Travelog for: Cyryl

in the evening i took my new lady for a cup of tea, and promissed to take her to London

and here is my trip to London. I cought a bus at first, when I got to the city centr I decided to call all my friends to tell them how big the London eye was ... see for yourself

then I visited the houses of parliament

and Embarkment

Hi you al!
I have been given to someone else, a lady who I am told is off on a fantastic adventure and has agreed to take me along. I have been waiting for it all to start but she says she is busy moving house at the moment, but I am told on the 23rd I will be travelling with her to Heathrow airport near London and we will fly together to Thailand!She will take me to Bangkok and Hua Hin, and also Samut Songkran to live with people the traditional way. After about 7 weeks, she will take me to Korea to go visit her soul sister, so I expect to visit Seoul and maybe even go up to the DMZ if the military staff let her take pictures there! If I am lucky, I might even get to complete one of my life missions, which would be to drink a coconut drink on a tropical island beach. Woop woop! I am very excited!
In the meantime, I am just staying home with her and other people, and a hell of a big cat!
Ciao u all!

OK, so first my host was being a bit lazy I have to say, but then she had problems uploading pictures as she was told "this specific file does not exist" ! Er?! I was with her and I KNOW for a fact the file existed, so she is making a last ditch attempt to do it...The pictures are too big it seems and she's not sure how to reduce them...
Before leaving the UK, my host had a few days off and went up to london. She took the opportunity to visit the Britsh museum, Grrrreat! As I had been to London already but hadn't gone round museums.
So here I am in front of it! And also in front of an ancient Egyptian artefact. I was a little scared but my host reassured me it was made of stone and wouldn't move. Well hey, sorry but that's what people thought of me at first and look what I can do!
Anyway, we left the British museum safe and sound to go for a little walk around Chinatown. We took some pictures but it seems my host has lost them, don't tell her but I think she is a little disorganised...

Ok, so disorganised or not, I can't really tell her anything as she has been promising for ages that we would go together to a far far away country, and so she packed me in her suitcase, with her passport, computer, camera etc... It was a little tight in there and she said I shouldn't complain or the first thing that would go if she had excess luggage would be me! Can you believe that? I have a feeling she is not the most patient of people! But she would have left me at an airport anyway, what better place to travel from than that? Anyway here I am, at Heathrow airport after checking in. Aparently we will stop over in Dubai, but there is so little time to get on the next flight she said we wouldn't see any of it... Shame!

Here we are, after 24 hours of travelling, coach, plane, plane, coach, taxu, car etc, we have finally arrived at the first house we are going to stay in. It is a traditional Thai house made of teak wood. It is beautifull but also very noisy! You can hear everything that is happening everywhere! outside, inside, and there are a couple of babies in the house, so we often wake up to the sound of a baby crying or a mother soothing...
Here I am in front of the house, at night, and also on the little cooling area, nicely shaded during the day, a lovely terrace to realx and read a book. My host said we would stay there af ew days and relax, and after we will rent a car and start exploring the area a little!

Then I said to my host I could smell heavenly smells! She said it was from the frangipane tree, one of her favourite flowers! they can be white or pink/red and smell out fo this world. In this garden there are also a lot of orchids, it seems they grow like weed over here, how lucky the people living here are! Surrounded by flowers all year long! Then it started to rain, just a little, and the smell of the frangipane flowers took over the garden. It was getting really quite dark and my host was told to comeback in  as snakes would start coming out of hiding, brrrrr......

After a couple of days we finally rented a car. Yeah!  Iwas going to get to see a little of the countryside! She took me on a drive round the area, in direction of a place called Pala U waterfalls. Unfortunately the weather has been so dry lately that so are the falls! On the way, we came across a wild elephant. My host wouldn't take me out as she went out to take pictures of it. She said if it charged, she would have to run back very quickly into her car and drive off! So she left the engine running and the door open. And lucky she did, becasue the elephant started coming towards her, and then its pace got faster! I didn;t see anything,l just heard a swear work and the tyres screeching... mmmh, I'm not sure the rental company would be too happy about an elephant squashing our car... On the way back we saw a very unusual Buddhist monument made of cloths. We stopped and she said as we were out of danger, i could get out also. So here I am in front ot if, it is a little blurry but there is another picture of the monument more in focus.

