Jokers Cave of Games

Yes, yes, I know you guys have been frantically expecting the elephants. Not to worry, here they come.  The tour with the elephants was a great one, for several reasons. We chose to go with the local travel agent, from a connection at the hotel, instead of Fritidsresor, which was really a great choice! Much less people (just us and two other couples and one of those couples now constitutes really good friends!), much cheaper (almost half the price) and shows some other things than the official tour (a better chance to see things behind the scenes). Getting behind the scenes is really what it is about, for me. Meeting some locals, sampling the local cuisine, listening to the music. To see how they live and enjoy life, and the contrast of how that differs to our own way of life. And perhaps even to hone or advance my own way of living. That's really what matters most to me. I want something out of it that allows me to become a better person. They say that travel broadens the minds, ...

The electrical wiring of places like this puts a different standard on the table than what we perhaps tend to be used to. Facades of buildings are withered and broken with garish signs attempting to cover it up.  A concept that tends to fascinate me as a Westerner, whenever I go to Asia, Africa or the likes, is the local market. The way people in the destination actually live their everyday lives. Of course, it is sometimes hard to reach beyond the tourist market and find the real ones, but that is also part of the challenge of experiencing the other culture. We go to other cultures, other countries and try to get a sample of how they live their lives, but the more the destination is adapted for tourists, the less of that we actually get. When I looked through the travel agency's recommendations for eating out, for instance, one of the most highly recommended places was Viking Pizzeria. Yep, for that ultra-Swedish feeling, it was the place to go if you were Scandinavian, ...

Vacation. For me, it's always been hard to relax, to take a vacation and really enjoy it. Guess I am tense that way. Still, to arrive way early in the morning, just after sunrise, and feel the 35-degree heat blasting down with palmtrees of the jungle swaying all around you and the gentle seasurf rolling across the beach, that helps a lot. The Apsara Beachfront resort left something to be desired, for sure. The rainforest is aptly named and rain will quite often crash down unlike anything we are used to in Scandinavia. And it eats buildings up. The locals tend to have very waterresistant houses, putting energy into the lightweight roofs, while walls are very often totally non-existant. A hotel can't really have that luxury, since we tourists tend to keep valuables and a sense of privacy with us, no matter where we go.  The first room we got lasted for the day. During the night, we slept very poorly and awoke to strange, pattering sounds. Vendela thought the room was swarming w...