time

ok, trying to get back into the habit of using this..
so i've got about a week left before i need to head south, so what all am i going to try and do before i leave...
finsh the lift, steel braded brake lines, stering dampner, paint prep ect on entropys truck, still waiting for the parts to get in.
pick up my kung fu dummie from sf, found where it is, was stolen from me awhile ago
move my tools to.. somewhere..
find some pants to travel in that don't totaly suck
work fri and sat in sf
move all my vending stuff
try to spend enough time with my girlfriend tht she dosen't give up on me
get my travel computer ready
taxes
drive to san diego
dentist
and maybe get my eyes zapped
drive to la

crap sticks...

cra

again

I hate blogging.
really.
But the people I care about continue to tell me to keep it up so. ... I shall.

I have a bit over a week before I'm to fly back to Asia. The thought of going away from jaime sucks. Really sucks.

The colective stupidity at the club I'm vending @ is draining the life out of me tonight. Ug.

1k+ k

just got back from my bike trip.
Jamie and I rented a xr250 and got a map and headed out not knowing what to expect.
I knew i wanted to try and stay to dirt roads so we first when north to a trail marked on our map as motorcycle only, and that's not for some hippy reason.
it took most the first day to get up to where the drit road started and it was starting to get dark, luckily a crazy thai mute named Cum led us to his home where we got some food and stayed in a small room they had. that night a huge storm came in and it rained all night. the next day we hit the roads and they were rutty muddie and often crossed by knee deep streams. I don't have our map with me now so I can't for sure say the exact rout we took but after a long long long day of rough trails and beautiful views and 3 chest deep river fording (luckily each time a random thai person wandered out of the jungle or was trying to carry there scooter across so i had help pushing the bike across. after the first fording the bike didn't want to start again and once it was it was only 1/2 running, i think because a wet coil, of course on the sandy beach of the rive the bike fell over and broke the mirror..
we rode and rode and after about 8 hours came to the end of the road in a small unfriendly village in the middle of nowhere, they told us to turn around and go back and that we missed our turn, so we when back and started exploring every little trail that went off the main trail we were on, poor Jamie got a leach on one of the exploratory river crossing (with out the bike) she was not happy about that..
finally after back tracking all the way back to the last major river crossing that we would have to bring the bike across we turned back and tryed again, final we found at one place where the trail ended the trail was up a shallow rocky stream that was about imposable to see. after that we met a really nice family who we ate lunch with and they offed to let us stay with them for the night we probably should have but sharing a little hut with 15 people seemed a bit much so we continued on.
a while after it shattered rain pretty hard and we had to cross some waist deep rivers but those i could just ride most the way through.
the next town was a creepy opium town but it was pouring rain getting cold and dark so we stayed there, but didn't trust them after they wanted 100B for a beer, so we whet to bed with out eating or hanging out, we were in a big room, almost like a grain house, with one guy in the corner smoking opium for 7 hours strate with out moving.
we slept with one eye open and clutching our bag.
the next morning we set off early and the roads were shit, slippery as all fuck, we made it about 1k before the first crash. it was mainly just trying to navigate between deep rain ruts in the road while the back of the bike slid everywhere. we got to the next town and discovered the map was missing. the only way we had gotten this far was by being able to neam the next little town or village on the map and have people point. so we had to turn around and go back to the creepy opium town, in the pouring rain and crash again in almost the same place, this time grating my face across the side of the hill. and breaking off the clutch perch mirror mount. ok fuck this i took off both mirrors... got to the creepy town and found our map which some little kid had found to play with.. tip them and head again down the shit road, soaked to the bone grumpy and i think that's when we cashed again on that road. but Finley got out of there, and hit up a little shop where i got some galoshes for $2 so i could get out of my soaked shoes.
a few days from there we made it to Pai and it was tourist hell, so we continued on after a day break to dry our cloths (of course once we get in the rain stops for the first time in 48 hours)
but once we got out of Pai and hit the rird road to Wat Chan it started raining, and our plastic sheet was missing so we got soaked. luckily later that day we found a fire next to the road and dried out ourselves, and found a scrap of plastic, and hid under a pice of scrap tin till the down pour passed. on and on, slick mud trails now on the rige line of the mountains shrowed in mist, fucking beautiful, chased by blood sucking beetles (litraly, they were keeping up with the bike!) a few more crashes and we figured out 2 things , one we were on the wrong road headed towards May hong song and two the rear tire was bald and had no grip on the wet clay trails. but a farmer showed us were we were on the map and we should be able to get into a city in a few hours, so on an on, till it was late, pouring, we were chilled and covered in mud from crashing and sliding out onb the trail too many times, filany Jamie had to get off the bike on steep hills on the way up and down for the bike to even be able to make it, but we were laffing at it most the way, me trying to crawl the bike down a trail that's becoming a river the front tire facing down the hill and the rear end fishtailing madly. one hill the whole way down the bike was totaly sidways except the front tire.
we fialy found some strip of prevent they were working on so we layed the bike on it's side and dragged it onto the concrete which soon ws coved in heavy bamboo rod grids i was soo pissed just hit the gas and drove over the fucking pile but the road was over in just another few hundred feet.
we passed through small town and then figured out we were far less than 1/2 way to the city so a really nice kid named 2 let up sleep at his house, and the next day we hung out around the fire trying to get dry. but we got to Mayhongsoung and got a new tire slept in a super creepy holel room that smelled like dead hookers, and continued on. after trip to Meow Microwave village (just for the name) we headed to may lin noi and amazing that day it wasn't raining!!! back into the forest and we stayed with a super nice hill tribe family (the lady's in traditional clothing with stretched ears and copper bands around the legs ect, spiffy enough to shame the neo hippys we know) we were so bummed when they wouldn't except any money we tryed to give them. a few days later and i pulled over at a place called Hot Coffee thinking it would be a nice treat for the girl but we found out they had a tree house, a big one way up a tree with plumbing anbd lighting and everything so we stayed there for the night. the next daywe were tired and a bit grumpy and after about 11 hours we made it back to chaing mai, 13 days after we left 1000 + kilometer of some of the most beautiful rough roads I've ever seen. fucking cool. I'm sure I'm, forgetting a bunch or just too lasy to mention but, i keep telling myself i'm going to dich the blog anyways.. soo
yep.

