Here's a follow up to ECT's post. His post reminds me of this song from the director of Moulin Rouge...

There's the parody version too. Anybody interested in it, let me know.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97 ...

Wear Sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall, in a way you can't grasp now, how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or, worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind ... the race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive; forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life ... the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees; you'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't; maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't; maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary ... whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much. or berate yourself either - your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can ... don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance ... even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

(Brother and sister together we'll make it through
Someday a spirit will take you and guide you there
I know you've been hurting
But I've been waiting to be there for you
And I'll be there just helping you out
Whenever I can.)

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia; dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen ...

(Brother and sister together we'll make it through, uh-uhhh, yeah
Someday a spirit will take you and guide you there
I know you've been hurting
But I've been waiting to be there for you
And I'll be there just helping you out
Whenever I can.)

(Yeah, everybody's free, yeah, ohhhh-yea ... everybody)

------------------------------------------------
Useless trivia section
Baz Luhrmann presented and produced the song that hit the charts in 1999, "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)." The lyrics were written by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich, and the vocals were performed by Lee Perry.

His first three films, "Strictly Ballroom", "Romeo + Juliet" and "Moulin Rouge", were dubbed the "Red Curtain Trilogy" as they all fell under a particular style of film making.

Below is a commencement speech by Thomas L. Friedman, an award winning
author and foreign affairs columnist of The New York Times.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Thomas L. Friedman

Commencement address at Williams College
Williamstown, Massachusetts USA
June 5, 2005


----------------------------------

It is an honor to stand before you this morning -- you the class of 2005.
I've been a journalist all my life. It's been a great ride. And what I
thought I would talk with you about today is not the stories I've covered
but some of the lessons I accidentally learned along the way about getting
through life. As Yogi Berra once said, "You can see a lot by just
listening," or maybe it was "You can hear a lot just by watching." Either
way, the reporter's life has allowed me to do a lot of both, and for the
past few months I've been jotting down a few of the things that might be
relevant advice to you all on graduation day.

Lesson #1 is very simple. As the writer Dan Pink noted in New York Times
just yesterday, it is a piece of advice that graduation speakers all over
the land will be giving to graduates today, and it goes like this: Do what
you love. But the reason that advice is no longer, what Pink called "warm
and gooey career advice’" but actually a very "hard-headed’"
survival strategy, is because, as I like to put it, the world is getting
flat. Yes, mom and dad, you have paid tens of thousands of dollars to have
your child get a Williams education only to have their graduation speaker
declare on their last day on campus that the world is flat.

"Gaining speed, she went on: 'You want to know what I make? I make kids
wonder, I make them question, I make them criticize, I make them apologize
and mean it, I make them write and I make them read, read, read. I make
them show all their work in math and hide it all on their final drafts in
English.' Susan then stopped and cleared her throat. 'I make them
understand that if you have the brains, then follow your heart. And if
someone ever tries to judge you by what you make in money, you pay them no
attention.'"

What is flattening the world is our ability to automate more work with
computers and software and to transmit that work anywhere in the world
that it can be done more efficiently or cheaply thanks to the new global
fiber optic network. The flatter the world gets, the more essential it is
that you do what you love, because, as Pink notes, all the boring,
repetitive jobs are going to be automated or outsourced in a flat world.
The good jobs that will remain will be those that cannot be automated or
outsourced; they will be the jobs that demand or encourage some uniquely
human creative flair, passion and imagination. In other words, jobs that
can only be done by people who love what they do.

You see, when the world gets flat everyone should want to be an
untouchable. Untouchables in my lexicon are people whose jobs cannot be
outsourced or automated. They cannot be shipped to India or done by a
machine. So who are the untouchables? Well, first they are people who are
really special -- Michael Jordan or Barbra Streisand. Their talents can
never be automated or outsourced. Second are people who are really
specialized -- brain surgeons, designers, consultants or artists. Third
are people who are anchored and whose jobs have to be done in a specific
location -- from nurses to hairdressers to chefs -- and lastly, and this
is going to apply to many of us, people who are really adaptable -- people
can change with changing times and changing industries.

