For the past two years, I have been a moderately satisfied user of the Nokia 6230 cellphone, which does all a cellphone should do ("it even has a camera!"). However, it suffers from some shortcomings, namely:

• While it's surely possible to connect a laptop to the Internet via bluetooth to the phone, then GSM, UMTS, or GPRS to the provider, it's not possible to do it the other way, phone via bluetooth to laptop, then Ethernet. This is annoying for two reasons: one, I have to pay expensive GPRS charges even if I am downloading something to the phone in the office, and two, I cannot use my SyncML server, because the perimeter firewall blocks access to its port from the outside. See these threads: A B C.
• When connected to the headset, the phone cannot establish other bluetooth connections. So while it's possible for me to dial numbers from the laptop or my Palm (quite convenient), I cannot do that for calls using the headset. I'd really like to be able to stow my cellphone in the bag, and do communications with the Palm (which can also read and send SMS via the phone) and the headset only. Right now, I might have to search for the number on the Palm, dial it by hand, then stash the phone away to complete the call via headset.
• I store all my contacts on the phone memory, not on the SIM card, for two reasons: the SIM card memory can only store one number per name, and I really don't want separate records for "John Home", "John Office", and "John Cell", and two, I often switch SIM cards when travelling to other countries. But switching the SIM card will always configure the phone to use phone and SIM memory for the addressbook, so I always have to change that back.
• Even though the phone comes with timezone support, I have to press at least 10 keys to change the timezone.
• The phone has five caller groups, to which you can assign separate ringing tones. I often wanted to be able to set ring tones per person instead.

Now, my provider is offering me a new phone if I choose to renew the contract (which I will). Thus, I am faced with a new choice, and so ventured out to the stores to get myself informed. I have somewhat of a preference for Nokia phones simply because I already have a set of chargers for them. My requirements for a phone are:

• It has to be small, light, and sturdy.
• It has to have bluetooth, ideally without the aforementioned shortcomings.
• It has to have a long battery life, standby time of at least a week.
• It should interface (via bluetooth) with the Palm Tungsten T5 as well as Linux (Gammu, or something else).
• It has to have quick and intuitive navigation (this pretty much rules out Sony Ericsson, where it can be a second between keypress and display update, or so I've seen).
• It has to have voice-activated dialing, but instead of pressing a key, speaking the name, then having the phone dial, I would like to press a key, speak the name, confirm the call within a set amount of time, and only then have the phone call. Alternatively, I'd accept if I had to keep a button pressed while speaking the name. Also, the phone should acknowledge failure to determine a name rather than choosing the closest one; it happened too many times that the key would be accidentally pressed while the phone was in my pocket, followed by the phone's "smart" decision to call some random person in my address book after listening to the background noise or the rustling of my pocket.

My most-wanted feature has always been a button you can press, which would make the phone ring 10 seconds later -- a great way to get out of an annoying conversation. Unfortunately, no manufacturer even bothered to reply to my feature request sent maybe 4 years ago, so it's unlikely I'll find a phone with this capability anytime soon. Another nice feature to have would be an in-phone answering machine, like the Sony CMD-Z5 used to have. Of course, the provider lobby is not going to let that happen, as they'd lose revenue not being able to charge people normal connection charges for calls to their own mailbox. What I don't need (but would not care about anyway) are:

• Camera, video camera
• MP3 player, other multimedia support
• MMS support
• Games, Java, other applications

Given all of the above, it seems that I only have one phone to choose: The Nokia 6230i, where the i stands for "improved", I guess. But before you get your hops up high (as I did mine), check out the list of improvements and join me in a big sigh. While every manufacturer, including Nokia, has released several new phones over the last two years, they have all been down their multimedia lines. In fact, it seems that the only improvements Nokia and the other manufacturers performed on their business lines was to make the phones larger, add keyboards, and turn them more into PDAs. How sad. Then again, a lot of new models are announced. I may well have to put off the decision until the 6233 is out, the 6021 available here, or I've had a chance to check out the 6822. Also, the E60 and E70 look like worth a look, especially because they integrate Voice-over-IP. And I feel I should have another look at Motorola, Samsung, and Siemens phones. However, so far I have not heard too many good things about any of these, and haven't seen models that are small and light. I really don't need to slide or fold the phone to use it. PS: if you are a phone manufacturer and read this, maybe you could again consider normal user needs when designing your next line of phones, rather than trying to forcefully push more multimedia upon our entertainment society, which nobody really needs but everyone ends up using.

