Bali

Hello and welcome to Indonesia part 2. I wrote most of this in Singapore airport, great to have free internet. Blogger is a pain though when trying to stick pictures in, the only way I can do them is to upload them then gradually pull them down through the file, no way to put them in at the cursor or even to pull and scroll at once. Bah. The bold text refers to the few pics I've put in.

After visiting Mt Bromo I paid for a combined bus/ferry ticket back to Denpasar. When I'd first crossed into Java it was night-time so I couldn't see anything; I was glad to see it in the daytime on the way back as the scenery is amazing all the way. The sun was setting during the ferry trip, and the backdrop of volcanoes, ships and the multi-coloured sky was fantastic.


I made a couple of friends on the bus, an Aussie lad and a girl from Munich. Having a chat really helps survive the trip. The expected time of arrival was about 8pm, of course it turned out to be more like midnight. Luckily the minibus only had six people in it - I'd hate to do that trip in a packed out bus. We didn't want to stay in Denpasar so we paid an extra 20,000 rupiah each (about 1 pound 30) to be taken down to Kuta beach. I was expecting a Ko Pha Ngan kind of affair, a couple of bars and some baungalows, but the place is a lot more developed than that, and a hell of a lot noisier. We hauled our bags around the poppies gangs and finally scored some rooms at the Taman Makar II. Quite a good place actually, not in the LP but it has large rooms, a balcony, breakfast included, a bathtub in the room and a minah bird (or a talking bird at least) in the courtyard. The bird could say "hello", "good morning" and make an ach-choo sneeze noise.

Suffice to say we went out and got hammered that night, and the next. For a country with fairly strict drug laws there was a lot of people selling stuff on the street; Best avoided as a) the stuff will be shite and b) there's probably a copper lurking in the background waiting to fine you. Mostly they were selling Ephinedrine tablets, I think thats something they give to people with heart conditions. Our first meal there was at the street stalls by the Poppies club; my Aussie friend indicated that the area we were in was were the bomb had gone off - so that was why there was a bit of derelict land in between two buildings! Apart from getting wasted, we did a bit of surfing on Kuta beach. For me it was a first, and after half an hour I'd only managed to get up on one knee, get very frustrated and get stuck in a rip-tide - that was quite hairy.

After my friends went their separate ways I spent a couple of days in Ubud, in the centre of Bali. It was good to do yoga everyday and not smoke or drink. There's not much to do there, there's a lot of spas and fairly pricey restaurants (though there's cheap vege food too), and tons of art shops. In fact, from walking around the place, it seems every road leading to Ubud is lined with art/craft/tat shops for about 5 miles. There is a couple of nice rice paddy walks up by the north of the town.

It seems every night in Ubud there is a Hindu festival or ceremony, lots of people parading down the street, with some playing the eerie gamelan music. There are also nightly performances, one of which I attended involved a man wearing a wooden horse kicking over flaming coconut shells. I also visited the botanic gardens which were a nice way to spend an afternoon, virtually in solitude.




One thing about south-east Asia is, the souvenir stalls in the tourist places invariably sell the same things. Its crazy to walk down a street with people saying "You want to buy something" and its the same crap as the place next door. I mean, who would want to buy a wooden dildo? I did get one thing - a wooden demon mask, its extremely ugly and I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with it. I've not seen anywhere selling football shirts for the Asian national teams - that would be a good souvenir. All you get are the English ones!

I finished my Bali tour off by going further up north to Bedugal (there is a nice temple by a lake).

From there I walked over the hills and past some more lakes to the village of Munduk.

I think there is a lot of nice walking possible around Munduk, but I had got a blister on the ball of my left foot so I just sort of hobbled from one end of the town and back. Its basically a strip of houses alongside a road running down a fairly steep hill. There are nice views either side of hills, forests, paddy fields and the ocean is visible in the distance. There are a couple of basic Warungs (restaurants), I got a nice tofu/beansprout/satay dish and my first beer for almost a week. Nice for a stop-off if you just want a quiet place.

Finally I had to charter a Bemo van to get me out of Munduk, which cost about a tenner. It doesn't sound a lot but transport and accomodation were relatively expensive in Indonesia compared to the other SE Asia countries I had visited. I went up to Lovina as a lot of travellers that I had met seemed to be heading there. When I arrived I took a tour (again, just me and the driver - and doing the tourist thing which I'd told myself I wouldn't do anymore). We visited the Gitgit waterfalls, which was nice but you know, its another waterfall (none have topped the Kuang Si by Luang Prabang yet).