There is a much better chance that you will make yourself special,
specialized or adaptable, a much better chance that you will bring that
something extra, what Dan Pink called "a sense of curiosity, aesthetics,
and joyfulness’" to your work, if do you what you love and love what
you do.

I learned that quite by accident by becoming a journalist. It all started
when I was in 10th grade. First, I took a journalism class from a
legendary teacher at my high school, named Hattie Steinberg, who had more
influence on me than any adult other than my parents. Under Hattie's
inspiration, journalism just grabbed my imagination. Hattie was a single
woman nearing 60 years old by the time I had her as a teacher. She was the
polar opposite of cool. But she sure got us all excited about writing, and
we hung around her classroom like it was the malt shop and she was the
disc jockey "Wolfman Jack." To this day, her 10th grade journalism class
in Room 313 was the only journalism class I have ever taken. The other
thing that happened to me in 10th grade, though, was that my parents took
me to Israel over the Christmas break. And from that moment on I fell in
love with the Middle East. One of the first articles I ever published in
my Minnesota high school paper was in 10th grade, in 1969. It was an
interview with an Israeli general who had been a major figure in the '67
war. He had come to give a lecture at the University of Minnesota; his
name was Ariel Sharon. Little did I know how many times our paths would
cross in the years to come.

Anyway, by the time 10th grade was over, I still wasn't quite sure what
career I wanted, but I sure knew what I loved: I loved journalism and I
loved the Middle East. Now growing up in Minnesota at that time, in a
middle-class household, I never thought about going away to college. Like
all my friends, I enrolled at the University of Minnesota. But unlike my
friends, I decided to major in Arabic and Middle Eastern studies. There
were not a lot of kids at the University of Minnesota studying Arabic back
then. Norwegian, yes; Swedish, yes; Arabic, no. But I loved it; my parents
didn't mind; they could see I enjoyed it. But if I had a dime for every
time one of my parents' friends said to me, "Say Tom, your Dad says you're
studying Arabic; what are you going to do with that?" Well, frankly, it
beat the heck out of me. But this was what I loved and it just seemed that
that was what college was for.

I eventually graduated from Brandeis with a degree in Mediterranean
studies and went onto graduate school at Oxford. During my first year in
England -- this was 1975 -- I was walking down the street with my
then-girlfriend and now-wife, Ann, and I noticed a front-page headline
from the Evening Standard tabloid. It said, "President Carter to Jews: If
Elected I Promise to Fire Dr. K." I thought, "Isn't that interesting?"
Jimmy Carter is running against Gerald Ford for president, and in order to
get elected, he's trying to win Jewish votes by promising to fire the
first-ever Jewish Secretary of State. I thought about how odd that was and
what might be behind it. And for some reason, I went back to my dorm room
in London and wrote a short essay about it. No one asked me to, I just did
it. Well, my then-girlfriend, now-wife's family knew the editorial-page
editor of the Des Moines Register, and my then-girlfriend, now-wife
brought the article over to him when she was home for spring break. He
liked it, printed it, and paid me $50 for it. And I thought that was the
coolest thing in the whole world. I was walking down the street, I had an
idea, I wrote it down, and someone gave me $50. I've been hooked ever
since. A journalist was born and I never looked back.

So whatever you plan to do, whether you plan to travel the world next
year, go to graduate school, join the workforce, or take some time off to
think, don't just listen to your head. Listen to your heart. It's the best
career counselor there is. Do what you really love to do and if you don't
know quite what that is yet, well, keep searching, because if you find it,
you'll bring that something extra to your work that will help ensure you
will not be automated or outsourced. It help make you an untouchable
radiologist, an untouchable engineer, or an untouchable teacher.