For the past two years, I have been a moderately satisfied user of the Nokia 6230 cellphone, which does all a cellphone should do ("it even has a camera!"). However, it suffers from some shortcomings, namely:

• While it's surely possible to connect a laptop to the Internet via bluetooth to the phone, then GSM, UMTS, or GPRS to the provider, it's not possible to do it the other way, phone via bluetooth to laptop, then Ethernet. This is annoying for two reasons: one, I have to pay expensive GPRS charges even if I am downloading something to the phone in the office, and two, I cannot use my SyncML server, because the perimeter firewall blocks access to its port from the outside. See these threads: A B C.
• When connected to the headset, the phone cannot establish other bluetooth connections. So while it's possible for me to dial numbers from the laptop or my Palm (quite convenient), I cannot do that for calls using the headset. I'd really like to be able to stow my cellphone in the bag, and do communications with the Palm (which can also read and send SMS via the phone) and the headset only. Right now, I might have to search for the number on the Palm, dial it by hand, then stash the phone away to complete the call via headset.
• I store all my contacts on the phone memory, not on the SIM card, for two reasons: the SIM card memory can only store one number per name, and I really don't want separate records for "John Home", "John Office", and "John Cell", and two, I often switch SIM cards when travelling to other countries. But switching the SIM card will always configure the phone to use phone and SIM memory for the addressbook, so I always have to change that back.
• Even though the phone comes with timezone support, I have to press at least 10 keys to change the timezone.
• The phone has five caller groups, to which you can assign separate ringing tones. I often wanted to be able to set ring tones per person instead.

Now, my provider is offering me a new phone if I choose to renew the contract (which I will). Thus, I am faced with a new choice, and so ventured out to the stores to get myself informed. I have somewhat of a preference for Nokia phones simply because I already have a set of chargers for them. My requirements for a phone are:

• It has to be small, light, and sturdy.
• It has to have bluetooth, ideally without the aforementioned shortcomings.
• It has to have a long battery life, standby time of at least a week.
• It should interface (via bluetooth) with the Palm Tungsten T5 as well as Linux (Gammu, or something else).
• It has to have quick and intuitive navigation (this pretty much rules out Sony Ericsson, where it can be a second between keypress and display update, or so I've seen).
• It has to have voice-activated dialing, but instead of pressing a key, speaking the name, then having the phone dial, I would like to press a key, speak the name, confirm the call within a set amount of time, and only then have the phone call. Alternatively, I'd accept if I had to keep a button pressed while speaking the name. Also, the phone should acknowledge failure to determine a name rather than choosing the closest one; it happened too many times that the key would be accidentally pressed while the phone was in my pocket, followed by the phone's "smart" decision to call some random person in my address book after listening to the background noise or the rustling of my pocket.

My most-wanted feature has always been a button you can press, which would make the phone ring 10 seconds later -- a great way to get out of an annoying conversation. Unfortunately, no manufacturer even bothered to reply to my feature request sent maybe 4 years ago, so it's unlikely I'll find a phone with this capability anytime soon. Another nice feature to have would be an in-phone answering machine, like the Sony CMD-Z5 used to have. Of course, the provider lobby is not going to let that happen, as they'd lose revenue not being able to charge people normal connection charges for calls to their own mailbox. What I don't need (but would not care about anyway) are:

• Camera, video camera
• MP3 player, other multimedia support
• MMS support
• Games, Java, other applications

Given all of the above, it seems that I only have one phone to choose: The Nokia 6230i, where the i stands for "improved", I guess. But before you get your hops up high (as I did mine), check out the list of improvements and join me in a big sigh. While every manufacturer, including Nokia, has released several new phones over the last two years, they have all been down their multimedia lines. In fact, it seems that the only improvements Nokia and the other manufacturers performed on their business lines was to make the phones larger, add keyboards, and turn them more into PDAs. How sad. Then again, a lot of new models are announced. I may well have to put off the decision until the 6233 is out, the 6021 available here, or I've had a chance to check out the 6822. Also, the E60 and E70 look like worth a look, especially because they integrate Voice-over-IP. And I feel I should have another look at Motorola, Samsung, and Siemens phones. However, so far I have not heard too many good things about any of these, and haven't seen models that are small and light. I really don't need to slide or fold the phone to use it. PS: if you are a phone manufacturer and read this, maybe you could again consider normal user needs when designing your next line of phones, rather than trying to forcefully push more multimedia upon our entertainment society, which nobody really needs but everyone ends up using.

