I read somewhere that when you travel you have two choices. Stay in the same town and change clothes, or, stay in the same clothes and change towns.

The problem with traveling light is that your clothes wear thin very quickly due to excessive use, and I so ive been shopping. 3 hours and 2000 baht later I have a new mobile wardrobe that smells less, looks better and probably won’t fit in my rucksack. A problem I’ll solve when the time comes.

It was whilst shopping that I stumbled across some piano practice rooms for hire. I indulged for a few hours desperately trying to remember what I thought I had forgotten, but my memory seems to have served me well and I felt very much at home until my time ran out.

My Thai is also coming on leaps and bounds. Once you get your head round the 5 different tones its actually fairly simple due to its almost total lack of grammar. The pronunciation is essential though, the wrong tone can mean ‘nine’ instead of ‘rice’ or ‘blind drunk’ instead of ‘cat’.

“Im sorry, but I’m a cat and need some nine”….doesn’t really work!

Why am I still in Thailand? When am I going to Laos? Why are my posts getting shorter and fewer?

I’ve been up here going between Chiang Mai and Pai for nearly a month now and feel very settled. I know all the roads around the north, most of the people in Pai, and about 50% of the stray dogs in the city? Net cafes aren’t on every corner and so I simply pop in when I can, or when im not busy. Once im back on the road posts will obviously increase in number and size again, im not traveling here at the moment, just living for a while.

A Laos VISA last 15 days so I’ll probably head there in the middle of this month. I’ll then try and catch a slow boat down the Mekong and drop into Cambodia around the beginning of December. The only thing that worries me at the moment is American Intelligence of terrorist attacks in Laos between 25 and 30 Nov. Its in the papers here and on the BBC website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3944121.stm so i may change my plans if thing flare up.

My VISA is extended here un till the 12 Dec, thats after im due to fly to Hong Kong, so I have a lot of options open to me until the 8th of Dec.