Indeed, let me close this point with a toned down version of a poem that
was written by the slam poet Taylor Mali. A friend sent it to my wife,
who's a schoolteacher. It is called: "What Teachers Make." It contains
some wisdom that I think belongs in every graduation speech. It goes like
this: "The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life.
One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued
this way. 'What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best
option in life was to become a teacher? You know, it's true what they say
about teachers: 'Those who can do, do; those who can't do, teach.' To
corroborate his statement he said to another guest, 'Hey, Susan, you're a
teacher. Be honest, what do you make?'

"Susan, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness, replied, 'You want
to know what I make? I make kids work harder than they ever thought they
could and I can make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute
silence. I can make a C-plus feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor
and an A feel like a slap in the face if the student didn't do his or her
very best.' Susan continued, 'I can make parents tremble when I call home
or feel almost like they won the lottery when I tell them how well their
child is progressing.' Gaining speed, she went on: 'You want to know what
I make? I make kids wonder, I make them question, I make them criticize, I
make them apologize and mean it, I make them write and I make them read,
read, read. I make them show all their work in math and hide it all on
their final drafts in English.' Susan then stopped and cleared her throat.
'I make them understand that if you have the brains, then follow your
heart. And if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make in money,
you pay them no attention.' Susan then paused. 'You want to know what I
make?' she said. 'I make a difference. What about you?'"

Lesson #2. The second lesson I learned from journalim is that being a good
listener is one of the great keys to life. My friend and colleague, Bob
Schieffer of CBS News used to say to me, "The biggest stories I missed as
a journalist happened because I was talking when I should have been
listening." The ability to be a good listener is one of the most
under-appreciated talents a person or a country can have. People often ask
me how I, an American Jew, have been able operate in the Arab/Muslim world
for 20 years, and my answer to them is always the same. The secret is to
be a good listener. It has never failed me. You can get away with really
disagreeing with people as long as you show them the respect of really
listening to what they have to say and taking it into account when and if
it makes sense. Indeed, the most important part of listening is that it is
a sign of respect. It's not just what you hear by listening that is
important. It is what you say by listening that is important. It's amazing
how you can diffuse a whole roomful of angry people by just starting your
answer to a question with the phrase, "You're making a legitimate point"
or "I hear what you say" and really meaning it. Never underestimate how
much people just want to feel that they have been heard, and once you have
given them that chance they will hear you.

I went to Saudi Arabia after 9/11 after having written a series of
extremely critical columns about the Saudi regime. And I was always struck
by how Saudis received me, Saudis who weren't prepped to receive me. The
encounter would often go something like this:
"Hi, I'm Tom Friedman."
"The Tom Friedman who writes for The New York Times?"
"Yes, that Tom Friedman."
"You're here?"
"Yes, I'm here."
"They gave you a visa?"
"Yes, I didn't come illegally."
"You know, I hate everything you write. Would you come to my house for
dinner so I could get some friends together to talk to you?"

If you really want to get through to people as a journalist, you first
have to open their ears, and the best way to open their ears is to first
open your own -- show them the respect of listening, it's amazing what
they will let you say after that, and it is amazing what you might learn.

Lesson #3 is that the most enduring skill you can bring to the workplace
is also one of the most important skills you always had to bring to
reporting -- and that is the ability to learn how to learn. I have always
thought that the greatest thing about being a reporter was that you just
get to keep getting Master's degrees. Each time I took a new beat, from
Beirut to Jerusalem to Diplomacy to the White House to the Treasury I got
to get the equivalent of a Master's degree in each of those subjects --
just by reporting on them for an extended period.