Then we went to a buddhist monastery on a hill, which was very tranquil and scenic, I didn't see any monks though so I don't know if its a working place or not (my driver did not understand what I meant by monk!). I think its the only buddhist temple on Bali.

The best thing we did was go to the hot springs, another first for me, bathing in faintly egg-smelling warm water was good fun.

I went to Lovina beach afterwards to watch the sunset. The beach is made up of grey volcanic rock, and I got hassled constantly from vendors; also the bars seemed quite expensive there, and the only other tourists where old Dutch couples or single men. And there was a tropical storm so I missed the sunset and didn't get any sleep - I've never heard thunder so loud, the noise went inside me like the kick of a bass drum when you stand next to the speakers in a club.

And after another night in Kuta (supposed to be quiet, but stayed up til 4AM in Piggys bar on Poppies II, my favourite, live music and open mic with the man Rene) I caught a plane to Singapore, which is were I am now. I've nearly caught up with myself! Oh yes. Next time: Singapore zoo!

Thailand to Indonesia (Java)

Hello again, I hope your cobblers are nice and toasty. When I left of I was in Pai, north of Thailand. I changed my travel plans slightly, rather than going to NZ from Bangkok I decided that I wanted to see a bit of Indonesia so had booked some cheap Air Asia flights from Bangkok to Bali. My next flight was to NZ from Bangkok, so I'd have to come back to Thailand after Indonesia. On the way down to Bangkok I stopped off at Sukhothai, one of the old capitals, and spent a pleasant day cycling around the temple ruins.
I'd met someone who was travelling down to one of the islands in the south of Thailand, so I decided to go along, as I wanted to check out Ko Pha Ngan anyway. It was a long journey, and I ended up only getting 4 days on the island. A relatively expensive place, maybe it wasn't worth it for such a small time. I did stay on Hat Rin though, which is the most touristy part. I spent most of the mornings walking up in the jungle behind the resort. Some nice views, and I followed trails that led to other beaches, including Leela beach, my favourite.

I saw a bit of wildlife too. And not just at the Black Moon party.
Next stop was Bali, via a not very interesting plane journey to Bangkok. Waiting 8 hours in an airport sucks! I decided to avoid Kuta at first, the beach resort on the south of Bali, as I'd heard only bad things about it. I had one night in Denpasar, the island capital, which was interesting as there were no tourists there at all. I managed to order food with the help of a local man (Nasi Goreng - fried rice). After that I went on the computer and wrote down a lot of Indonesian language that I thought would be useful. Going to Indonesia was a random decision and I hadn't planned at all, no guidebook, nothing. I soon found out there was quite a few vege meals, probably my favourite was Gado Gado, mixed vegetable with peanut sauce. I only had 2 and a half weeks so I did a lot of travelling there. Unfortunately I arrived in Februrary, the rainiest month, which is the worst month for going to the Komodo National park. So I had to come up with a different plan.

First I took an overnight bus to Yogjakarta as I wanted to check out Borobudur. It was okay for a day trip, the fun thing to do is to look in the giant stone bells on the top, and try to touch the Buddha statues inside (apparently for good luck - what else?).

The city was Yogjakarta was quite cool, there is a palace surrounded by a walled village area, and an interesting market street. I headed back to Bali via Mount Bromo national park. I only saw a small area of the park. From the village of Cemaro Lawang I got taken up in a jeep at 3am up to the viewing platform to see the sunrise over the volcanoes.
Then we did a short hike up to the Bromo crater rim.
Another "with hindsight". I'd booked a bus to Cemaro Lawang as part of a tour. I met some people on the bus to Bali who had just turned up and hiked up it with a local guide from the hotel, I think that would have been better, I only got the morning in Bromo and a few more days would have been nice. Of course, when I first booked the transport the agent said it was not possible to do it independently. I decided after that experience to do no more tours, in fact staying clear of touristy stuff altogether. Well I almost managed it... (Bali next time!)

Trekking in Pai

I signed up for an overnight trek from Pai into the nearby national park. This involved a stay in the jungle and visits to villages of three different hill-tribes. I used Backtrax as I had read that they were reputable. The trek worked out to 800B per day.


