OK, my final update from Thailand and maybe my final update for a while seeing that my flight to Myanmar/Burma is tonight and if all goes out well (Assuming that there is a massive lightning storm already abrewing). Anyway a few little bits of crap I wrote down to mention before I forgot…. 🙂

First of all, Jennifer, I finally made it to the cinema! I sat down and thought I broke the seat, but it turns out, they are reclining seats! Like in a fantasy world! Second of all, in Thai cinemas, you have to stand up at the beginning of every movie to pay homage to the king and watch a little video on how great he is. There is air con and you are allowed put your feet up and the armrests are reclinable too so you can generate more space for yourself. Went to see some crappy “Down with love” or something like that with Ashton Kutcher. Fell asleep twice. Can’t wait for Sin City to be LEGALLY available and also House of Wax….. wow, I am sooo going to regret writing that when I read over this in the future! 😉

Speaking of movies, how bored and broke I have been is obvious here, I watched “The Merchant Of Venice” the other night. Just wanted to mention that Al Pachino’s acting as Shylock was the best I have EVER seen. Also, if anyone gets a chance, check out the new Family Guy and American Dad eps…. oh, and buy some new underwear or watch it in your nude poised over a large piece of Tupperware!

Anyway, enough of the non travel related stuff.

Got myself a Thai Bank account… don’t know why? Well, I’ll tell you….. they’re the only country stupid enough to give me a credit card. 😉 albeit a prepaid mastercard! 😉 Pretty cool service, only took like 30 seconds and I was set up and had the card in my hand. WOW, I am here WAY too long. I am really looking forward to getting outa Bangkok now. Can’t wait to meet up with my friends in Yangon (Prev. Rangoon) and head to Bagan. Heard great things, but I guess I’ll be experiencing them soon. Oh well, has to be done.

Apologies for my recent stagnant posts and lack of constructive and relevant travelogue content.

PS: if I hear that Akon song “Lonely” one more time, I’m coming home. 😉

Sarah, I hope your feeling better. Good luck with the exams, I’m thinking of ya. Send my best wishes of luck to the girls as well.

To everyone in FT-228-2 computer science, I hope you all do crap in your exams so I have some company next year 😉 Only joking, break an algorithm….BUH! You know its funny.

@@@ <— Tumbleweed!

If I cannot update you from Burma, see you all soon and I wish you all the best. Be good to each other.

Lah Ghorn
Dave

OK, after my previous post, I think I should clarify that , in the words of Incubus, “It’s just a phase”. Was feeling a little browned off for the first time. I’m all better now despite the fact…. ready for it…. My new phone, the Samsung D-500 was STOLEN the other night. 🙁 Oh well, I learned my lesson… no more phones, expensive ones, for me. 🙂

I met up with Gavin and Nena (Who dragged along two new guys from England going to Burma) and we went to a house party in the back arse of nowhere. Absolutely DEADLY night, but when everyone woke up in the morning, one person was gone. Some English p%$ck along with me and Nenas phones and 5000 Bhat from the owners drawer. Just goes to show, don’t even trust the rich foreigners you meet along the way!

The party was really great, Thai people are so friendly and nice I cannot get over it and its nice to be away from the bars and clubs and just being here…really. Nice to meet up with the others who did a REALLY nice thing for me…. read on.

Unfortunately, due to my overindulging on expensive phones and squandering my budget on good times, I have found myself, for the first time since travelling, absolutely SMASHED BROKE. I literally have 50 Euro in my Bank account. I have my ticket to Burma booked (Was supposed to leave on Friday) but obviously now cannot because theres no ATM’s in Burma.

Anyway, the guys said that they would stay until Monday (Because we all got open tickets to Rangoon/Yangon) which I found REALLY nice. I wish I had some photos of everyone for you guys, maybe Ill just buy a disposable and get them put on a CD before I leave.

Anyway, apart from that, I met up with Bren and Dell (Can’t remember if I mentioned that already) and had a deadly laugh. Hmmm… I did mention that already. Check out their website www.brenanddell.com to keep an eye on their adventure to date and lets see how quick Dell finds himself in the same situation as me now 😉 Only pulling your giant one Dell! 😉

Totally adapted to the weather over here now and I really think I’m gonna die when I come back to Ireland soon. Oh well, I also went to a “witch” (You know who you are) doctor about the skin on my back and owing to a very expensive German remedy… I’m almost cured! It does involve sleeping in my nip though… hehehehehe.