I guess you could say I am now on the verge of tears, or at least have been for a while (and it's wearing off) -- since I came back from a little expedition on a horse cart around Bagan, visiting some of the poorest villages in the area to drop off a good share of the presents I still have with me (like marbles, balloons (latex ones, so biodegradable), soap bubbles, hair pins, fake jewellery, balls, and pens and paper), as well as a bunch of tubes of toothpaste, bars of soap, and bottles of shampoo, which I had picked up on the way just before. My sadness comes from two aspects of this experience. The first, which is minor because I had expected it, was simply to (once again) witness the conditions under which the poorest of the poor live: in bamboo houses together with their cattle and pigs (everyone here seems well aware of bird flu and have taken the appropriate precautions; the government apparently did a good job in educating its people), with trash and feces all over the place, kids with almost no clothing and the elderly obviously sick from a distance. But I've actually seen worse in Laos and expected it, so that wasn't the main source of my tristesse. What almost made my eyes water was rather the fact that in the first village of the two I managed today, my arrival and obvious wish to give out gifts resulted in fights among the kids, and in dishonest behaviour by some, while the mob was almost ready to run me over as everyone (including grownups) was stretching out the hand and grabbing at whatever I pulled out of my bag. Call me naive, but that part I did not expect. It's understandable, as for these people, anything makes a difference, sometime and existential one, but they are Bhuddist after all, and among the teachings of the Bhudda you can find such lines as "do not be dishonest", and its philosophy (which carries throughout many non-Bhuddist Asian countries) includes the rule to never lose one's face, which covers shouting or fighting. On my first trip to Southeast Asia -- Vietnam -- I reached some remote villages in the Tonkinese Alps in the country's north -- villages which where equally poor, but which were also quite detached from civilisation as found around larger cities. While money still served as the main means of exchange, it appears to have a much lesser meaning to the people, who are mostly self-sufficient to a point of independence from the government as far as you can get (I guess). In these villages, I also passed out presents, but never had an experience such as the one today (nor did we experience something of this sort in some of the villages in Laos, equally removed from the main lines of infrastructure). Rather than fighting for the gifts, the kids would share them. Rather than tears, the gifts brought smiles. It thus seems that civilisation as we know it causes the competition even among kids, and that's the part that fills me with sadness at the same time as it disillusions me quite a bit, because that kind of civilisation will inevitably spread. Going off on a tangent (without the intention to return), I have been thinking a lot about my "mission" in Myanmar, which was to bring clothing and medication, as well as gifts to the poor. While one could interpret this mission -- carrying more than 15 kg of "stuff" through the stifling heat -- as an altruistic act, I also cannot deny the selfish component, because I take great joy in helping people. If you recall, dropping off the clothing I had brought in a village a couple of miles outside of Pyin Oo Lwin didn't fill me with the satisfaction I had hoped to gain, mainly because I was obviously misinformed about Myanmar (btw: I am calling it Myanmar again, which is actually what locals use, unless they speak with tourists). Fortunately, however, I quite easily managed to accept that the mission was still a success for the people undoubtedly were helped quite a lot. If there is one thing I have learnt for sure this time around, then it's that I will return, sooner rather than later, and hopefully with a lot more goods than this time around. This trip has been self-funded, which is why I am also (trying to) spend most time on vacation. I could well imagine that the next time might see me just running the goods there and fly back after only a couple of days. Of course, there are no details, but keep this in the back of your heads (and pass it on), just in case you'd be willing to donate funds to finance the trip. This brings me to another, somewhat related topic, which I have been pondering ever since I arrived in Myanmar, and especially so after I met and talked to a Portuguese globetrotter, last night: the topics of beggars and how to support these countries in effective ways. Let me address those in turn, the second one first as it's more closely related to my braindump you just read (thanks for that), and because I am nowhere near a resolution and can thus sum it up in three sentences: even though individual aid trips, like the one I am on, are helping, I would guess their effectiveness to be quite low, and raising this effectiveness certainly requires a lot of effort and infrastructure. Thus, it may be more beneficial if I were to donate my will to help to an existing organisation already established and connected in the Southeast Asian countries. I am not talking Unicef and other, similar large organisations (some of which I do support already, and if only financially), but rather much smaller endeavours that concentrate on this