There was only me and an Austrian couple, Stephanie and Fabia, and our guide, Cha. We took a public bus from Pai up to the Lisu village at the entrance to the national park (1hr from Pai). The roads are very steep there, at one point our young bus driver could not handle it and had the bus rolling backwards down the hill, luckily a more experienced guy was on hand. A bit of a hairy start to the day. From the Lisu village it was a two hour walk to the Karen village, where our guide was from. The Karen village was nice (picture above), each house has its own garden area and there were a lot of fruit trees and flowers. I learnt the Karen for hello (Um-a-chub-a) and thank you (Tah Bleu). Although the houses were very basic, they had electricity courtesy of generators and government-donated solar panels. There were also several English football shirts on display. Mr Cha hooked up with his cousin (and two dogs), we had lunch (noodle stir fry) and then walked further into the forest.


The scenery was good - the stepped fields used for growing rice, lots of hills in the distance. Quite an arid environment at that time of year (early February), but still some nice vistas.


On the way our guide and his cousin hunted for lunch. There wasn't much in the way of bird noises in the forest, but they managed to get a tiny bird and a squirrel, using a combination of a slingshot and basic-looking rifle. They also showed us how to make fire using just bamboo, which was cool (it involved two halves of bamboo, some shavings for tinder and a lot of friction). All you need to survive is bamboo and a machete!


Eventually we got to the place for camp. I thought we were going to make it from scratch, but the basic bamboo frame was already in place. The guide and his cousin did most of the work, putting leaves over the top, making fire, making the cooking and eating utensils (out of bamboo of course - see above) and cooking the dinner.
I didn't try Mr Squirrel or Mr Bird, which were put into a curry; luckily there was also a coconut-vegetable soup on the go. And lots of Thai whiskey.


It was freezing at night, even with the embers of the fire, two blankets and a sleeping bag, and a fleece. The dogs stood guard which was awfully nice of them.


The next day we tried to get washed in the icy waters of a nearby stream, then walked back to the start, via a village where Lahu people live. The guides sister was there as she had married a Lahu man. I learnt hello in Lahu language (O-bud-a-yaa). The Lahu village was very different to the Karen one, just one open space with dirt on the floor and cattle lazing around.

The journey back wasn't very eventful, except we got a ride in the back of a pick-up truck back to Pai as the bus never came. I enjoyed hiking through the hills and forests, it would have been better if we had been able to participate more in building the shelter and cooking, but I suppose the risk of machete injury would have been high.

4000 Islands to Pai

Hello again. Since the last post I have travelled from Si Pon Don in the far south of Laos, through the North East part of Thailand (Isaan) and then up north to Chiang Mai via Bangkok on two overnight sleeper trains. The last journey I took was a bus from Chiang Mai to the small town of Pai, up in the hills in the north-west.

From Si Pon Don in Laos I took a bus to Pakse and then over the border to Ubon Ratchatani. The journey took 6 hours but the bus was quite nice, it flew by really. It was a bit of a culture shock going into Thailand, with their fancy paved roads with white lines painted on, glossy magazines and bloody cars. I was interested in visiting Isaan as it is meant to be the least touristy part of Thailand, and I wasn't disappointed on that front. Ubon city is quite big, and strangely the airport is closer to the town centre than the bus or train stations are. There are a hell of a lot of temples, a fairly interesting museum focusing on the North East part of Thailand (Isaan), hardly any whities and hardly any places to eat. I went to the Indochine Restaurant, which was recommended on some of the travel sites, but it wasn't that great. I only found out after I had left that there is a vegetarian restaurant. There is a nice little cafe by the park (the park in Ubon is cool by the way), run by two old ladies who have been there since the sixites, I can't remember the name of the cafe though. I had just started speaking Thai, and asked at the English-Thai school on Ratchabut street for some useful words. I came away with the word for vegetable (pak), rice (khao), and vegetarian (gin jee), also with a nice pink book, "Thai for lovers", which not only has the Thai for things like "Touch me there" and "I never want to see you again", but basic words and some food words. It will be a good souvenir! There are a lot of Angkor-style temples in the area surrounding Ubon, but it seemed like a hassle to see them so I went to the station and booked a train to Bangkok. While waiting for the train I managed to get egg fried rice and a beer from a little restaurant stall. The old guy who owned it didn't speak much English but seemed impressed with my Thai for lovers book.

