from the day and the nightswim in the pool. I got up this morning to find my ear clogged with water -- must have been the late swim. The guesthouse owner insisted to take me to a pharmacy to find some eardrops, and I hope this nuisance will go away soon. We rented a motorcycle for the day and headed in direction of the old Sukhothai city, or the Sukhotai History Park, as it is also called. Waiting for our photo chip to be beamed to CD, we made our first encounter with the way young people like to celebrate the New Year (which officially started today): all over the city, people rode around on the back of pickup trucks, emptying buckets of water over other people. We bought ourselves a water gun and plunged in for the fun. It didn't take 30 minutes until we were soaked, but nothing could stop us. The old city is maybe 10 kilometres away, and the drive was the most unforgetable motorcycle ride I'd ever had: all along the sides of the road, people were filling buckets and splashing everything that passed -- being on a motorcycle with merely a water gun, and as "fallang" (foreigners), we were naturally the primary target for just about everyone, so by the time we had reached the city, we had soaked up half an ocean each. We stopped by a group of kids, gave our water gun to the smallest one, bought a new one, and teamed up with them to fight the passing vehicles. Oh what fun! Dripping, we made our way to the park after a while, and strolled around some temples, the market, and many more water fights. Even though the water obscured the heat, we still didn't feel like taking the barrels of water we had collected for a walk and didn't last too long before we were on our way back, destined to stop again with our allies (the kids) to make sure no car and no passenger got by unwashed. The Thai also crumble up chalk, mix it with water, and smear it into each other's face -- you can imagine how we looked like after a few minutes: soggy and chalked. Finally, we made a run for the hotel and got back at about 16:00 o'clock for the first time of feeling "dry" in eight hours. Now, after some time at the pool, we are loathing for dinner but daren't go for the city as we are wearing our last set of clean, dry clothing; I doubt the Thai lay their buckets to rest at seven and call it an evening. Fortunately the hotel offers food too, so we'll likely be boring and stay in. Tomorrow morning is our flight to Chiang Mai for more of the wet fun. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for reading along.

Following yesterday's blog entry, a derogatory comment reached me why we would be spending the evening with the sort of girl that would go to hotel with foreign men. This prompted me to write a short note of how I see the position of the women in these countries with respect to this subject. I hope you are aware that this is a delicate topic, of course, and that I write nothing but about my own perception and interpretation. There are two types of women who'll readily engage with foreign men: those receiving money for a night and those looking for more. Nothing needs to be said about the first. As for the second, I can understand their position very well, and if it weren't for assholes coming to this country trying to "score" and exploiting their position, there'd be nothing to be said against it. For the young women in these parts of the world, foreign men are attractive for two reasons: first, they have money, and thus give them the hope and maybe even a chance to live a better life then they are forced to. It is very unlike Western women seeking rich men to buy them lots of jewelry, for the women here it's more a question of existence. On the other hand, the women here seem to prefer Western men, since they are generally perceived to be more gentle and "good". I have been told on numerous occasions now that it is not uncommon for Asian boys to beat their wives when drunk. Unfortunately, the situation seems to be bad enough for the women to forget about the chance that Western men may do the same (and I'd believe more do than we would be willing to admit). So in the end, the girl we met was far from a "prostitute", and having talked to her, it hurts me that she should be perceived as such by some of my readers. I'd much rather spend time with her at a club than most of the superficial girls you'll find in the Western world.A I hope this sets things a little more straight.