After a few days with my host's hosts (!!) she decided to move to another palce. Not a traditional Thai hosue this time but avery nice flat in a beautiful complex. She said there wer swimming pools there, a gym, and we were right on the beach too! I asked why people would need swimming pools if they lived on the beach, she said the beach was windy here, and the water full of little jellyfish, eugh...
Here I am being lazy by the pool, enjoying the very hot sun of Thailand, and as you will see I had a little fright! My host's family liek to visit her there and they bring their children with her. And my host left me unattended for a minute and I was already being devoured by a giant baby! Argh!!! Fortunately, I was taken out of his mouth pretty quickly, but I was a little hurt when I heard my host tell the baby I was too dirty to put in his mouth... Am I? I asked to have a shower, but she said I was just fine, not to worry about it...

Yesterday we went exploring the area around the condo where we are staying and came across a Chinese TEmple. I know it is Chinese because the Buddha they have there is a smiling rotund man, like the ones we usually see in Europe! Thai ones are more slimline!
It was a long walk up to the top of the temple, and we saw monks on the way up there. My host waied to them. A wai is a gesture of respect you make to people in Thailand, You join your two hands in front of your face, palm to palm and bow your head. Depending on who your are waiing to, your hands should be at different heights. For a monk, the tumbs should be at the same height as the forhead. For a friend though, just around the chin. I asked my host why the monks wouldn't answer, were they rude? She said no, monks shouldn't wai back to a woman. One of them tried his English though and shouted a cheerful "hello" to us! My host took pictures of me In front of the temple, next to a Thai flag, and one of me on the nose of a dragon on which a buddha was sitting. In China, dragons protect people! In Thai buddisdt temple, you will find snakes, as snakes are the protectors here. Can u see me riding the dragon? I wasn't even scared!
Then she took a picture of me in front of a statue of a monk meditating. I tried to do the same pose but my legs were too short!!! Shame! But it's ok, i can meditate without being cross legged...
And finally she took a picture of me on a bell, they are very important in Buddhist celebrations and used after you have asked for something or made a donation to the temple.

So here I am again, still in Thailand, and we had a pretty full day yesterday!
First, we woke up quite late, my host is insomniac and watches films to fall asleep. She falls asleep but I carry on watching films, I mean I can always sleep in her backpack right?
As we were having breakfast, we could hear some music coming from the temple close to the house. There are temples everywhere here!
So we hurried to see what it was! My host knew already as she had already witnessed this before, but it was all new to me...
To explain a little bit: It is common tradition in all families for the boys to be initiated as monks once in their lives. It is good for the family, and supposedly very good for their mother, it sort of increases her good Karma if I understood things right.
It is New year soon here, and also the summer holidays. So most boys will choose that time of the year to do so, so as not to miss out on scholl etc. if they are already at work, then some companies will allow time off for that. It could go from a few weeks to a few years, it all depends on what the boy will want.
So he is shaved of all hair, no more eyebrows, is given a white and gold lace robe to wear and a couple of lotus flowers, and he is paraded around the tample, accompanied by people dancing and music. So far we have heard mostly drums and brass.
I was in my host's hand at all times but she was worried people, as nice as they were, would be offended if she strated taking pictures of me with the monk. it is a matter to be taken seriously! So we were invited to dance with them in the street, but I couldn't get my photo taken with them... Sniff...

After that we met up with my host's family for a meal at a restaurant, here I am next to a bottle of very good beer! Ssssh, don't tell anyone i drink, i sipped in secret!

As i may have mentioned, we are staying on a place on the seafront, so there are a few fishermen there!
After dinner my host wnted to take pictures of the boats in the sunset, so here I am on one of them!
Proud! But relieved the boat never left the sand, as I get a little seasick...