Nikon or Canon
Ok, so we can’t get out of Bangkok (YET)!
The only thing left to do is make the present bearable. It’s time to toss the old pocket digital camera and buy something we can actually take decent photos with, apart from Ake’s archaic, but exceptionally well kept manual Nikon.
We've actually decided to make December the longest holiday ever (now, you know how tired we are!) and we might as well have good photos of it.

So, it’s between Canon 350D http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos350d/ or
Nikon D70 http://www.dpreview.com/news/0504/05042003nikond70s.asp
We’re kind of leaning towards Canon, although we ARE Nikon fans, but that 8 mega pixel deal sounds too good.
Any suggestions? It’s gotta be today, cause tomorrow we’re getting it! Shoot! :)

The grass on the either side
If you’d tell me now…”I’ve looked in the future, you’ll never make to Tibet or New Zealand” I could live with it. The top 3 on the must go back list are Estes Park(Colorado), Krabi (Thailand) and my beloved Transylvania. 'You’ll never see Estes again!' - that would be rough.
Back to Colorado - I’ve spent a good hunk of my life there, on and off about 3 years and when I left I made a solid promise to myself, that I’ll be back.
Huge memory waves came my way when several of my great friends wrote they’re either there, in Estes, or on their way. NOOOOOO! Write me about it when I’m down in southern Thailand, not when I’m boiling in Bangkok!:))

It was probably THE BEST JOB I've ever had – tramping the trails everyday and looking for critters. To bad you couldn't make a living out of it in the long run. The sad part was that people were coming and going all the time and I felt torn apart many times.

Estes was it's own world. Far too much to describe here, but the feeling of waking up everyday and looking at this(Long's Peak) haunts me to this day.

From my perspective, I uncovered a new dimension to myself, of people, nature, of balance. I felt, well, FREE.

Carmen, Mom and Puiu

Mom(in Romanian): Hey? Where’s Puiu (aka Ake)?
Carmen(in Romanian): Right here.
Mom(in Romanian): Good. I’m done talking to you. Pass him on.

Puiu: Servus. Ce faci, mami? (Hi! What’s up?)
Mom: Puiu, is bine. Tu? (I’m good. You?)
Puiu: Bine bine….Tati? (Good…Good. Dad?)
Mom: Tati is Oki. Carmen? (He’s good. Carmen?)
Puiu: Well…Carmen HAPA HAPA…Can’t get her to “Ciocu mic”! (Carmen keeps yapping. Can’t get her to shut up…:()
Mom: No “ciocu mic”?…We told you…you gotta ..ZAP ZAP!
Puiu: K mom, will do! (turning to me … muahahaha …)

Do I really wanna pack my bags and move to Romania in the next few years?

Moms..

Few months ago Ake told me that Orchestra conductors live the longest and die so blissfully in their sleep. Then on the either side of things are sports instructors who die the youngest, the stress, the nerves, the pressurrrrre. -:)

I've been a bit careful since then, you know, taking it easy…whatever we do today it's done! If not, there’s always tomorrow. No sense in aggravating things.

I'm in this weird situation though, when I have to tell the parents they need to have coffee on the terrace and live us alone. The glass filled up today and really really felt like yelling: Stop whipping the kids face every 5 seconds! And stop convincing the kid that EVERYTHING IS OK! Even an adult hearing this for 10 times starts to really think something is utterly wrong even though, there isn’t!

Then I just loved this 3 year old girl turning her head to mom and saying “Mom, com'on, let go!” Mom, looked puzzled at me and I raised my shoulders 'You heard her! And guess what, she’s not kidding!' -:)

One thing I really like about people is their care for detail, that little extra that makes everything perfect. By the book, Thais are Buddhists, but really everything is a mixture of all that is Asia, Buddhists temples covering Hindu Gods are guarded by Chinese Lions.
So, back to the detail, every morning the Thais offer food to the house spirits. These houses are usually placed outside and elevated to about 1 metre high. The food is offered in the morning and placed in the spirit house together with the burning incense.
It’s quite candid when you see that the spirit gets a four course meal, dessert included and a Pepsi, and the Pepsi bottle ALWAYS has a straw.
Just had a meal at a veggie restaurant in downtown Bangkok and was peaking at the Hindu gods sipping Fanta on the shelf.

The Vegan Festival Reloaded
Told you I'll be back!
You might think these are fruit..nope..thai sweets!..there's definitely a chilli obsession here! :)

Curries are a pretty good intro to asian food.You can't go wrong with a veggie curry...

Now, that's the fruit!...I don't suppose I'm gonna start any brazilian waves, but anyhow, I must have seen about 50 different kinds of fruit the past weekend...

The Vegan Festival

Looking on the brighter side of things, IT'S THE VEGAN FESTIVAL, folks!…Wow, take it from an old vegetarian, the Thais know their stuff. Over the course of a year I mainly wait for 2 things, December cause it’s just the best time to travel in South Asia and the vegan festival…even Bangkok empties up if you feel like chillin’ at home (that’s December, now we’re basically on top of each other – just a figure of speech!)

