It's all about tubing really

So right now at this very moment in time, I'm in cork, no only kidding I'm in Laos. I'm going to see if I keep tellin people I'm home already will they actually believe me when I come home. Like the boy who cried wolf, but with a new modern twist.

Laos is cool, Mullingar is a metropolis compared to the capital Vientienne, but I'm not trying to say anything bad about Vientienne cause it has its little charms. Like to herbal sauna and massage for 3.50, or the sweet Indian food in Nazim, but I only stayed there for two nights, I was pretty eager to stay as far away from capital cities as possible. So I went to Vang Vieng.

There is a backpacker funemenon in Laos called "tubing" its more fun than you can shake ten sticks at. Basically your given an inflated in tube of a tractor tire and pushed into a dirty river. Cool yeah. Well after a few meters of drifting down the river you come to the first bar where you get a beer and hop on a zip line so you can plant yourself in the middle of the river and hopefully make it back to shore before you get sucked downstream away from your beer and relative safety. I don't think there is a laos translation for the word 'safety'. It doesn'teven enter their head, its great. You then go to the next stop where the big swing is. This is where all the photos are taken. Your told to get drunk and/or stoned, climb a big tree then swing into the centre of a very fast flowing river. The drunker the better really, its hard to discribe how much fun this is, the closest I can think of is Mosney when your 10. This will never happen back home, because its to much fun and we have no-fun laws. So I think when I get back home we should 'tube' the Liffey or the vogue, where-ever it'll be fun.

And this is what "tubing" looks like. Notice the tube....

This is just a guy on the downswing, you go so fast that a lot of people lose grip and plant themselves face first in the water. You gotta love laughin at them, it happen to me first time aswell but I can laugh at it now.

This is juut to show the size of the tree. You can't even see the launch pad but its in the middle somewhere up near the top left. I think if this tree falls over the bar is going to have to move 20 metres down-stream. It is a good tree though, great for swinging.

Right in the middle of the photo there is a guy falling from the trapeeze above his head. Its looking like a bad entry, this one is going to hurt.

50 cent got shot nine times

Thats right 9 times, I can't believe I never bought his album, 9 times, whoo.

So I'm in Laos, theres a funny old sayin in Laos but I don't know it. Hanoi was too hot and too sweaty, I couldn't handle it so I ran for the hills in Laos and got away from those head wrecking moto-drivers. Laos is nice though, I think Mullingar is bigger than the capital. The 24 hour bus ride turned out to be ok, I made a bed of other peoples back packs at the back of the bus and slept pretty sweetly. Valium, weed and codine helped a little too.

On that note, I didn't smoke any weed in Vietnam until then. A personal pat on the back for a job well done, but the first thing I done in Vientienne is buy weed. Got sold fake opium too.

I'm off to Vang Vieng now to sit in a rubber tube and float down some river. So that should be fun. Funny enough its called "Tubing"

And camera number four broke, me and electronics just don't mix.

Thats a quick round up

now over to George for the sports

George

Beans beard is proving to be quite the tourist attraction these days. Why did I bother shaving mine off. Well I'll tell ya why. It was getting far to tash-tacular thats why. The locals would have gone crazy for it.

Heres a nice pond, with a three legged tiger in it. Only kidding there's no three legged tigers in it just some algae, maybe a frog and some ill-tempered mutated sea bass

Frodo Bean doing what he does best, pulling stupid faces & playin guitar, play frodo bean play

Heres me with enough cash to make it to Thailand, since its kinda hard to get cash in Laos I had to stock up. Please don't rob me anyone. Thats dollars in my right hand and Dong in my left, bling bling ya'll

Here I am banging a really big drum. Tis the biggest drum I've ever played, of course it didn't take long for the guards to but an end to our fun, bloody arsh's

