Did i mention getting hijackd by pineapple smugglers?

To smiley to be a hijacker? well you're right...

We were stopped on this winding mountain road in Laos by this broken down truck load of pineapples and soon found ourselves helping them load their pineapples ontop of our bus.

The Assault rifle held so happily was apparently from the security guard on our bus not from the pineapple truck. They routinely carry these on buses as the route we were on was the regular hotspot a few years back for highway robbery.

Highlights

Highlights after 3 weeks in Laos and almost 2 weeks in Cambodia..

LAOS
1. Learning that rain really hurts at 100 km/hr and that if you have no visor for your motorbike helmet it is impossible to drive more than 20 km/hr..especially at 12am.

2. Trecking into an 'unseen" village completly encirciled by karst mountains with the only entry a 30 min walk through a cave then a 2.5 hour walk through a forrest.



Over the river on a bammboo bridge..


3. Floating down a river in a rubber tube for 5 hours with a beer in hand..

Yep, Vang Vien

Other highlights:
- Visiting the organic farm in Laos and having the farmer offer to let me build a bungalow on his property under the stunning mountains and next to the river for $2500 that i can use any time I want (you can too!)
- Vientiane (Capital of Laos) with the usual Asian chaos but charming and sleepy
- My first meetings with a communist governement - argh! The paperwork!


CAMBODIA
1. Hiking 1.5 hours then ox carting it for 2.5 hours into 3 villages then oxcarting it back for 4 hours.


2. Visiting the Floating village where everyone lives on a house boat - even the local mechanic and the petrol station, temple and department for environment.




It's been fun times meeting over 20 NGOs, tour companies, govt agencies and visiting projects..
e

Here in Kampong Spoe and Takeo in Southern Cambodia they were having droughts while i was there. Now (August 26th) they are having floods and landslides..

boring update from Laos

Markets in Luangprabang, Laos



I'm in Luang prabang - the ancient capital city of Laos with lots of temples (north of vientiane). It was a decent hike to get here, 6 hours of winding through krast hills - beautiful scenery but a just little nausiating. Just arrived today from vangvien where i was meeting with the owner of the organic farm there - cute 62 year old Lao man educated as a biologist in Bulgaria.

It's a really beautiful place with a river running past and small krast mountains with clouds sticking to the tops just 200m behind the river. He does a lot of projects with the commuity and i think we (www.worldyouthinternational.com.au) will run at least our first program in Loas through him. I'll post some pics when i can and you'll be amazed that you can build a personal bungalow there for just $2000 on his farm.

Had lots of meetings in Vientiane last week with NGOs and Government to see what we have to do to set up in Laos. It's a pile of paperwork and dodging corruption but i think we've got it figured out..

Going to try and visit a remote village and eco-lodge by boat tomorrow but if not i'll just look around the city at the temples and stuff.

Just having a walk through the night markets tonight.. it's got lots of nice stuff going pretty cheep. I bought a little hand sewn cat and pair of hand made slippers for Nyah from a lady who couldn't even speak Lao. I spoke to Ni on the phone again today.. while you can have a good conversation with her face to face she still doesn't really get the whole thing with phones.. she tends to just repeat what you say, but it was good to hear her voice.

Back to Vientiane on Wed for more meetings on thurs and friday then down to Paxan (pak kading national park) to check out another site on the weekend. Might go to a 7km river cave nearby then it's either down to Cambodia or back to Vientiane (if i need to meet anyone on mon or tues) and to Bangkok then Cambodia.

ok well i'm off to find a fruit shake..


Oh, did i mention that Laos was beautiful?

June 2006 - on a mission in South East Asia

Oh My God, I’m on an expenses paid trip through Laos and Cambodia!

But first…One mad week with my bro (Bangkok, Ankor Wat and Samet Island)...

Packing only the clothes I was wearing, my suit and a pair of bathers I told my brother there were only two rules to our 1 week holiday.. Stay out of jail and stay out of hospital. They served us well…

The 1st night in Bangkok set the benchmark with us getting really drunk and getting home at 5am. Max managed to buy 30 massive helium balloons and give them all away to random passers by at 3am we took a mystery taxi ride to a ‘Disco’. Don’t do this.

By the time we made it to the town of Siem Reap and Ankor Wat in Cambodia we were so used up I managed to fall asleep after only 4 (75c ea) beers and only half way through the first world cup game. Max got a second wind and stumbled in at 5am waking me up crazy stories of his adventures so I got on a bus back to poi pet (Thai border) at 7am and left him in the middle of Cambodia.


Oh yeah.. Ankor Wat was cool – definitely deserving of its title as a ‘wonder of the world’.