Huge golden statue of Garuda in Ubon park

The overnight train was cool, I actually got a good sleep. I decided to book a train to Chiang Mai that same day, so I had a day to wander around Bangkok while I waited for the next overnight trip. I wandered through the China town, but there wasn't much to see during the day. I took a boat trip thought the canals of Old Bangkok (on the other side of the river to the new city), which was great. I had no idea Bangkok had such an area, with little wooden houses on the side of the canal. I saw a couple of monitor lizards at the side of the canal which also rocked. Canal in Old Bangkok

After another overnight train journey I arrived in Chiang Mai and took a tuk-tuk to the SpicyThai backpackers, which I had booked a dorm bed in the day before (I stayted with SpicyLaos in Luang Prabang and made a few friends there). The hostel was great, one of the few places I've been to that made me actually want to hang out there. They have a DVD player, a guitar, free internet, free breakfast, I had a space to do yoga outside, sweet. The food in Chiang Mai was very good, lots of vegetarian food, and lots of cheap eating options. There is an organic cafe off Nimmahaemaen road which did me rice, tofu cashew nut and vegetables and a fat ommelette for 35 Baht (70p). While I was sitting outside a cafe I randomly met someone I'd befriended in Cambodia (two months ago now!), she was staying at a friends place and I got invited to visit. For the equivalent of 300 pound a month they had a two-storey house, with free electricity. The house was made of wood and bamboo, and the cooking area was in the back yard. No TV, but they had internet and an ipod for tunes. The main downstairs room had a large floor space, which would be great for yoga. They had this weird contraption set against one wall, where you could hang off straps and do yoga moves in the air. It would be amazing to live in a place like that in the UK, maybe not made of bamboo though, might be a bit chilly in the winter. Reclining Buddha in a Chiang Mai Wat

A lot of people do treks out of Chiang Mai, they all seemed to involve a stint in a jungle, an elephant ride, a bit of rafting and a visit to one of the fabled hill-tribe villages. I'm a bit cynical to be honest, maybe the elephants would prefer not to be rode on, and aren't the villages now just like zoos? I did my own trek, 3 hours up a big hill (at the side of a road unfortunately) to Wat Suphet. The temple was very nice, if over-run with tourists (I did arrive at lunchtime though). There are lots of bells to ring, each one producing a different tone. After three days in Chiang Mai I was ready to move on north.Steps guarded by the Naga leading up to Wat Prathat
Wat Prathat, Doi Suthep national park

A couple of people had said to me that Pai (north-west of Chiang Mai) was a cool place, so I got a bus there. Some prices - Songthaew (red wagon thingie) from my hostel to the out-of-town Arcade bus station cost 40 Baht (80p), the bus cost 72 Baht (1 pound 40 ish). Bargain-tastic. The public buses are a lot slower than the more expensive minivans, but in this case thats an advantage as there was a lot of winding mountain roads on the way (I didn't want to have the Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng experience again).

Pai is a small town, with lots of restaurants, a river and loads of places to stay. The main street which runs past the bus station becomes pedestrianised at night, and becomes a night market (mostly tat, tonnes of I love Pai t-shirts and funny hats). I'm staying at Charlies, which is basic but only 3 pound a night. That price also includes watching two cats humping, as I did last night. I chose that after wandering around the town for about an hour with my backpack on, trying to find a plce that sounded good in my Rough Guide and failing miserably. I went in the opposite direction to the river and the main bridge, where there are loads of places with bamboo huts, I'd recommend anyone arriving here without a booking to go that way.

A main attraction for me to come to Pai was the walking options accessible from the town. Today I went to another temple on a hill, and then walked to the Mae Yen waterfall (was supposed to be 7km but took nearly 6 hours for the round trip, a nice river walk though). I didn't see much wildlife except for birds and a small black and white striped lizard, which I think is called a Skink (or a Newcastle fan maybe). Tomorrow I'm going to look into trekking options, which are allegedly more interesting than the ones you get from Chiang Mai.

Okay then, goodbye kids!