Beans mouth,

The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. Where Uncle Ho lies for 9 months of the year. He's been dead for 37 years now and he's kept frozen in a case here for the people to walk around him. Its kinda freaky really, no camera's are aloud inside so no photo of un Uncle Ho unfortunately. The poor guy wanted to be cremated but the people wouldn't have his die-ing wish heard and have kept him frozen ever since. Every year he goes for a 3 month holiday to Moscow to meet up with his buddies Mao and Stalin and to get a wee touch up so that he doesn't look like a 37 year old corpse. Poor Uncy Ho. He does look pretty good for a 37 year old corpse

And if all else fails you can just build stuff with the bricks, for ages 3 and up

Ahh Jenga, truely is the game of kings

Here Bean beating me 8-1 in connect four, what a disaster. I had to revert to Jenga

The final step of the tower. its a snice one, some say its a trap for the three legged tiger

Thats right, I, me climbed this, made it safe and sound. No soilin

Still looking for the tiger from a very high tower, I'm just happy not to have soiled myself on the way up, but the view is pretty sweet. And look at beans beard, the locals love it. He keeps getting stopped and the locals start taking photos of him. I'm changing his name to Frodo Bean because he's hairy and his feet have swollen up due to mossy bites and he never wears shoes. Get back to hobbiton frodo bean

Two sweaty Arshes in search of the mystical three legged tiger on Cat Ba Island, the tiger still remains a mystery

Sunset snice

Thats me, right there, in the middle. Halong bay all around, didn't crash once

I tried to make it look like the dragon is breathig land, national geographic should be callin anytime now

Halong bay, its quite rosmantic really

Bean came up with the mighty invention "the head sling" to stop his head falling over on the bus to Halong. What an arsh, but it worked for all of 10 minutes

This hard to make out but I got ringside seats for a street fight outside the train station in Hanoi. I'm guessing their fighting over how many chickens their aloud on the train... In the end the little guy won, come on the little guy.

Got a new job in Hanoi, it a shit way to make money but someones gotta get the people some fruit

Heres the biggest ass in Vietnam holding the biggest flag.

Disco you lazy arse, getting pushed about by Rhino. At least the pedicab driver got some vodka out of it

A blind lesbian wouldbe going nuts in this fish market

Mandela & Stalin- Buddies

Bloody phones

My phone has been lifted again, what luck, same hotel different story. Anyway fuck it, Vietnam was fun but like the US I'm pulling out all forces. Retreating to Laos as of monday.

Looking forward to getting eaten alive by mosquitoes in the hills and getting attacked by monkeys and three legged tigers and other crazy things that can happen to a poor white boy in Laos.

I really need to get photos on this website, I'll try tomorrow if ye're lucky.

Snuggles

Domestic Violence

I had a dream this morning I got a lift home from a church in dublin to sligo with Bertie Ahern in a Mercedes A-class. He was given some sermon I was just standing outside like I used to when I was a kid. Anyway snap back to reality, whoops there goes gravity

Last night after a very patient few hours waiting for my "missing" phone and shorts to come back, I decided to put in a stolen property report with the cop across the street. When I walk in to the cop shop (a room) theres one cop and a load of lads sitting around drinking tea. The duty manager of my hotel is ripping the piss out of me and translating my statement to Vietnameese when a woman crashes through the door with blood pissing out ofd her head. I decide I aint gettin no report tonight and head of to get some food. Before I go I offer one of the porters 50,000 Dong to get my phone back. Thats $3's. And low and behold when I come back my phone has been miraculously been found.

Its all good now, and Beans just farted on my hand. Not really, I'm just ripping his urine

Rewards

I know this is my own fault but I left my phone and a pair of shorts in my old hotel room this morning. Now I've switched rooms, same hotel and somewhere in the middle I lost a pair of shorts and my phone. Basicly the only other people in the room were the cleaners so now I have to offer a "reward" if they happened to have "found" it. I haven't accused anyone of stealing yet, but it doesn't take inspector Clueso to figure whats going on.