on the road

soggy, tired, covered in mud.
we have gone 4oo k in 6 days, all on dirt/mud trails, we are in ma hong son now waiting on a new rear tire, we've fored 3 cheast deep rivers, taken to hiding under a pice of plastice we round on the raod for the terable storms, which aper when we qare on the road but never when we stop.
it's been great but we are ass tired, been sleeping in small vilages (one of them a really creepy opiom den)
we are taking a day off the road to try and get our cloths to dry out a bit, dry our map enough for it to not turn to pulp.
bla

upward and onward and all good things to come.

so i'm waiting for the delivery of a CMR250 to head off into the wilds of Thailand, Moosie and I are going on a 3-4 day off road motorcycle trip, we've got a map and a small bag packed and a vage idea of where we want to go and see, first stop should be pai if we can make it there before night fall. the map we picked up shows the rough dirt trails that connect small villages, and they are 4x4 dry only so should keep it intresting, only7 thing i don't know is how far to expect to make it each day, so hopefully we won't get stuck in the middle of no ware.
while in chaing mai i have been taking full advantage of the great medical facility's, have gotten a bunch of xrays and a ton of tests, trying to take advantage good hospitals and medical service while I'm in a country where it's available and cheap. (fuck i hate Americas medical system)
anyways, I hope going with a 2 stroke isn't a mistake, it sure would suck to have it break down.. gonna keep my fingers crossed.
I'll try and hit a computer at our next city to update how it's going.