Down to 7 smokes a day now with a little help and as of Monday I’m to be either on 4 a day or off completely. I really think I can do it this time. My little witch is a legend. Nice one.

Finally, and this is not the reason I “Lost” my camera… but I lost a bet and I have to grow my hair long. Its been going almost 3 weeks now and because I have been shaving it at an almost daily rate for the past 6 years, its growing at a hyper rate now. Its the longest I can remember and it looks crazy. i do look stupid, but aparently the Asians like it, and it has to stay until I come home. I’m actually starting to like it. Don’t be surprised when I get home!

I’ll drop another update before I leave, probably a few more than that. I’m still feeling weird. If I’m still this dizzy tomorrow, Ill go to a hospital.

Now I know how the horsies feel 😉
SHHHHHHHHH

Look after each other.
Dave

Sorry for the complete lack of updates in the past hmmm… week or so? I’ve been having the best time here in Thailand away from all the tourists and crap that goes with any place full of tourists. East of Thailand is so much cooler, literally and figuratively, than the… rest, I just had to stay.

As I said, I met so many cool new people, mostly Thai and I can probably speak better Thai than I can French right now. Weathers getting worse here due to it coming into rainy season but thats just perfect for me.

Anyway, my “adventures” are no longer adventures, and as it seems now, never were, its all in the eye of the adventuree. Anything new can be considered that. I will be soon changing this sites name to something new 😉

The people I have met in the past month have been the real treasure of my experiences and I will never forget them. Too many to mention, but I can safely say that my fear (If I did indeed have any) of Ladyboys and Strange ecentric gays has be asauged and after speaking in DEPTH to a lot about why they chose their path, I can safely say I now understand.

Apart from that, I have met some really great “Normal” people (I am aware that I completely contradicted myself just there! 🙂 ) and some really nice westerners that are here for the same reason I am (Apart from being kicked out of a neighboring country) that being, to desperately seek something new as much off the beaten track as possible.

I have now lost my camera and 2 phones and to be honest I don’t care. Got a new phone and I hate it. Stupid Samsung D-500. Phone of 2005 my arse.

Anyway, I am heading to Burma on Friday morning, so there will be no more communication from me for a “Few” weeks. 😉 and to be honest, I’m having way too much fun here to be going to all the trouble of coming to somewhere with the Internet and updating with the same old news. I’m sure your all bored with it by now anyway! HEHEHE 🙂

Anyway, I’ll update you readers soon as you can probably tell, I’m exausted and need a rest.I think its a bit of depression knowing that my trip is BEGINNING to come to an end. Looks like I’ll go to the cinema tonight. First time since travelling! Chill out and reorganize my brain.

Take care. Miss you all.

In an effort to become more of a rag “journalistic writer” you will have noticed that I am starting to use, or attempt to use more witty puns in my headlines. This one referes to two things…. I’ve put on a lot of weight (So I’m back to what I was when I left) and I got my mobile stolen 🙁

Sitting in a nice little cafe sipping mocha, texting my lovely girlfriend (About to) and some little shit comes up and snatches it from my hand. Before I realised what happened he had disappeared into the crowd. Oh well, looks like I’ll just have to get a more up to date model when I get back to Bangkok Sunday. I’ll update the site with my phone new number if anyone is interested.

Anyway, back to business…I’m still getting on great and s till having an absolute ball. After my less than cultural visit to Laos I’ve been dropped back into the deep end of the culture pool and having a wonderful time learning to swim. Met so many new friends, mostly Thai that are by FAR the most friendly I have met so far. They all have money too which means they all have trucks and cars and do not have any hidden agenda. Read the full story

Leaving Chiang Mai again. Heading to Laos in about an hour. No internet there so this will be my last post for a good long while. Take care everyone and yes, I’ll try and have a nice birthday. 😉 BYE!

After being loaded with a drug called ‘Demorol” which Jim says is illegal in the states and sleeping a LOT, I’m still in pain but feeling a lot better. Matt’s foot got infected and his mother flew over to bring him back to Canada for surgery. Cyril got his credit card today so we went to book our tickets to Laos. Unfortunately, there was a small problem. the bus was full!