area only -- surely the need for help exists in all developing countries, but I am most interested in helping Southeast Asia, for the people here have taught me so many valuable things that have changed my life. On the first topic -- beggars -- let me say this much: if you've been to developing countries, you know what I am talking about. If you have not, just imagine all sorts of people (but mostly poor-looking) coming up to you with their hand stretched out, saying "money, money" repeatedly and not respecting a "no" in any way. Any guide book advises you not to give any money, because it will increase the "nuisance" these beggars are to future tourists. But at one point during my time here, I was as far as giving a small amount to everyone who came up (unless there were more around, at which point it would just get out of control too fast) by reason that it doesn't hurt me a bit, and that despite the syndicates and other arguments against it, if you are actually helping one out of ten beggars, that's one more than zero. Since then, however, I've found some more compelling arguments, and the one that's been the most persuasive so far is that a beggar's success attracts more beggars, and while the guide books call that a "nuisance", the real problem is that these people come from villages to cities, from places where they are self-sufficient (at least in Myanmar with its vast resources) to places where they'll end up sleeping on the streets. Enough of that for now, you can be sure there will be more another time; on to something completely different: This is the first time I am travelling Southeast Asia while blogging, and I have very mixed feelings about it. First of all, Myanmar isn't the place for easy Internet access, so it's been quite painful to keep publishing (which was only possible thanks to the help of Hanspeter back at home; thanks), nor is it the place where you'd be inclined to spend a couple of pensive hours in front of the screen while serialising your thoughts into writing -- the power keeps coming and going every couple of minutes, and frequently the battery-backed power supplies most people have cannot bridge the downtime. But that's not the reason why I am not really too satisfied with my blog entries so far. I have found it difficult to write even in Thailand, where Internet access was excellent, and I guess it's mainly due to two reasons: first, there is too much going on outside and the fear of losing a minute of "street action" to these godaweful computers just keeps me from taking the time to think before writing. The second reason is related: impressions need time to settle, and I guess in some ways I do prefer very much to just "be", rather than experiencing with the objective to blog about it in the back of your head at all times (I am a geek after all, don't forget that). I guess I'll try it another time since having Aline along for the first part, and then being subjected to Myanmar's suboptimal information infrastructure, may be factors of larger value than I see them right now. By the way: this blog does not contain all of my writings while I am here, for obvious reasons, so there is more to come if you are interested, but not via this channel. I'll let you know. Now, on the boring side: I returned to the temples in the late afternoon yesterday and saw another three or four, before sprawling out on top of another in aspiration of the sunset to be Obscured By Clouds (which is when I talked to the aforementioned globetrotter for an hour or so). I did find that after all, Bagan didn't have much in store for me, having seen some of the temples at Angkor. The scenery is breathtaking, and some temples are really astonishing views, but as soon as you get on the inside, they are mostly walls and Bhuddas, one similar to the others, and thus quite unlike to what I'd seen in Angkor last year. Since I am also not the type of guy to go off meditating for a day in a remote location, or take my book far away to read in peace, I think that this one day between the temples was enough for me. Maybe the temperature did play a role too, but there was no question for me: I was to do something else the next day (which is today), rather than go out again on that horse cart. I thus joined up with some Australian travellers on their overland way to their new home, London, and hired a taxi to Mount Popa, home of the 37 Nats (spirits) which are closely knit into the Burmese culture. After a 25 minute climb up steep stairs, I found myself again disappointed by a somewhat dirty and absolutely non-pretty stupa on the top of the hill. The view (and temperature) was great though, so no hard feelings, but also no time lost to head back to the hotel, to get on with the village hopping I had planned for the afternoon. Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Hohe and Inle Lake, where it'll be much cooler (or so they say). Stay tuned. PS: And of course, Murakami's novel is not called "Kafka at the Beach", as I wrote in yesterday's entry, but "Kafka on the Shore". I guess it must have been yesterday's intense heat causing that Freudian slip. Anyway, the book is truly captivating and I am afraid I'll zoom through those 600 pages faster than I'd like, given that it's the last of the books I brought. Hopefully I'll find something to pick up on the way that's not Agatha Christie, Dan Brown, Jane Austen, or the other wonderful writers of entertainment fiction, which I'd rather not read even if you paid me for it.