ugg

gurm.. i hate this bloggy blog blog..
but i guess I'll babble a tad.
seeing how in the last 14day I've had 20 message not responded to on myspace, so no one to write back to..
just got back from heading out of town, whet out to a place called 2nd home. in a tiny village of 14 family's thers a monk who speaks English and you can viset him and help him work on his property and learn about local plants, mud brick building ect. ok, sounds cool, a fucking ass twisty 5 nauseous hours getting thrown about in the back of a pick up with tons of boxes and house wife's and puking children. we get to a beautiful temple on a beautiful hill on a valley, on the other side is some low mud huts to sleep in, and i small living space.. and about 12 obnoxious khosarn road travel hippie kids.
bitching and playing the worlds worse crappy music on the guitar, and bickering and generally acting like people under 20 do. hell.
pure fucking hell, the bit of work i got to do out there was nice, i helped a local farmer plant some of a peanut crop, but in reality the people out there were helping no one, the villagers humored everyone by letting us "help" but i have the feeling they probably would have gotten it done faster with out us there.
after that i helped on very nice, well meaning goober with a compost project that he had been working on, i guess he had been at it for about a week and had about 3 sticks cut. in an hour I helped him get it planed out, 1/2 built and on secured foundation (I still give it a 90% chance of falling off the side of the hill.)
we were invited to a mediation at night, but i left once 1/2 of them were asleep on the floor with there feet pointing a the buda image.
hell.
and really I've realized why Israeli people travel, to make the French look like less of dush bags.
i'm going to try and go buy a GPS unit and go on a few day motorcycle ride..
anything else, well, my foot still feels broken, it's been about a month of trying it ignore it. I finlay when to a Doctor, i thought the fact that it now snaps every time i step is probably a bad sign... we'll that was useless.. they told me the same thing every Doctor has ever told me every time i've gone to one about an injury, "take some ibuprofen and come back again if it doesn't get better" fantastic.
well, ok, guess i'm a bit pissy, it's hot.. bla.

well, at least i don't have some fuck-tard singing anymore 4 non blonds over and over and over....