Laos Final Part

Hello again, this is going to be my last Laos post. There's a lot to cram in so I'll try to stick to the interesting bits. After Vang Vieng I travelled down south-west to the Lao capital, Vientiene. I was travelling with a friend I'd made in Luang Prabang, and randomly met another friend while waiting for the bus, who I'd first met in Hue. There's not much to say about Vientiene, except that it must be the deadest city in the world. We had a look about, then quickly moved on to Savannakhet. My travel buddy and I were the only foreigners on the bus to Savannakhet. After about two hours drive, I could smell burning and sure enough the bus broke down soon after. We were left waiting on the side of the road for two hours while the drivers and co removed first hte back wheels, then the axle, then some engine parts, and proceeded to bang them with bits of metal. Eventually another bus showed up, it was full already so we had to stand for three hours.

Anyhow, Savannakhet was ok, not much to do there, but it really serves as a base to go on treks. I took a one day trek to the nearby forest of Dong Nadet. This included a visit to a salt factory, which is where I took the above picture, clearly showing a large fish smoking a fag. I'll put the other pictures onto my facebook page as its quite fiddly using this program to put up multiple pics. The salt factory consisted of several large shallow baths of salty water (the water was extracted from the ground - I think, the guides English wasn't great), for evaporation in the sun, or some that used heat from burning wood. Each bath was owned by a different family, it was quite cool to see collectivism in action. For each 50kg bag of salt the family get something ridiculous like $5. After the salty experience, we walked through the forest, which was very quiet, not even a bird call. Whether this was due to it being the dry season or the appetites of the locals I don't know. The local guide showed us how to use some of the plants as medicines (mostly for stomach problems). The weirdest one was red ants, which are apparently good to smell (relieves fatigue) or to rub on snake bites. Later on we visited the Hanging Stupa, which is a tower built in the place where a tree used to be that Buddha is supposed to have sat under. We got a disjointed story of how the local people fed him frogs, which he wouldn't usually eat being vegetarian, which he consquently threw up.

After getting a tourist visa for Thailand at the consulate in Savannakhet (this gives me two months, rather than the 15-day pass I would otherwise get at the border) we took another long, long bus ride to Paxse. This bus was even more beaten up than the last one, and there was a motorbike and three roosters on board. I gave up my seat to let an older woman sit down, which meant I had to stand for three hours again, but at least on this bus the windows were open so I got a nice breeze. I also got two huge bags of sugar on my feet for my troubles. We didn't stay long in Paxse, to be honest I can't remember doing much except eating.

My last stop in Laos was Si Pon Don, or 4000 islands, which is right at the southern end of the country. I stayed on Don Det, which is very backpackery. The island is basically a big farm with a load of bungalows around the perimeter. It was a very nice place to chill for a while, I ended up staying for a week. I met quite a few people from Luang Prabang there which was nice. On my last day I walked to the end of the next island, Don Khon, where you can see Cambodia on the other side of the Mekong river, and I took a boat to see the Irawaddy dolphins. These guys are very rare now, the boat driver said there was only 15 left in that part of the Mekong. It was cool to see them flipping about in the water, but quite sad knowing that their days are probably numbered. The boats turn their engines off in the water, and don't go chasing the dolphins down at least.

From Si Pon Don I took a bus for 110,000 kip up to Paxse then across the border to Ubon in Thailand, where I am now. Ubon is in the Isaan region, which is more Laos than Thai in flavour. Its quite nice to walk around, there are lots of temples, a big park and a fairly interesting library. There doesn't appear to be much in the way of eating though, despite Lonely Planet calling it a foodie heaven. I found a bar last night showing the Liverpool - Bolton game, they also had a live band on which was fun. Not really my kind of music but it makes a change from the usual corny pop they play over here. My head is very sore today even though I only had four Leo beers, I reckon they put some nasty additives in the beer here. Tonight I take a train to Bangkok, and then up to Chiang Mai, hopefully to meet up with some friends I made in Cambodia and Laos, its going to be a long, long trip.

Until next time, see you later!