The same thing happened on the beach in Na Thrang when I had to pay a $2 reward to get my stolen poi back. Lovely country but corrupt as fuck. I'd really love to trust the locals but I've been robbed to many times.

But I did get a shit cool room last night and took a break and watched "starsky & hutch", "Alexander" and "Braveheart". The first two where a bit on the sewage side, but braveheart is a classic. You know you've seen a movie too many times when you say the lines before the actor says it.

& Colin Farrell, nice haircut buddy

Bored

Can't sleep. took way to much valium on the bus the other night and now I'm on a come down. Half a bottle of vodka last night and I'm still awake. But my hotel has got free internet so I'm taking full advantage, I hear there's trouble in the Lebanon and some mad stuff happening in Serie A. I'm just cathing up on world events, surfing the web etc.

In other news I wasn't aloud have breakfast this morning in a cafe because I wasn't wearing shoes, which is weird because in Thailand you have to take off your shoes before going into a restaurant. But I can't complain because this is a "communist" country, BULLSHIT its as communist as New York.

Think I'm going to go see Ho Chi Minh while I'm still awake so

Hasta Luego

Come on Bean

Bean's coming tomorrow, come on the bean. You'll be pleased to know we're living on peanuts. Doing it so cheap we're refusing to pay the extersionist price of 50cent a beer so we're back to the old school college days of sneaky bottles of vodka into pubs.

We've got away with jumping a few ticket desks in NaThrang but in the Royal Palace in Hue, they caught us and tried to make us pay $4. Extortion again, so we got some great photos of the ticket desk and the largest flag in Vietnam. I'll put up the photos later right now I just don't feel like it. Cause as Bean would say "I'll just do what I like"

Where's me Jocks

Right now I'm in Hanoi (geography lesson: that's the capital) but I stopped off in Hoi an (confusing) and while everybody else was getting suits made I decided I had to get something made. So I got some Satin jocks made. Tonight I'm going to with the blue one's.

I'm about to find out if blues my lucky colour

The hooligans are loose

So I watched the world cup final in a beach bar with a couple of hundred people and fell asleep in the sand. What can I say I was tired, I did wake up just when ZeZu got sent off, but i missed the whole thing really. Fuck it, Ireland weren't even in it so who gives a dogs testicles.

Now on the way home there was a drunken scottish guy 50 meters in front of me, that fact that he was scottish pretty much means there was a 90% chance of him being drunk too. He started getting harashed by 5 hookers. I started shout "hey dude, your wallet, YOUR WALLET", but he didn't hear me and by the time I caught up with the bitches they where already going through his wallet. They guy still didn't have a clue what happen and is still walking off. So I go after the skank ho's but they jump on a moped and speed off. At this point I was ready to transform myself into Chuck Norris and round-house those ho's into the sea. But I can't do that, I felt so useless. Poor guy had his camera nicked too. They were pro's.

Its happened to everyone at some point, but still poor guy. It's such a kick in the teeth when it happens. Fingers crossed it won't happen to me again, it happened too often in Thailand, I've been lucky since.

Alex Grey

Hey dont know if any of ye are going to be into this, but this guy Alex grey came to the guy that thought me Thai massage for chakra balancing and Yan my teacher said the two of them both started shaking like something from the exorcist. Basicly this guy takes a shit load of drugs, thats what fucked up his chakras, but he uses drugs for his job. Hes an artist and he draws everthing with his eyes closed, but under the influence of mainly acid & other shit. He just draws his own energy. It can take him up to 6 months to draw one painting, since hes doing it blind its kinda tricky. His stuff is like seeing your own x-ray combined with something much deeper.

