Laos and Thailand. Two countries that I like - a lot - and both inseperable in their charms. As it is, like India, England, Italy, India, Laos and Holland, the few counties I know and have experienced, all fail pitifully in the face of the Thai cultural onslaught.
Yes, I was wrong. Heinously so. There is no finer country on Earth as far as I know, and the next 30 months of my life - 2 and a half years - seem set to be spent pursuing this disaproval of this statement, in finding a place where life is more pleasurable, easier, more viscerally fantastic and enjoyable than the Kingdom of Thailand.
Before I go nuts for the Thais, though, a couple (literally two) things about Laos in particular seem to need a mention here. The first is the currency which, as you see for yourself, was designed entirely to fox the foreigner. The money there is, if you remember, pretty miniscule - a workable average of 17,445 Laos Kip (KIP) to the Great British Pound (GBP) and only 8,700 Kip to the Dollar (USD).
This is especially evident (and bewildering on first entering Laos) when you start paying for stuff with your nice shiny new currency. The Laotian symbol for the cardinal number `1` is uncannily like the Roman cardinal number `6`, the Laos number 2 is surprisingly simialar to our number 5, and the number 5 in Laotian looks remarkably akin to the number 9. And with a currency as diminutive as the Laos Kip the banknotes themselves offer some extra challenges; there are notes for both 5,000 and 50,000 Kip in everyday use, as well those for 2,000 and 20,000 and also of course 1,000 and 10,000.
That the notes themselves all feature - I'd like to clarify that; ALL feature - the same picture of the President, all depicted in the same aspect and light, mostly even the same size and on the same sodding colour of banknote, makes working out your change all the more interesting.
As it happens, sure enough, when I first got to Laos I was sure I had been defrauded about 5 times before I got to my hotel. Turns out I hadn't; I had merely been overcharged, which is not the same thing at all and is almost always less expensive 
The second thing is the motor laws, which they actually have in Laos, unlike some places I could mention (Hull, Brixton, India 
) ; in Laos they drive on the right, unlike in India and Thailand which drive on the left, like proper human beings, and they have an additional extra feature concerning mopeds, or scooters.
What this amounts to is a complete obliviance (that a word?? maybe `oblviousness` instead?) of the scooter, and their ability, legal or otherwise, to drive on the pavement.
It might seem minor to you, but when you round a blind corner and a some nu-wave goth kid on a 150cc scooter comes at you at about groin level and a generous 20 miler per hour then you might consider it worth a little worry.
For the next generation, at least. I mean if every adult male of child-bearing ability was accosted by some teenage punk on a chicken-chaser, then not only would we stand a good risk of a substantial generation gap but in the mean-time the only fuckwits left able to breed woud be the kind of people who voluntarily ride little 150cc (`chicken-chaser`) scooters.
It hardly bears thinking about.
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But anyway, I'm in Thailand and I, we, Greg and I, deviated from our previous course somewhat. We took the bus yesterday morning not at 08:30 but at 08:15, and as such our transport was headed towards Khonkaen not Oudan Thani, and after a mediocre lunch of chicken bones and non-existent soup (quite a delicacy with that famous naked Emperor, suppose) we buggered off from there as fast as possible (well, there wasn't a bar in sight) and made it to Khorat, the second-largest city in Thailand, and home to one or two more interesting diversions than the rest of those places seemed to hold.
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A few basic facts: essentially the 2 things you need to know: 1) In Thailand, the image of the King is sacred. You do not, under any circumstances, screw about with this, in the sense that you would never throw a picture of the King away with the trash or despoil his picture in public. This is, as you may rightfully assume, not a difficult rule to obey.
2) Never lick anything - you don't lick stamps, lick your fingers (even after a meal), lick nothing. Only animals lick things and you are debasing yourself in the extreme if you join the club (pack). This is marginally harder to comply with, but of all social faux-pas and any sensitivities you might hope to leave unscarred this is pretty much it in terms of cultural awareness; anything else goes, and you'll almost certainly be forgiven the offense of the licking thing in light of the fact you are a `farang`, or foreigner.
There are one or two other things worth mentioning, one of them startlingly obvious: don't do drugs.
Now some of us, me included, have our own opinions on this subject but none of them matter in light of the consequences, viz. that possesion of a tiny amount - a gram, even - of the most harmless contraband, such as Marijuana, carries a potential life sentence in jail.
As wonderful as Thailand is, I doubt in a very serious and realistic sense that the incarceration of anyone, regardless of their to-date experience of penitance, within a Thai jail would be even the slightest bit tolerable, and if I hide behind posh language here it is because I find it distasteful to launch straight into plain facts: in a Thai jail you can expect, man or woman, to be raped daily and beaten shitless by the hour, and any less than this is wishful thinking, because these things happen, constantly and consistently.
Possession of a larger amount will amount in itself to a death sentence, terms non-negotiable; that's it, chum, you're for the gallows. I do not understate my point in even the tiniest degree.
I may be reckless on occasion, may well differ from the cultural norm quite refreshingly often but I will not risk the rest of my meagre yet ample life on the possible benefits of one bloody spliff come hell, high water or any amount of peer pressure.
Don't, I repeat, do not do drugs of any kind on Thailand.
This all distracts from the thrust of this though, because as long as you steer clear of the 'erb, in every way; and frankly you need nothing dulled down here as it is invariably thrilling; you will see the most amazing society imaginable, the dullard thoughts of Western convention paid no heed in daily action, the monotony commonplace to an English society thrown to the four winds as entire cities - an entire country - celebrate their New Year in the best way possible, as far as I've yet seen and as we are soon to establish, and I really only mention the minimum facts, I've seen a thing or two already.