It's been a busy three days since I last wrote. The climax (or lowest point) must have been the loss of my wallet with about 800 Bhat of cash (16 EUR) and a credit card inside. I left in on a telephone in a bus station in Khon Kaen during a very stressful moment trying to get to our next destination. Luckily, within ten minutes I noticed the loss and could cancel the credit card, so the damage is minimal (although I should hope that one day it hits me hard because I apparently never learn and leave my things all over the place -- like the camera on the return trip from Zanzibar/Tanzania). Anyway, shortly after the loss, we ended up in a very fortunate situation ("more luck than brains"), but more on that later. Last time I wrote, we were in Khorat, headed for Phimai the same evening. With about four hours to spend, we opted for a massage, and I chose the traditional style with a weighty woman bouncing up and down my body and twisting it into unnatural shapes. Nevertheless, I felt absolutely great afterwards and am looking forward to the next time. The massage took a little longer than expected, and when we finally made it to the laundry place to pick up our load, they had just closed. But nothing is impossible in Asia, and soon we had one person tell another to find the owner in a hairdresser shop, and she happily made an exception and handed over our bag. Feeling very good, we headed for the bus terminal to find the bus leaving 90 minutes later than planned, so we spent the time watching the busy life of Thais departing and arriving before riding for 90 minutes to Phimai, where we had to wake the owners of the guest house despite having called in earlier to let them know of our late arrival. The room was spartan but moderately clean, and we passed a night only disturbed by the continuous sounds obviously made by cockroaches, though none seemed to be in our room itself. Jokingly, I remarked that there is nothing to worry as Thai cockroaches would take off their shoes before crawling onto the bed, but I am yet unsure whether that was reason enough for Aline to finally drift to sleep. Phimai is a tiny town housing a beautifully restored Khmer temple, said to be the best preserved in Thailand. Without a guide, and with the heat picking up to a stifling level already at 9:00 o'clock, we decided to better spend the time in a bus, traveling north to Udon Thani, but first spent a visit to the Phimai national museum, and the "Banyan Tree," a huge assembly of trees with Thais picknicking in its shade. Leaving Phimai with a bus, we had to hop on another in Thalak Ke, about 10 kilometres away from Phimai, but our initial joy of catching an air-conditioned ride for the 4 hour trip to Udon Thani was severly lessened when the bus pulled in and was completely crowded. We stood pressed against each other for the first 90 minutes of the trip, until we reached Khon Kaen, where lots of people got off before lots more got on, but we were able to get seats in between. Having arrived in Udon Thani, the plan was to leave the same day for the Laotian border to catch a boat along the Mekhong river to Chiang Khan, but that seemed impossible without a visa for Laos, which is $30 per person and a little too much for the joy of the journey. A little disappointed, we stayed in a luxurious hotel (10 EUR per night) and strolled around the city at dawn, chatted a while with a Welsh expat about old European men coming to Thailand to find women, and finally headed for the Mandarin restaurant, suggested in the Lonely Planet. The place was sketchy, with a loud television set blasting some Thai soap opera, and the staff really misunderstood the meaning of "appetiser" and "vegetarian", so that I ended up eating a giant plate of "Chinese Hors d'Oeuvre", Aline's spring rolls with shrimp paste, and the Pad Thai I had ordered. They forgot the noodles, and Aline's Tofu portion was too hot, but our tummies stuffed, and we sank into bed early. The night was horrible, I was plagued by stomach aches and the fear of a repeated experience -- the last time I ate Pad Thai along this meridian was in Vientiane, and I came down with food poisoning, and I felt exactly the same way as back then throughout the night and morning. I stayed in bed long but fortunately found that I had just put too much food into my belly (which wasn't used to it, we had been eating sparingly), and walking solved the problem. Weighing our options, we decided on the route of the next two days. Initially, it was to be Loei and the Phu Kradung National Park, but seeing that it was a little too difficult to reach with public transportation, we decided to head back to Khon Kaen, forget about Udon Thani and the lost day, and continue to Nam Nao National Park along the route 12 between Khon Kaen and Phitsanulok, with an optional stop shortly after Lom Sak for some whitewater rafting. It was after being told that all busses were overbooked (remember, Songkrat, the New Year's festival bringing every Thai back to his home, starts this week) and our furious attempts to find a hole to slip through that I left the wallet on the telephone. I noticed the loss on our way to the other bus terminal, but it was too late, and it didn't help that nobody spoke English anymore (basically ever since we left Ayuthaya). As said, the money wasn't a big loss, the credit card immediately cancelled, driver's licence and insurance cards also being no biggie, but the wallet still contained one item of interest: the receipt for the cargo bag with the children's clothing waiting for me in Chiang Mai (hopefully). We had our friendly Tuk Tuk driver took us to the tourist police to file a report, with which we should be able to reclaim the bag even without the receipt -- Aline also fortunately took a picture of the bag. But the tourist police was out for the day and as we came to realise the misery of our situation -- it was about 18:00 o'clock by now and we were looking at losing another day on our journey, a friendly women with very good skills of English walked around the corner and told us to hop on her car. We were so glad to be able to follow someone's command that we didn't even ask where she was taking us, but on the back