Laos part 2

So I left off in Vang Vieng. Apparently you can't leave that place unless you've tried tubing, which involves floating down a river in a tractor inner tube. Completely pissed. The start of the tubing course consists of various make shift bars plying free shots of the deadly Lao Lao whiskey, followed up with a bucket (literally a bucket like you'd take to the seaside) filled with cheap spirits and mixer. Each bar has its own variety of rope swing to get you back into the water. I tried one, it was a lot higher than the one I did in Luang Prabang but I'd asked for a life jacket (I can hardly swim) so I suppose I lost a bit of the thrill. The only other people wearing life jackets wear the Korean package tourists. A few tourists have died in recent years while doing the tubing however, and I bet any of them weren't Korean. Plenty of people are so drunk that they climb up to the rope swings, then miss the rope and just fall in, pretty dangerous when theres other people floating about below. I finished the day with a happy pizza - topped with a special ingredient (think Bob Marley). It was a mistake to eat the whole thing, I'm so greedy, I couldn't move or speak for the next 36 hours!

Sorry no pictures this time, it wasn't really the day for pictures. Also its time for beer, I've just met up with a fellar I met in Luang Prabang. Its cool to keep meeting up with people randomly, makes getting to know random people actually worthwhile.

Later dudes,
Rob

Laos part 1

Hello again. Its getting longer between posts, this is to do with me now being in Laos, where time seems to run very differently indeed. I started in Luang Prabang, which is famous for being pretty I think (its a UNESCO world heritage sight, which draws a lot of people here). The picture shows one of the main streets at dusk. I arrived on New Years Eve, staying at the Spicy Laos Backpackers in a dorm. It was a cool place, lots of space to hang out with the other travellers. I'm still travelling with two people I met there which is nice.

The day after NYE I randomly decided to go and see the Kuang Si waterfall with two other people, it was worth it as it was beautiful and probably the best thing about going to Luang Prabang. Even though I can hardly swim, I jumped off a rope swing into the magical blue lagoon, that got my heart going quite a bit.

Unfortunately, whether it was the water, or the egg sandwich I had for lunch, or the vegetarian buffet I had later on, I was up all night vomiting and with bad diarrhea. I fasted for a few days which probably did me good after all the beer I drank over the period of many hogs. I still managed to walk around the town, but really I couldn't see what all the fuss with the place was about. There's some wats (temples), but there's temples everywhere in Asia. Maybe my stomach condition soured the experience.

Anyhow, on the 3rd of Jan I got up at 6am to see the monks taking alms. It is a very sombre affair, the monks are not allowed to speak or anything and have to walk in a meditative state holding out a bowl into which the local people put in handfuls of rice and fruit (possibly other stuff but that was mainly what I saw). Some of the monks had done quite well, their pots were overflowing and they had to throw some stuff back into baskets that were on the roadside. One of my compadres was wearing black wellies and a bright yellow beanie hat, I think she got more photos taken of here than the monks did. I was trying to be polite taking a picture of the monks as they walked away, some people were very rude, getting right in their faces with the cameras.

As a digresion, I was under the impresion that the Buddhist monks were not allowed any possessions. Strange then that I've seen a lot of monks with mobile phones, and some with cameras and laptops. Maybe the high-tech stuff doesn't stop you achieving enlightenment.

From Luang Prabang I took a minibus to Vang Vieng. A 6hr ride through very bendy mountainous roads probably wasn't what my guts wanted, but I managed to hold on. Vang Vieng has a bad reputation for being a hell-hole of Western twenty-somethings getting absolutely out of their faces. The Travelfish website even suggests avoiding it completely. I think that would be a mistake, the place has been the highlight of my Laos trip so far. The scenery around is stunning, limestone cliffs and rivers. I stayed at the Sunset Guesthouse (who gave me a free t-shirt). My own little bungalow for 50,000 kip a night (about $6). Not that cheap actually, the Spicy Laos backpackers which ahs just opened there had cheap dorms and a cool hanging out area but it was full when I arrived. We went out on a couple of bike trips to see the caves nearby, which was good for me as I'd never really ridden a bicycle before. I don't have any pictures unfortunately, but my friends had a lot of fun at my expense, as did the locals. On the way to see the "water cave", I fell of and grazed my knee quite badly. Luckily we were passing through a village and a family came out to see what the hell this crazy farang (foreigner) was doing sitting on the roadside. The old man of the house cleaned up my wounds with some iodine and sent his daughter off on a motorbike to get me some plasters. Not nice to fall off, but it turned into a nice little experience.

My time is nearly up at this internet cafe (I'm currently in Savannakhet, south-central Laos, you can see Thailand over the Mekong), so my tubing and happy pizza stories will have to wait 'til next time.

Sabaidee!