Anyway, we got one for the day after tomorrow. Went out again last night. When i say ‘Again” I know I need to move on. Its getting too much. For Sarah’s benefit I have uploaded some more videos and photos. So I’m not being Gay, just reassuring. 😉  Anyway, not much news to give today just that I went to the lake outside Chiang Mai for dinner today with Nena which was really nice because I was the only Falang/Farang there. I love that. really peaceful and the food was great.

Made a big mistake last night of shaving my head. Scalp still sunburnt to bits and I look stupid. Oh well, I don’t care, I’m not trying to pull anyone. Am I? Of course not! 😉

Just an update for some more photos anyway. Hope everyone is well and exams and Thesis’ (Thesi) are going good. Good luck beans. Maybe you can come over soon? 😉

Buttons, I hope everything is going OK and you don’t miss me too much. i will see you soon.
Sal, I love you and miss you too.

Everyone else, I miss you guys and I’ll see you soon.

If I manage to get to Laos, that will be the end of my updates because there are NO Internet access points in Laos. I thought Burma would be bad!

Take care.
Dave (Who else)

PS: Sarah, check the video section for the video for you. I look pretty sunburnt and I’m making my face at the end of the hello one. Spicy was too dark. Sorry. xxxxxxxxxx

PPS: I uploaded some more photos in the Thailand section (getting quite full now!) and some videos of the festival down an alley where it was dry enough for me to video. Some I did not take. Sorry they’re crap. that is about 1% the madness that went on. It just looks crap int eh videos, I assure you, it was not!

At the time of writing this, Songkran is now officially over and everything here in Chiang Mai is back to normal, but I have to say, the Thais went all out on the last day. To be honest, 7 hours of water fighting a day followed by heavy drinking and dancing for another 5 hours really takes its toll. After the water dousing was finished and everyone went home to get dry and come back, the concert began. The most famous rock band in Thailand did the final concert night. What an amazing gig! One of the best I have EVER been at and I met the most famous “Male” movie star in Thailand too! That means now I’ve met the most famous male and female stars in Thailand the Prime Minister and his daughter! really making the rounds… now wheres that King guy? …

The gig anyway was really good anyway and me and Cyril (See mate? I didn’t spell it like the lady spells it!) got quite drunk and “totally rocked out”:) By that I mean we danced around with all the locals and the lighting team who we made friends with coming out of the club the previous day. The music was absolutely EXCELLENT. I even went out and bought the CD! 😉

Met Ohm there too and I TOTALLY put my foot in it. Turns out that I mixed up my Thai. Shes not 14, shes 24 and the guy I was speaking to about his “Daughter” was actually her boyfriend. EWWWW. Hes like 50 and they met on the Internet. Yik. He was too old to get involved but she did anyway and we had a great laugh. Afterward we we went dancing but Ohm could not come because her “Boyfriend” was too old and was tired. I could totally see the disappointment in her eyes.

Anyway, we went to bubble again then met up with Tony from Liverpool (friend of Cyrils) and my new pal Robert. From Cork. Robert is of Asian decent. 😉 He’s Chinese and its REALLY difficult to take a Chinese person with a Cork accent seriously! Hehehehe. Only joking. I had a great chat with him about buddhism and Thailand. He’s been living here in Chiang Mai for the past few months in Doi Suthep doing an intensive meditation course. I have never met anyone so calm and relaxed in my life and for once I found someone who agrees with my on my qualms about Bhuddism. Thank…. Buddha?

Anyway, party raged on through the night, blah blah blah . I’m sure your all sick of me writing about that. As I was leaving the pain started to increase in my ear. I knew something was up. Obviously now I know.

Uploaded a few more pictures in the Thailand photo section and also here with some explanations for the benefit of a certain individual 😉 I love you babe.

OK, I cannot believe I never thought of it before, but my camera (Which is now broken) has got a nice nifty little video feature on it. If anyone is interested in seeing some videos, I only have some concert videos at the moment, feel free to click HERE or just go to www.davesadventure.com/video 🙂 Please be aware that some of them are pretty damn big. Don’t start to download them unless your bored and have a bit of time to wait. Hopefully the sound came out ok and you can hear how great the music actually was. HEHEHE, this must be my shortest post ever.

