A great ride on the motorbike along the Mekong river past temples, rice fields, banana trees and waterfalls. The ride took me about 100km west of Nongkhai to Sangkhom, a sleepy little town on the Mekong river. The further you go west, the hillier the road gets offering some fantastic view points on the way. [View Full Entry]

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I had 3 weeks at the Temple School Prathatwittaya to teach English and Computer skills together with Ellen and Wayne. Tharabun, the cyber headmaster, was assisting and interpreting whenever he could. We had fun putting web newsletters for the novices together, doing Powerpoint presentations about foreign countries and much more. I liked when a novice who had picked Japan for his presentation finished off with the words: "We wish to go to Japan to learn Japanese and to see beautiful girls." [View Full Entry]

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Openmind Volunteering project Teaching English and Computer skills Bandung High School/Isan, North East Thailand 6 - 10 Nov 2006 Molly, Wayne and I went to Bandung to link up the school with a Swedish school in Lund via a web newspaper. By the end of the week we had more or less achieved what we wanted despite the quite erratic internet connections. To pass the waiting time we joined the English teachers in their lessons and entertained the kids with question and answer games and curious presentations about our home countries. [View Full Entry]

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On the first full moon night in November this festival to celebrate the end of the rainy season takes place. People build small boats ("kratongs") with banana leaves and flowers and float them with lit candels and incense sticks on any water they can find. What better location could we be in than Nongkhai on the Mekong river..... For more info on Loy Kratong follow the link Mutmee and go to Calender of Events and then to Loy Kratong [View Full Entry]

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Great evening in the Openmind house with Thai and Isan cooking, music & dance. [View Full Entry]

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A fantastic place with both Buddhist and Hindu sculptures. Special "naga" (snake like dragon) theme. For more info see Mutmee and go to Town to Explore and then Sculpture Park [View Full Entry]

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From Pokhara you get great views of the Annapurna range. The most famous peak is Machupuchre, the fishtail mountain. [View Full Entry]

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After acclimatising in Tibet for 8 days on altitudes between 3,500m and 5,000m we move on to Rongbuk, the highest monastery in the world at 5,000m. Just next to it is the last guesthouse before Everest base camp. Facilities are very basic here. Only one room is heated. That's where everybody hangs out over tea, a plate of fried rice or pot noodles. You can meet serious mountaineers and climbers, sherpas and walkers heading for base camp here. Sometimes you can't tell who is who - a group of well equipped climbers comes in and is greeted with an applause from [View Full Entry]

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Some pictures from the hills of the Kathmandu valley and the royal cities Bakthapur and Patan. [View Full Entry]

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A few pictures from Kathamandu, the start of my trip [View Full Entry]

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