Back in Bangkok we got a couple hours sleep and got up at 4am to go to a nearby island for the day where we spent Max’s last day chilling out with some friends at the beach with some quiet jetty jumping and a few shrimps, squid and live crabs on the Barbie.




So now my little brother has a taste of the nomad life and he’s hungry for more.

The dangers of the Bangkok expat scene..

After Max left I started getting some work done but my friends kept distracting me with ‘a few drinks’ which always turns into an alcoholic rampage through the streets of Bangkok. One such night left me sleeping on a mat on the foot path with some Adelaide friends (Jay and Tom) watching over me (it’s an outdoors after hours party spot near the main backpacker street - Kaosarn rd) only to wake up with the sun to find Tom gone, Jay passed out next to me and both my phone and Jay’s wallet missing.

Having the only guidelines for this trip being stay out of jail and hospital served us well for the first week of madness with my brother – (we only just talked ourselves out of an illegal border crossing). However am here to work so I decided I should also include “do not drink enough to kill a horse” in the list.

So after a couple days of minimum productivity in Bangkok I left for the relatively alcohol free peace of Cambodia where the new rule seems to be serving me well, although I have managed to get electrocuted twice, receive in excess of 3 million mozzie bites all on my feet and last night accidentally squash a large bug on my bed leaving a strange smell… well that’s what I thought it was.. it turned out that I have been shat on by the world’s nosiest lizard.

Ethical dilemma:
On Sunday (18th) I was dragged out by our Cambodian host family for a picnic lunch of unripe / green mango, banana and paw paw dipped in fish paste. Second course was roasted quail type birds and chicken all chased down by a couple of Heinekens. Great stuff if I wasn’t trying to get any work done. I was also happy about not having to pay for any food until I found out later that the family friend who took us out (in his FWD) is deputy director of the border crossing. This by default makes him the second most corrupt man I have ever met. Not evil like the first one, just patently and systemically corrupt. His position means the money he paid for lunch with was in part earned by turning a blind eye to the human trafficking that we work against with our carpets project here in Poipet. For those that don’t know, a percentage of the children trafficked end up in forced child prostitution – more simply known as child sex slavery. Something to think on…

Anyway I finally had a meeting and got some work down, headed back to Bangkok to grab my backpack and now I’m in Laos. Bet you don’t know bugger all about that county…

Well I’m not going to tell you.. go google it.

No crazy adventures yet down here, although I did manage to sit in a tractor tire tube and float doen a river for a few hours with a beer in hand.

It’s interesting and well chilled out in this tiny communist country even if the government a bit slower than you average government to deal with. Actually a couple of people (Local and expat) agree that there are good things about this way of development (i.e. slow and tightly controlled). Compared to so many countries who have opted for the roller coaster ride of a capitalist free market there is little extreme poverty visible here. Development peoples check out www.directoryofbgos.org to see what’s going down n the ground in Development here.

Anyway, I’m shagged after 3 meetings and a bunch of paper work today.. I’m off for an early night and a sleep in..

Xmas trip 2006 (from here down) - In Cambodia: Zen shakes, Xmas day, homosexual Monks, a Lesbian magic man and Buddhist holy water

Where and why
To set the scene, i am staying with a Cambodian friend’s family (Lary) in a small dusty Cambodian town of 60,000 people that boarders with Thailand called Poipet - known as "the armpit of Cambodia" according to the lonely planet guide book. A friend who recently passed through described it as a cross between a western dustbowl town and some kind of purgatory with stinking garbage heaps on the street corners. There are few attractions to the place for anyone but a development worker or Cambodian economic migrant. The migrants come to work in the one of the 7 or so Casinos or to trade across to boarder. The ones not lucky enough to do either eek out a living in whatever way they can - this includes collecting recyclables for up to 3 Aussie dollars per day (on a good day), prostitution, sending their children to beg at the boarder from tourists (or pick pockets), renting out their babies to other children who beg at the border (for sympathy money) or even selling their children to human traffickers. There is a thriving trade in people here with an estimated 30-40 traffickers in the area. Many of the kids end up as maids and adults as seasonal labourers (both with out rights), many go to be beggars in Bangkok (some can earn up to 500B ($17 AUD) / day doing this but it nearly all goes back to a big boss) and the unlucky ones end up as child prostitutes.