Leaving the computer centre in Mandalay, I decided to settle my further itineraries and headed to an Internet shop in the hope to arrange some online bookings, using Aline's credit card (because mine was lost and I would rather preserve the cash dollars I have, given that there is no way to get more money in this country. I managed to book myself hotel rooms for the One Night in Bangkok I have before returning home, as well as the five days of Yangon before. Other than that, however, I could not get any flights; Myanmar-internal flights cannot be booked online, and Thai Airways refuses to take passengers when the name on the credit card does not match the passenger's. Given that my plans for the evening where set, I had to leave the place with my mission unaccomplished and headed for the Green Elephant restaurant, which the Lonely Planet describes as up-scale. For a whopping $7, I treated myself to beer, pickled ginger and green tea leaves, and butter fish in a tomato curry. Very delicious. Afterwards I attended the Mandalay Marionette & Culture Show, which was quite lovely despite the atonal music that came with it. Mandalay marionettes (or Myanmar marionettes in general) are very elaborately made, and the style to guide them is very unique to the country, the art having been the popular art back in the days when kings ruled the land. The artists are devoted to keeping this art alive, and you could really feel their enjoyment as they showed fights between ogres, princes and snakes, riding horses and trolling monkeys, princes engaging in "hackysack"-style football artistics (which is very popular over here, and people are rather good), as well as synchronised dances between marionettes and real dancers. I can recommend this show to anyone visiting (as I recommend to anyone visiting Hanoi to see the water puppet theatre) and am glad I chose this option over the "Moustache Brothers" performance, which is political satire and slapstick on the edge of legality. I ended the evening talking to some other travellers, most of which had no interest in listening to others but to tell their stories instead. The next morning saw me rising at 4:30 to catch the ferry to Bagan at 6:00 o'clock. The boat had comfortable seats and a restaurant, and only a handful passengers, so the 10 hours went by reasonably fast (no comparison to the ride we took on the Mekhong last year to get from Chiang Khong in Thailand to Luang Phrabang in Laos). We arrived in Bagan on time and together with some Australians I found the May Kha Lar guesthouse (following again the Lonely Planet), which is a rather pleasant place with a lovely, elderly, English-speaking lady running it. SHe also arranged my further air travel for me and wanted about $30 less than the official booking offices. I decided to spend an additional day in Bagan, so I am heading out from here by plane on the 28th, going to Heho, then spending two and a half days at Inle Lake, and flying to Yangon on the 30th. From there, I am leaving for Bangkok on 4 May. With the tickets in my pocket, I felt relieved, showered, and went for a traditional Burmese massage, which turns out to be completely different from the Thai style (which Laos and Vietnam copied more or less) and was rather painful, both because the lady literally tormented my legs far too long and spent only a very short time on my pained shoulders, and because neither the mosquito coils nor my repellents warded off the beasts as I was lying there out in the darkening sky right at dusk. No Malaria in this region, fortunately. Following a very traditional Burmese dinner (goat meat curry), I went to bed because... ... the next day I rose again at 4:30 to meet a guide, and left the hotel at 5:00 o'clock on a horse cart for a tour of the temples. Bagan is what could be called the heart of Myanmar, and on a 42 square kilometre area, you can find 2700 temples (of the 4500 originally built), dating back to the 10th century AD. Unfortunately, the wall carvings and paintings in most temples has been washed away, and it was nowhere near as fascinating to stroll along the endless corridors as it had been in Angkor Wat or Bayon Wat in Cambodia, but from the outside, these temples still look spectacular and are well preserved or restored. Also, climbing up on one or the other, the sight was almost overwhelming: a vast landscape of strupas and temples as far as the eye would reach, and all that under a lovely sunny sky. Haha. The "sunny" bit is what made me get up so early, because the temperatures are bearable only up until 11 o'clock or so. Between noon and 16:00 o'clock today, the thermometre measured 46 degrees Celsius -- I don't think I've ever been in a place so hot (if you leave out our trip to Death Valley in an airconditioned van. So in order to escape the heat, I went to the archaeological museum at noon, then back to the city and into the swimming pool of one of the nicer hotels in town, which cost me $3 for a pool that was green (they don't have the money for chemicals), and the water about the temperature of my bathtub at home. I did not swim, but fortunately, the showers there were pleasantly cold, so I lay in the shade to read ("Kafka on the Short" by Haruki Murakami), taking a shower every ten minutes to cool down. Going back to the hotel, I find the electricity to be gone once again. I think that this town (and Mandalay as well) has maybe 4 hours of electricity a day, it coming and going every few minutes (which makes computer use quite unpleasant). This also means that there is no aircondition most of the day, at least in the budget hotels which don't have their own generator. I am meeting my guide again at 16:00 hours for another 2-3 hours, then will follow the hotel owner's suggestion for a "back massage expert", eat, sleep, and climb Mount Popa tomorrow morning. I'll try to get online again in the afternoon. 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.