Myanmar

Well, it's been imposable to post at all from anywhere in this country. so this is the first time, but i was a bit over the blogger thing anyways.
so far I've spent a week in Yangoon, mainly training traditional Myanmar boxing, which is quite crazy. unluckily i missed the one of the few time a yea they had live fights, but I'm still keepijng my eyes pealed, there boxing here isn't quite like Muay thai, they use more sweeps, trips, arm locks, head buts, switching strong side and spinning back fists.. oh yea and they don't fight with boxing gloves on! yeiks.
the training in Yangoo was great, the instructor pulled me from the class (at the YMCA) and started giving me private instruction with some of his more advanced students, and he started bring me to his Akido studio. what was pretty cool, I only wish it was possible to spend more time in this country to train, buy Yangoon is filthy, hot, and crowed so donb't know how long i'd want to stay in it anyways.. that and tanning on super smooth concrete floors sucks..
next I went to golden rock which was preaty amazing, huge fucking bolder balancing on the last 2 or 3 inches of a cliff, and the bottom of the bolder which is touching is only about 3 inches, it's a poplar pilmragig point for budest, and they've covered the bolder in so much tiny bits of gold left theres not a bit of rock exposed.
after that I hoped on the top of a pick up with a bunch of Burmese guys, they get pickups build a steel cage over the bed so lady's can sit in the bed and men on the roof. it was a long brutal 6 hours in the sun but the view was amazing, and all the guys packed on top got a good laff at the check points where we had to get off, or cross through areas holding onto the sides ect, and I was clue less, but they were super nice (this was before I could speak any Burmese) and offered me snacks of deep fryed Beatles (bright green and yellow suckers with heads that looked like praying mantises) I took that truck to Bango and spend about 40 min trying to negotiate a fair price for a bus to Taungoo where I was searching for Akiko a famous boxer who might teach me. on the bus I met some super nice Nuns and chatted with them a bunch, at the end I went to there convent and hung out and talked a bit and they showed be a good guest house, Taungoo was really nice because there were no tourist at all, I didn't see one white person, so I was a bit of a celbraty when I'd go to the market, after a couple of times of going they got to know me and I'd get followed by a herd of little kids jumping up and down saying hello over and over again, and father back a pack of giggling teen age girls.
thge markets had some great handmade products, and I finaly got a pair of handmade sandals made for truck tires, with tire tred on the soles and all, the'll take forever to break in, but still sweet, (all set for the Apocalypse, you homos can prance about in your new rock fashion booties, lol)
while in Vietnam I tryed to find a pir of the ho chi men sandals, but at the chi nchi tunnels they only had really huge ones and super small ones..:(..
I finally got to meet Akiko and his father, crazy ugly scary huge guys that were super nice, but they didn't seem interested in teaching so I just said hi and got a photo with them.
after Tangoo, I headed to Kalaw, or tryed to, I sat (with my pack of nun homies) at the side of the road for about 4 hours but no bussed wanted to have a white person on it, I guess it's an added responsibility, and theyre whiny. but finaly I got a bus and got into Kalaw ass early in the morning. I wanderer arou8nd like a zombie looking for a guest house, and after walking the whole town I found one and checked in, then I headed out again to look for a trek guid to get to Inlay like, after several hours of wondering around and talking to people, none of which could understand who I was traveling alone, I found out it would be ass expense to get a guide, and they had rairly ever had someone alone ask so i'd have to find someouther people to go with, but, I hadn't seen any honkys in town so there didn't seem like much of a chance of that.. back at my guest House i found out a couple of Canadians had set off earlier that day and if i left right away I could probably catch them and there guide.. so without even getting to use the room I had rented I got my stuff together and headed out, I brought an extra shirt, a rain jacket, tooth brush, water uv pen (to sterilize water), my canteen, and a small scarf type wrap from Vietnam to use as a towel ect, and some soap and hit the road, it took about 4-5 hours of practically running to get to the village where they were but we made it before sunset, the canden people were nice. it was funny they had big back packs with stuff hanging off them everywhere, I felt a bit silly with just my hip pack with my stuff in it (of course i still brought more than I needed).
it took 3 full days of a quick paced walk to get to inlay lake, along the way we hit a few hill tribe villages which were intresting, preaty much forgotten by time, the second night we stayed in an old (150 or so year old) budest monastery, where we got woken up at 5 am by loud chanting. kinda cool.\
in the morning we got to spend some time talking to the head monk, who taught us all about how the world was a big frying pan that spun and that we should stay away from the country's on the edges so we didn't fall off (all this while he's wresting hjis arm on a globe) but he explained they the globe was just round to it was easier to spin. he also tryed to explain how the Moon was eaten by some big critter in the sky but it was kind of lost in translation, our guide/translator didn't seem too keen on telling us all about what should be common knowledge. he also talked about how Myanmar is the biggest and wealthiest country in the world, ect ect(*it's funny, anywhere you go in the world the back wards people always think there country is the biggest, best, ect.. it reminded me of all the "America fuck ya" people in the usa) but you could tel the monk was quite bright, it was just all the stuff everyone there knew to be true, like that the foragers that go there have the same color skin as the Burmese people, but we put on makeup (sunblock) that turns our skin white)
Inlay lake was great, a whole little town built over the lake, all the houses on stilts and little boats to get around, so cool, even little baby kids paddling around from here to there.
I spent one day out on the lake going to the different shops and seeing the neighborhoods and floating gardens. another day I spent biking around on a rickety old bike (cover your eyes bike nerds) and petaled out to the west mountains, I was trying to hit some hot springs out that way but when i finaly got there they had jacked the price up 3x so I said fuck that. on the way back a monsoon shower started dumping so i hung out under a tree with a big pack of monks, I ended up helping them huld cut down trees and then when the rai got worse I hung out with them under a huge Chinese truck. they put a monks robe over my shoulder so i didn't get cold and gave me coffee candy, they were great, joking around and laffing up a storm, but after about 45min under the ruck i decided i better just deal with eh rain and keep going, even though i would have liked helping them finish moving the wood.. oh well. the way back took a long ass time, the roads out there are just rocks pounded into the dirt, and the bikes are old 40's style so it was rough going. I stooped at a road side bamboo shack and got some food, but there were some government guys there and that made it really uncomfortable there (the government here is like George Bushes wet dream, they are rich from taking bribes (just like all our politicians) and if anyone doesn't agree with them they re killed. so they all strut around in there fancy uniforms and in there big shiny cars while everyone else is poor as fuck) anyways got to start wrapping this up... the next day i walked to the east mount ans and brought some donations to the monks there, toothbrushes, pens and such.. it was a nice 4 hour walk there and back, then I needed to get to the junction to catch my bus to Mandalay, yesterday I took a tricshaw around looking for military truck parts which was interesting but i didn't have much luck (except for getting a cool Bemuse license plate) and I climbed Mandalay hill, which except for getting followed up and back down by the police was nice, and I even joked with the police so they weren't too bad... today I think I'm going to try and head to Saggin, but I worry there a $10 fee to get in and I'm getting worried about $, there are no ATM's in this country.. so well see what happens...