I guess that's why I’m here really because it's certainly not for the great party scene. Some friends and i do this --> http://carpets.wyps.org and to help some families and kids break out of they cycle of poverty away from the boarder and get the kids in school. For updates on what's going on in the project check out http://cambodiaproject.blogspot.com.au

Zen master shake magic
So far the best thing the place has to offer is a unique "shake". Shakes are all over the place in Thailand and Cambodia and are basically fruit blended with ice and a bit of sugar/syrup and occasionally msg or salt. They are great! The rumour about not drinking anything with ice in it is a myth the ice is generally pretty clean. Always drink shakes! Anyway, one street shop here is home to the master of shakes. He has total Zen concentration of and the touch of a master chef. Unblinking he deftly adds exact proportions with a face with absolute efficiency only changing his routine to occasionally consider the sake and add a dash more of this or that.

Half the value of the shake is just in watching him make it and I’m always disappointed when one of the others does it instead. The other half is the awesome taste. Some of the ingredients include jack fruit, papaya (paw paw), coconut and other fruits as well as the yolk of an egg. If you are not me you also get condensed milk. Unfortunately the fruit is all pre cut and stored in little dishes in a cold box ready to go strait in the blender so I never get to see all the ingredients. If I ever learn the secrets of making them I swear I’ll hire the Zen master chef and export them to Australia and make a million dollars although we'll probably do away with drinking it with a straw out of a plastic bag.

Yesterday was Xmas day
I got a call from the family and talked to everyone which was all good. A big improvement on 2003 when I was chilling out in a temple in Thailand and pretty much forgot about Christmas. Before coming I promised myself that while I was here I would finally get out of poi pet and see a bit more of Cambodia to balance the slightly warped perspective that i have of the country from always staying in this town. I managed that yesterday and got half an hour away on a motorbike, and saw some village life stopping to play volleyball with some locals and then driving home on the terrible road in the dark - spitting out insects all the way. All good :-)

Homosexual Monks?
On this leisurely ride around the country side we (Lary and I) bumped into a temple and had a look around. On leaving one of the monks started chatting with me. Monks often have something interesting to say and I always like to chat with them and his English was ok but on this occasion i left feeling a little apprehensive after he told me that I was handsome. I'm hoping that it was just am idiosyncrasy of translation but it left me wondering how strict these Cambodian monks are with their vowels - I won't be heading back to find out.

The Lesbian Magic Man
On the note of the slightly strange - Lary's parents returned from their home province with some friends the day before xmas and I had a bit of trouble figuring out exactly who the dad was. Armed with the knowledge that she had never met her biological father and that they introduced me to a roundish little person I had assumed was a woman at first look and when I heard her softer slightly feminine voice. But when they introduced her / him 'dad' it slowly started to dawn on me that Lary had been raised by two women. It took me another day to be surer of this because there are pictures of her 'dad' on the wall in an army uniform with an AK-47 and another with a bazooka as well as wedding pictures. Then there was also the fact that all the male friends treated 'him' as any other guy and he spoke like a guy (Cambodian women say "Ja" for yes and men say ''Bart"), had man tattoos and is a respected magic man. I know that in Thailand they differentiate between normal lesbians and women who decide they are men so I guess the same goes here. The only other possibilities i could think of are a rare transgender genetic disorder when the sex of a child is unsure at birth and left up to them, or that he had some unfortunate accident in the war involving his testicles or that he possibly suffers a crazy hormone imbalance. However the fact remains that the man has breasts and last night he wore hot pink PJs to bed.

I don't want to come across as homophobic here - coz I’m not so please don't take my comments the wrong way - it just makes for interesting reading.

Some of you have heard my story of the crazy monkey spirits I had last time I was here in 2004. It consisted of the boiled down remains of 6 different animals and some serious distillation (tastes a bit like shautruse). My friend Jay wrote it up in "Farang:Untamed Travel" magazine in Bangkok. Anyway Lary's 'dad' is the magic man who made it and has just returned from collecting herbs and other stuff for traditional healing and magic. I'm going to see if he can tell me my future or show me some cool magic. Maybe he will make me a spirit belt like lots of Cambodians wear.

Buddhist Holy Water
This morning I was about to take a 'shower' (read splash cold water on myself from a big urn) when I was handed half a bottle of water and Lary told me to wash with this - It was water collected from 9 temples in the south of Cambodia. So after showering in the holy water of 9 temples I was ready for my day. No idea if this gives me some edge on enlightenment but holy water can't be bad right, as long as you don't drink it.


So, apart from that I’ve just been working on the project and next weekend I’m going to Phenom Penn for New years and will hire motorbike and cruise around the near by provinces. More updates after that.

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas and see you in January some time.

Leigh and the beer tower

Leigh and the beer tower
Originally uploaded by davidnbacon.

A tower of beer served by a pretty beer girl - Leigh is a happy man.

Dave and the tower of beer

Dave and the tower of beer
Originally uploaded by davidnbacon.