More about the festival…I never really know when it starts cause it follows the lunar calendar. Chinese locals strictly observe a 10-day vegetarian or vegan diet for the purposes of spiritual cleansing and merit-making. Most of the Thais join in the fun.  What that boils down to for me: I get break from my in laws who are constantly on my tail about having fish and stuff and we can finally sit down and eat without them eyeing my every bite. Love them though!

In most Chinese Shrines sacred rituals are performed…don’t know lots about that but from what I hear after the religious ceremonies there are dances and trance displays, walking barefoot on hot coals…Wicked! This one definitely reminds me of these videos we saw in high school, ‘Shocking Asia”…
Also during the festival there’s lots of drumming as people believe it drives away evil spirits. I tell you, those spirits don’t stand a chance; even Ake’s granny who’s 90 has her own exorcizing tricks at hand. The last day of the festival there’s a merit making ceremony at all temples, a ritual known as “sadoh-kroh” (casting bad fortune), drumming, fireworks and stuff…
It really makes me feel kind of small…I’ll be there though with my cheap camera! :)

Miss Tibet
I was reading an article on BB written by some dodo, who was amusing himself on the fact the Tibetans can’t put together a Miss contest out of lack of participants. He concludes than, that not only there’s not much to choose from, but even the few specimens available are far too bashful for the event. Bad enough, I say and keep reading! He guy is unstoppable, not only the Tibetans have NOTHING to show to the world, but apparently their gods are just and plain and “unfertile” for his taste…Don’t know where’s he’s seen it, but apparently Tara, the Tibetan Earth Goddess has hers boobies hanging out…
What’s so darn smart about showing off your pon pons? Asians have their share of bimbos, I’ll say, but luckily for Tibetans, they’re not there!
What’s so wrong with just being who you are…?

Hay Stacks
Man, it’s rough going full speed…I chose working 24 / 7 so 2 months a year I can take off and travel. Great choice, but now that I‘m in between holidays, half way through it, it hits me, and the hay stacks seem a bit too far (I’m like a donkey marching from one haystack to another…I pull the longest days for the greates of rewards).
Romania was great, but a month behind us and there are 2 more months to go to crashing on a beach with a pineapple shake and kayaking between bits and pieces. So today I got bring that haystack a tiny bit closer. :)
We start with Phuket, Krabi and Samui….

Same Same but Different
I finally managed to find a good title! Hurray! I was asked the other day what do I really like about Thailand. The COLORS. In fact all Asia is so full of it. I think secretly all the backpackers that make it here are looking for it. It's the only place where I've seen tourists transformed into locals in a flash, including myself. You come here and you start wearing fisherman pants, and Thai skirts and funky flip flops. We go back to Europe and everything is a bit too much in pale tones.
Here there is glamour!

Godparenting...It's fantastic. Having been through 2 weddings already, I'll tell you weddings are meant as a last test of your nerves as a couple. If you don't crack up on your wedding day, you'll last:)). And if you do, well, that's why there are godparents.
Some of the nicest wedding bunch ever was this August in Darlos, Romania, where our friends wed, starting with a really funky priest, the kind of sheperd you'd expect on top of a mountain 300 years ago. I'd told Ake that Romanian weddings last 3 days and 3 nights and got in returned this suspicious look "yeah, right", only to find that everyone had left the restaurant for the bride's and groom's house to continue the wedding party for the following 2 days.
Happy birthday, Marius! :)

Once upon a time bunch of people met in Colorado and got together everynight and played this dice game (Gabi, you'll go down in hystory for this one :)) called 6bash. Put together 10 people from all over sipping tea, coffee by the fireplace occasionally shouting out RATS! or equivalents in Spanish, Romanian, Thai, Korean, Czeck or Hungarian and you've got the picture. It was loads of laughs. But the game, wow, that was something. The greatest bluffing I've ever seen. And it wasn't me. :)
Mind reading, palms sweating (now, that was me!), begging (me, again!) for mercyyyy and eventualy the king's prize: the loosers duty. The idea of the "punishment" was generaly something that shocked the outsiders. Gabi, the initiator, lost the first round ever and had to dress up(hat, gloves, boots, snowboard - the whole thing) in the middle of the summer and go down at the main YMCA lodge and ask in a heavy Eastern European accent for slopes/snow info. Only in US people will candidly try to talk you out of it...she pulled a 30 minutes show...Happy trails, everyone!

I can wake up totally knaked, hop in the pool and the kids bring me back to the living. I really love them, I love that "ready to pop" with excitment. Last December when tsunami hit they saved me again. I'm generally a pretty happy person, but the tsunami after effects has to be the worst thing I've seen. Some of my kids died also, and I was dragging for weeks. Until, we started swimming again, and well, the truth is LIFE DOES GO ON. No matter what drama hits you, it does go on...I just love those smiles...Have a good one!

That's us, in Thailand. Surely you've heard stories, but for us the beauty of living here is the smell and feel of the street. You only need to stretch your toes and the orange juice lady is right here in front of your house. And if you hop out of pj's, there they are, the noodle guy, the coffee lady(I quit coffee a month ago and don't have the heart to tell her, man she's gonna be crushed loosing a steady customer), the veggie food girls, the stingy orchid guy. And then the islands...