South-east Asia

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Hey everyone
happy new year!! at least it is here in Laos and Thailand.
I skipped my stay in Australia and went instead to South east ASia. I was looking for a less touristic place than NZ or OZ, but hard times here too. I didn't know that Thailand is backpackers paradies...But it's nice here. It's hot, about 35 degrees celsius and very humid. It's hard to find local people to have interesting discussions, hardly nobody speaks more English than "hey my friend, waterfall, Tuktuk, cheapcheap..."
If you have money, you can buy everything and it's cheap. But hate to see people transformed that much just because of money. Laos is still one of the poorest countries, but a simple life is much up to me the key to happiness! I thought they won't be that much influenced by western stuff, but they are already. You can find quiet many tv/satelite in every little village, although they have usually just electricity for evening hours..Five years ago, you couldn't hardly find any motorbike or scooter, now they have tonns of them (all the cheap stuff from China and Korea). It's still a quiet big contradiction: people who speak little English can earn easily money from tourists and use then the luxury of transportation, but you can see still so many people walking miles and miles from their rice fields back home, carrying a huge and heavy bag with their head! I feel bad using the organized minibus and invade all the villages with highspeed, children playing all around, all sort of animals crossing always the streets, but we, we just keep on going driving fast. So I tried the local bus, which is the last crap bus on earth! It's cheap, fully loaded and imagine the driving style mixed with the condition of roads!! you have cealed streets around towns, but everything between can change from gravelstreets, mud roads or cealed roads but with a lot of holes in it..and waterbuffalos standing lazy in the middle of the street.
here in LuangPrabang, so many people come toghether for new years celebrations. it's the water festival aswell. Great fun, where ever you go, everywhree and everbody is throwing water at you! whole buckets full of it and sometimes babypouder or coalpaint too. everybody is having fun and just smiles if he gets wet, and you certainly do!

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