of the pickup, we learnt from her two students that she was an English teacher taking us to the police headquarters. There, we got the report and again boarded the pickup heading back to the city. We still did not know how to continue from Khon Kaen towards Phitsanulok in the lower north of the country, but the lady offered to negotiate a rental car for us after heading to another police station to help her student with a report against a British man, who had left her in the top-end hotel without paying the bill. Fortunately, she knew the real name and telephone number of the guy, so he'll surely get his share, that bastard. The rented car with driver to Phitsanulok would cost us between 4000 and 5000 Bhat (80 to 100 EUR), which we thought was too expensive, and it was again our lady friend who decided to head for the busses again and try her luck. She got us on a 2nd class bus to Phitsanulok, leaving Khon Kaen at 3:45 in the morning, and with about 7 hours to kill, we took her and her two students for dinner and to a discotheque as a form of thanking her for her help. Her name, by the way, is Jill, and she runs the "Khon Kaen Language Centre", teaching English, Japanese, German, and Spanish to about 20 students, half of whom live in her own house as they come from far away. We talked much with her and her students that night. Dinner was a huge buffet with everything you can imagine, including cow stomach and pig intestines (and yes, I tried them both, though I need not do that again), and grills at the tables for a very cozy atmosphere (if it hadn't been for the live band that was playing just a tat too loud). Jill apparently spends her days helping other people, not only learning languages; people come to her for relationship troubles, legal issues, or other difficulties such as my lost wallet. She does not choose to help people, but feels that as a Thai, she must. This attitude prevails throughout the population (as soon as you leave Bangkok and the tourist centres in the south) and is maybe the most important reason why this country is such a great place to be. After dinner, we ended at a discotheque with another live band, including singers and dancers, and even though it was clearly too loud for my taste, the band was very good, and we had a splendid time getting drunk on Thai beer -- after all, what else was there to do until the bus left. I also found out that Jill runs an Internet cafe and consequently left her with 10 Ubuntu CDs to try out, and give away to her computer-savvy students. It was great to explain to her what "free of charge" means, but very hard to actually get her to accept it. After the discotheque, she took us to her house for showers and a quick meal, and I tried to demonstrate Ubuntu to her, but did not succeed within the small time frame I had available. The reason was that her house uses static IPs, and I could not figure out how to tell the Live CD to use a static IP -- it did not ask me. Anyway, this isn't anything I cannot solve via email once I return to Switzerland. We left the city on time and were looking at 5:30 hours of an uncomfortable, rocky bus ride, but thanks to ample space, it went by quite quickly. We gave up on the plans for the national park and postponed the "experience of nature" until Pai (see below), and also found out that April is not the month to go whitewater rafting in Thailand, so without any stops, we reached Phitsanulok and quickly headed for a hotel to sleep through the midday heat, a little too long unfortunately to still get some errands done, like cashing traveller cheques. I am now sitting in an Internet cafe in Phitsanulok, and we did get most of our to do list done. We'll stay here for one night, enjoying the "food festival" over at the night bazaar, and head for Sukothai tomorrow. Having made the acquaintance of a very helpful employee of the Thai Tourist Authority, we now have the possibility to ride along in his van tomorrow, iff he makes it back from Bangkok in time; otherwise we'll go by bus and meet him there for another festival and a light show in the old city of Sukothai, which is now known as the historical park, which the Lonely Planet describes as "Thailand's most impressive World Heritage site". Also, tomorrow, Songkran starts in Sukothai (a day before the official start), and we have been told that Sukothai is one of the two best places for the event on numerous occasions. The other is Chiang Mai, and we were lucky to get two seats on a plane leaving Sukothai for Chiang Mai on the 14th, so we'll get to spend more or less two days in each of the "party centres" (Songkran ends on the 15th, though some cities just keep on going). I have to say that I am very excited about witnessing this event. All the shops in all the towns keep piling water guns on the streets, and for three days, the camera will be better left in the hotel as the entire city soaks itself in water. I cannot wait to buy one of the biggest guns, make a run for the all the Thais, and then give the gun to a child. While I am talking about plans, I might just as well continue my brain dump. From Chiang Mai, we are currently looking at 2-3 days in Pai, a village north-west from Chiang Mai with beautiful landscapes and many hill tribes within walking distance. I'll be leaving Chiang Mai for Yangon in Myanmar, and am currently faced with four choices as to how to spend my remaining time in that country. Mind me while I share these options with you: The simplest options would have me drop the clothing and gifts off at Julie's guest house; Julie is Swiss or German and frequently organises for clothing and similar items to be sent to refugee camps in Myanmar. Then, I could travel to Myanmar and be free to spend the time in Yangon and Mandalay, showing Linux to people, head out into the countryside, or spend my time in the monastery to which I have been invited. These options all appeal to me, approximately in decreasing order. The last option depends on whether Julie organises a trip to a refugee camp anytime soon, in which case I may be able to go along. I'll keep you posted. That's it for now from me from southeast Asia; we're off for the night bazaar. Thanks again for reading along.