Being back in Thailand is great. 1 year to the day since i left and no time has been wasted in appreciating all the great things Bangkok offers.

Thai people are so nice and smiling that you almost overlook the ingenious practicality that goes on here.

The cooperatively competitive market is just one example. When i was buying a flash drive the other day, i asked for the 256MB one the girl had quoted me and said 'ok' and promptly walked out of the shop. I half follow her to see her asking other shop owners if they have one in stock - they share all their stock!

A more interesting example is the amazing tower of beer.

Facts about beer in Thailand:

1- Thailand is hot so Thai’s put ice in their beer.
2- Bangkok has Beer Garden season each year for a few weeks when masses of people flock to sit around and eat and drink outside with friends in Beer Company sponsored beer zones.
3- People are packed in so tightly it takes for ever to go and get beer from the stalls.

How else to deal with all this but inventing a tower of beer? 4 liters will keep anyone occupied for a while and they have tubes full of ice down the middle to keep it cool. Ah Thailand – keep on innovating.

So 2 towers later - Leigh, Jay and I stagger of home at a reasonable hour but not before I -won a Asahi beer t-shirt in a 2 beer skolling contest on stage, hence why I am well hung today.
Apart from hanging out in beer gardens I have also been drinking with locals on street corners over a game of chess. Yep, chess is the favorite game of motorcycle drivers on street corners here but don’t be fooled by their apparent ability on the board. They are more than likely half tanked and some of them even start in the morning. So on my first day in Bangkok, after watching a fully tanked driver loose to a guy in a suit and drinking longnecks I bought at the 7-11, I wandered back to Jay’s house and we caught up over the rest of the longnecks and finished off by shotguning communist beers from Laos.

Damn it’s good to be back in Bangkok – Tomorrow; Cambodia!

Stay posted for regular updates and check out http://cambodiaproject.blogspot.com for updates on the project.

Whacky hand waving inflatable tubeman anyone?

Whacky hand waving inflatable tubeman anyone?
Originally uploaded by davidnbacon.

If you don't understand why i posted this watch the family guy movie.

Corporate Christmas2

Corporate Christmas2
Originally uploaded by davidnbacon.

Corporate Christmas

Corporate Christmas
Originally uploaded by davidnbacon.

Email update - Gradutating, Xmas plans & Cambodia project News

Hey Everyone,

It's the end of an Era.. after 6 years at uni i'm finally graduating!

After coming back from Thailand I haven't been in touch with many people this year (a lot longer for others) so i thought as i'm now leaving uni life, that i'd send out a quick update.

I'm also posting this on my blog (online diary) - http://davidbacon.nomadlife.org so you can read it there at your leisure.

No updates today about Nyah (my daughter for those who are REALLY out of contact) - you'll have to check out her blog for that http://nyahelizabethbacon-journal.blogspot.com


From the 5th of December until about the 17th Jan i'll be in Poipet, Cambodia working on my project. (check out the website if you haven't before - http://carpets.wyps.org)

After the 25th i'm officially finished uni and will be Graduating!! (Finally!)

You are all invited to my (and my housemate Andrew's) graduation party on Sat the 26th November (Family invited for lunch but be warned it's going to be a big one). Proper invites will be out this week - please feel free to invite anyone who may not have received this.

BBQ from 12pm and party till late.
21 Anstey Cr (continues from Stirling St off south road)
Marleston


Good news for the Cambodia project

Thought you might be interested in the recent good news we had from UNESCO for the Carpets for Communities project in Cambodia - they gave us a grant of $3,700 (See below for details).

Also when i was selling curry at uni with some friends (thanks guys!) to raise money (we made $100) a mature age student got pretty excited about it all and offered to help out. I wasn't sure how much until i spoke to him a couple of times and he offered the assistance of an accountant to help us get incorporated in Australia.

On calling the accountant they informed me that the cost of registering was $1,100 and that he was going to cover it! (Looks like the curry paid off of more ways than one Luci!)

He develops properties and also wants to help marketing and suggested something along the lines of packaging the carpets with houses.

A few months ago, some friends in the the Fair trade club at Flinders ran an info night at a club in town. They asked me to speak on the project (as it's a fair trade project) and donated all the earnings ($1,200). It was a great night and lots of people were very interested.

It seems to be all good news!

Current reality of the project is that we have over $20,000 in funding already granted (which covers the set up phase until July 2006). On the ground we are still finalising our production process and product (after a few changes from our buying partner in Thailand) but we have currently produced more than 100 carpets and are expanding to more families in December. (currently at 8 families)

Hope you are all well and i hope to see lots of people at the graduation party.