If your interested the website is www.alexgrey.com

The painting and biography sections are good un's

Moto madness

This is generally what happens ini Vietnam. You meet up with some other Irish guys and end up in a country bar miles from anywhere at 5 in the morning. All good but gettin back is the best bit. Meself and Steve from Dublin shun the pro Moto-Taxi guys and get a drunk local to give us a lift into town. What you can't see here is that he's a cigarette and large bottle of Tiger Beer in his left hand and driving with his right down shitty Vietnameese roads. The guy was so drunk he forgot to charge us.... quality

fear and loathing in Na thrang

So last night at ze ol vietnameese full moon party I met up with these californian guys and we got to talking to usual shit and then we all decided to drop a bit of acid. I decided I'd give it a whirl, you know you might as well try everything once but I had to do a fire show first. Now I wasn't going to drop acid and start swinging fire around me at very fast speeds, cause lets face it fire poi and dropping acid may make for a cool story when your 40 but I didn't feel like a trip to the hospital so I said I'd finish my show and then do it. But the guys got kinda fucked and got lost in the sand dunes and nobody seen them again. So my first ever acid experience never happened. So I just got hammered instead. If doubt go back to basics and just get pissed.

Now a couple of hours ago I went for a detox run on the beach and when I got to the end of the beach I start doing a few sit-up's. Yeah me for attempting to get fit, I have to emphasise attempting here cause I was fucked. Anyway this Vietnameese dude comes over to me, and first of all I think he just wants a bit of a chat. Then he drops the hand. Lonely planet doesn't tell you how to say I'm not gay in Vietnameese but I'm pretty sure I could of done with it in this situation cause this guy was full on and persistant. Flatering of course, it always nice to know I got options.

And I got another new phone number so if anyone wants to test me its +84919358402. I'll be in Veitnam until the end of the month so it'll work till then.

Over and out like Sergie Bubka

Poi boy

I'm now in Na Thrang Vietnam and fell into a very funky little situation where a local tour operator gets me free tickets for parties and free booze for fire poi-ing. Yeah me, I'd do it for free so this works out pretty good for little ol me, saving a fortune and have a good time. we're having our own little full moon party tonight. This will be a messy one. the last few nights I've been blocking traffic by swinging pio's all over the place. The first night I done it I had 1 to many rum and cokes and one of the poi's slipped out of my hand and went through the air landing 10 meters aways in a food stall, I'd like to make the story more exciting and tell you I took out a Vietnameese granny's eye, but its not the movies and that didn't happen. But it was still funny.

here a photy

Shepards

My cheech and chong adventure true Cambodia came to a bitter end on a hill-top in Bokor in the far south of the country. Basically I was on top of a hill in a pair of flip-flop's /Thongs and shorts when it got really cold and rainy. So as the shepard said to the sheep I left. High tailing across the Mekong Delta by beat up toyota camry, jeep, bus and ferry I made it to Saigon in a day. Fantabulous.

I didn't do much there, stayed one night in the city and high-tailed it north in search of a bit of sun. But I did do the Viet Cong tunnel thing's which was kinda cool but one thing blew my head-phones. Its called Cao Daoism. Some mystic made it up at the beginning of the 19th century, its kinda religion on acid. The temple is this wacked out place full of colours and the "all seeing eye" the roof is coloured with stars and all that. First of all they believe a one god whos messangers where Buddha, jesus, mohammed and moses. But we got the message confused and thats why there are so many religions. The diciple's of this religion are Victor Hugo, Joan of arc, William Shakespeare, Luis Pastuer and Lenin. I know its just getting wackier. Now the self ordained pope made the rules to this religion by holding a crayon with a stick and chanting to the gods and the wrote the rules down for everyone to follow. Luckily this guy was pope and no one else can now communicate with god. 2 Million people believed this hippy nut job, but then again about 1 billion people believe jesus walked on water. Whoo, don't go there shane, back it up. no more criticising religion, there all fucked. Here's me trying to get it on with jesus

So now I'm in Na Thrang, went on a night bus took 30 mg of Valium last night and still couldn't sleep on the bus. Everybody else slept but theres me valiumed up to the eyeballs staring around. I'm giving up on night buses.