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Now, you may gather that I'm excited. I spent the past 5 hours engaged in the single largest waterfight on the face of the Earth, so you will have to bear with me a second.
That may not be true by the way. There may be bigger waterfights, with more water pistols and buckets of water and pickup trucks loaded with joyfully screaming children, and full barrels of water and ice-boxes of beer, and crates of whisky and live rock concerts with water cannons mounted on the lighting rigs, and even with more joyfully ecstatic pedestrians smearing talcum-powder-paste over everyone's faces.
There may yet be, somewhere in the world, there may. But the principal holder for this title I deem to be the city of Khorat, where I am now, and it is only to be Bangkok that might reliably fight for this prize which is itself the one city more eminent in this same said county of Thailand, and just about the only one that could be finer - and all are to be infinitally less thought of, until I say otherwise 
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Now, I have seen a lot of parties. I mean really, I have seen a lot, chances are that I've had an unequal share and seen more than most, and of those I have been to I could reliably argue I have often seen bigger, better and longer.
I have been to Dam Square in Amsterdam for the New Year's fireworks (where what is essentially dynamite is thrown over the heads of the crowd into an ever-enlarging circle of daredevils; where subway entrances are used as impromptu blast chambers for 5,000+ firecrackers set off simultaneously) and I have seen the pride of the city of London at New Year where the second largest firework diplay in history was undertaken and more than 4 million people took to the streets to take part - and I was in the middle of Tower Bridge at the stroke of midnight, when the climax to the evening took place amid bottles of champagne and legally dubious but extremely timely lines of cocaine were taken from the very surface of the bridge's ramparts - I have been to an immodestly superb collection of others; the Mardi Gras in Manchester; the Solstice at Stonehenge; the biggest Goa Beach Party in India on new year 2007/2008 at Palolem; particular events in legendary clubs such as SE1 underneath London Bridge Station or at the Country Club in Dorset or Urban in Manchester or indeed Urban in Soho, and I have in my own modest repertoire some parties which are well-known, some might even say famous, that under my direction have provided 24 hours or more constant entertainment to scores of people, and during which the last one, summer 2007, I proved that it is possible to keep 100+ people at a single house party in a state of constant enjoyment (and narcosis ) for a full 24-hour day of partying, and many more in addition for a day and a half beyond that.
And I have to stop there for obvious reasons; what is left though is that all of that pales next to what Thailand offered me in a single day, without warning, and which unaccountably blew me completely away.
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I (well We, Greg and I, as we are reunited in our mooching about the planet) rose mid-early, mid-late morning, not having a great deal of stuff planned beyond getting to the national museum and probably finding a pub about mid-afternoon-time, but still knowing that it was the Thai New Year soon, and hoping to catch a piece of the action. Boy, was I underestimating things.
We emerged from the hotel after my customary 3 shits of the morning. Too crude? WelI, I dont know quite how to phrase the fact that I've been consistently ill now for 20 days in another way. I rise, I poop, I poop again. Invariably I poop again just before leaving to remove some essential flying weight for the day's travels and because I simply can't hold that much watery diarrohea for another 5 hours.
I'm sorry, did that get crude again? Well deal with it, I have been. You try boarding 12-hour+ buses every few days or each week, across distinctly malformed terrain, for a tota nowl of nearly 3 months solid, and getting to the point where a mere 4 or 6 hour journey with severe somach cramps but without any hope of a toilet is of such little concern comparatively that you simply have to make sure you have a book you've not read too many times before somewhere in your hand luggage.
Yeah, I'm seeing the world and you might be stuck in an office 8 hours every weekday. Now would you voluntarily get stuck in a single small chair (a very small chair) for 10 hours at a stretch, with no food or water, no toilets, no space and no hope, and do this maybe twice a day or twice a week, surrounded by people from another country all harassing you in a language you can never understand?
And you have to pay for it, too.
And the temperature is somewhere approaching 35 degrees Centigrade; one degree from a medical emergency for you and everyone else.
Oh, and someone probably just threw up in the aisle right alongside you. Welcome to the budget travel experience; Merry Fucking Christmas.
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Again, I feel like I'm negating my own point here (that so far Thailand is the most excellent country in which to be, period) so what I am gonna do is leave it, for now, partly because in an hour or so we are going to descend into the madness again and see what is what in a whole day of partying, face-painting, water festival madness, and as such I'll report exclusively on today's happenings in a later post.
At some point I'll hopefully also breeze through the last 80-odd pictures from India. I'm not saying I'll skimp on this a little bit, but in light of the recent activity you may get a somewhat condensed version of affairs there
In other good news I pulled some videos previously thought corrupted - including the very best one I have, in my opinion, of Indian highway/motorway traffic - from a spare memory card so it looks like I have a few of the best short movies `on file`, as the clerky amongst us might say
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In-between times I have only this to offer - that what I have, assuming the pictures turn out OK, and I get a reasonable line of copy down to relate them, that the stuff of this New Year's celebrations in the city of Khorat should inspire a few amongst you to get off your arses and come visit this wonderful, bizarrely oligarchical, wonderfully friendly and universally helpful society of people; the Thais; who are as strange as any (possibly even the British ) but impressively more polite, helpful and quick-witted than any other.
Except, of course, the British 