For the first time in my life, I was woken up by pain. After 4 hours sleep, my body was in agony and woke me up. Luckily, the father of the manager of my hotel is a doctor. He took one look and sent me to hospital, but don’t worry, it’s not serious. 🙂 I have an ear, throat and TOUNGE infection and its aparently pretty bad. It sure feels it. It also seems like I’m only one of MANY people with the same thing. The place was full of people like me, my age and they all looked how I felt. We all got it from swimming in the FILTHY moat/river and from all the water in my ears over the past few days 🙁 No-one to blame but myself.

Went to the hospital and I have to say that it was the NICEST hospital I was EVER in. Seriously. The nurses were so friendly and the personal attention was next to none. Saw the doctor after a long wait and he showed me exactly what was wrong (Sarah, you remember Greece? Same thing in my ear but got so bad that it was all over and it spread down).

He had to give me a local anaesthetic and do a ‘Small procedure” on my ear because sucking the puss out didn’t work too well and he had to do a “Biopsy” and cut some scabs out. Now, I cant hear out of my left ear. But thats “Perfectly normal”. Scuse the language, but it better fucking be. I’m starting to freak out over it.

Anyway, the cool thing is that the pharmacy is actually in the hospital and I got my plethora of medication and antibiotics. (Cheers for that DJ wren_T, Ill never forget…. strike a pose!).

The ‘Strong” painkillers are working a treat and I bought a lot of music and movies to watch so it will be like I’m back home chilling out after a literally crazy new year celebration of overwhelming proportions. I knew it would HAVE to effect my body somehow, I just thought it would be my liver. Cost a small (Large by Asian standards) fortune for the visit, consultation and Santa sack of drugs. Really cuts my budget right up. (YES, I actually DO have one!… I’m not here JUST to party, I’m learning responsibility too!). Worked out at about 100 Euro. I’m sure the insurance will cover that. Yea right!

To top it all off, last night, at the END of the night, I sat on my camera and broke it. My baby number 3! So don’t blame me if my future photos are crappy. If anyone even looks or cares about my photos.

Anyway. Just thought I’d let you know that for the second time since I’ve been travelling I feel a bit crap.

PS: Cuffy, can you confirm my stats? (Privatly) or send me a screenshot or document of webalizer stats for the time I’ve been travelling on this site ONLY. Cheers mate. And good luck with the “Goldenplec Water fight”

Back in Thailand for Songkran, the Thai (Well, South East Asia) new year. How is it celebrated? By having a HUGE waterfight of course! In Chiang Mai and met up with the lads from Bangkok when I was STUCK there after loosing my ATM. From 7AM util about 9PM every, and I mean EVERY, man, woman, child, priest, monk, police officer, old decrepid lady and unborn feotus go out and drown each other for the three days. In fact, its the worlds biggest water fight according to the book of Irish Stout.

First day after an hour, the lads bottled it and went to the pub to get drowned there. Yea right was I going. Teamed up with my new pal “Ohm” see photo and formed our team. All day we just threw water at people and people did it to us. The photos cannot do it any justice.

We then went to the bar street where it was “Bar against Bar” warfare. Each bar, whichever you were drinking in, had its own team. Cannot even remember the name of the one we were in (It just wasn’t Juciy or Stairway). Arch enemies the “Pink hats” got a good going over. 😉 Threw talc over each other also as a sigh of “Respect and well wishes for the new year”

After a while, Juciy, the ladyboy bar got its customers in a HUGE fanfare. The ladyboy queen of the festival arrived with her/his drones and proceeded to march up and down the street while we drowned them. So funny. They really put it out there. After a few hours of fighting and buying ice to make our water coldest we subsided and everyone went to dry off and go to the New Year concert in Tae Pae gate. Cool show with lots of traditional Thai and modern Thai rock music and shows. Went out dancing to celebrate a day well spent.

Next day (Today), pretty much the same thing, waterfight! ALL day long. I wish I had more photos but I couldn’t bring my camera out because I got thrown in the river yesterday and wasnt risking carrying my camera today. The traditional “Washing of the Buddahs” started at 5 bells and we all threw water on teh Buddah statues to “Clean them”.

Right now, I’m sitting in the internet cafe while there is a thunder and lightning storm outside. BUT everyone is still out dancing on the streets and its amazing how much this is celebrated.Going to the second night of the concert in the rain (Actually the rain is not warm, its HOT rain) then going for a chill out night in teh THC rooftop bar. Might have an early night tonight because I have another LONG day tomorrow.

PS: I ahve updated some Vietnam pictures and some Cambodia pictures.