Flashpacking

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Over Christmas we caught a very nasty virus...not us fortunately but our laptop managed to pick up that nasty worm that is taking over the world. The upshot of this was that it infected our USBS and ate all of our lovely photos from Angkor Wat and Siem Reap over Christmas and New Year with Eric's parents. If you are stuck for visual images of Angkor Wat then think of Tomb Raider except with Zoe and Bep leaping around instead of Angelina Jolie...enough? We thought so.
To recover from the trauma of our computer virus we booked ourselves and the computer into a swanky hotel in Bangkok for a week. Thanks to the airport protests there were loads of cheap deals to be had and since we had to wait for our Myanmar visa we decided to do it in style. We learnt later as we shuffled backpacked and flipflopped in to the posh hotel that this is known as flashpacking and while the room was cheap cocktails on the rooftop bar (the highest in Bangkok) certainly weren't.
Meanwhile we were waiting for our Myanmar visa, which was by no means a sure thing. We were clued in enough not to write journalist on Zoe's visa application but Zoe forgot that she wrote 'I am a stupid journalist' on her forehead that morning before heading down to the embassy. Because despite writing the same as Eric on the visa form (business analyst) she was singled out for pointy finger shouting - 'you writing articles? No?' and had to fill out a work history form. Being a bad liar (apart from when fabricating articles) this was all rather scary.. and also pretty annoying - (I mean it wasn't like I was John friking Pilger or anything - corporate stooge/complete idiot would have been a better job description for some of the posts I held while working as a hack). Trying to make up a work history on the spot was hard work , particularly because at the next window a tiny bald-headed Thai nun was getting increasingly shrieky as it looked like her visa application would be turned down 'But sir I must go there to MEDITATE pleeeease sir'. Yes this girl certainly did need some serious meditation..or Valium.
Anyway they decided to draw out the drama when we returned to pick up the visas a few days later - handing everyone else's out straight away but then rushing off and whispering in a corner with Zoe's previous interrogator before handing back the passport with visa. But ho hum we had our visas we booked our flights for the following day and then went to celebrate.

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Comments

[Remco]

Angelina and me...
Great pics!! "One night with A.J. and the world's your buster...." Glad you guys're back on track and online and thanks for one night with A.J. You guys look great and the pics are astonishing!! Ciao, Remco