So while I hope that you all came out of here with some specialty, I hope
even more that you came out of here having learned how to learn. That too
is going to be really important if you want to be an untouchable, because
jobs are going to change faster and faster in a flat world. Believe me, I
know. You see, about 18 months ago I went to Bangalore, India to do a
documentary about outsourcing. We shot about 60 hours of film in ten days,
and across those ten days I got progressively sicker and sicker. Because
somewhere between the Indian entrepreneur who wanted to do my taxes from
Bangalore, and the one who wanted to write my new software from Bangalore
and one who wanted to read my X-rays from Bangalore, and the one who
wanted to trace my lost luggage on Delta airlines from Bangalore, I
realized that people were doing things I could not explain or understand.
I realized that my own intellectual software needed updating. I came home
and told my editors I need to go on leave immediately. That is why I wrote
"The World is Flat." I was retooling myself. None of us is immune from
that.

Now, while I have been on book tour these few months talking about the
flat world, several parents have come up to me and said, "Mr. Friedman, my
daughter is studying Chinese, she's going to be OK, right?" As if this was
going to be the new key to lifetime employment.
Well, not exactly. I think it is great to study Chinese, I told them, but
the enduring skill you really need in a flat world is an ability to learn
how to learn. The ability to learn how to learn is what enables you to
adapt and stay special or specialized. Well then, a ninth grader in St.
Paul asked me, how do you learn how to learn?

"Wow," I said to him, "that's a really good question." I told him that I
think the best way to learn how to learn is to go around and ask all your
friends who are the best teachers in your school and then just take their
classes, whether it is Greek Mythology or physics. Because I think
probably the best way to learn how to learn is to love learning. When I
think back on my favorite teachers, I am not sure I remember much anymore
of what they taught me, but I sure remember enjoying learning it.

Lesson #4 is: Don't get carried away with the gadgets. I started as a
reporter in Beirut working on an Adler manual typewriter. I can tell you
that the stories I wrote for the New York Times on that manual typewriter
are still some of my favorites. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not about the
skis. In this age of laptops and PDAs, the Internet and Google, mp3s and
iPods, remember one thing: all these tools might make you smarter, but
they sure won't make you smart, they might extend your reach, but they
will never tell you what to say to your neighbor over the fence, or how to
comfort a friend in need, or how to write a lead that sings or how to
imagine a breakthrough in science or literature. You cannot download
passion, imagination, zest and creativity -- all that stuff that will make
you untouchable. You have to upload it, the old fashioned way, under the
olive tree, with reading, writing and arithmetic, travel, study,
reflection, museum visits and human interaction.

Look, no one is more interested in technology than I am, but the rumor is
true: I was the last person in my family and on my block to get a mobile
phone, and I still only use it for outgoing calls. Otherwise, as my
daughters will tell you, I never keep it on. And don't leave me a message,
because I still don't know how to retrieve them and I have no intention of
learning. Because I can't concentrate if people are constantly pinging me.
You may also have noticed, I do not put my email address on my column.
Unless readers go through all the trouble to call the paper to get my web
address, if they want to communicate with me, they have to sit down and
write me a letter. That is mail without an "e." And yes, I only converted
to Microsoft Word when I started my latest book a year ago and that is
because Xywrite, the stone-age writing program I have been using since the
1980s, just couldn't interface anymore with my new laptop. I am not a
Luddite, per se, but I am a deliberately late adopter. I prefer to keep my
tools simple, so I focus as much of my energy on the listening, writing
and problem solving -- not on the gadgets. That is also why if I had one
fervent wish it would be that every modem sold in America would come with
a warning label from the surgeon general, and that warning would simply
say: "Judgment Not Included."

Lesson #5 is this: Always remember, there is a difference between
skepticism and cynicism. Too many journalists, and too many of our
politicians, have lost sight of that boundary line. I learned that lesson
very early in my career. In 1982, I was working in the Business section of
The Times and was befriended by a young editor there named Nathaniel Nash.
Nathaniel was a gentle soul and a born again Christian. He liked to come
by and talk to me about Israel and the Holyland. In April 1982, The Times
assigned me to cover the Lebanese civil war, and at my office goodbye
party Nathaniel whispered to me: "I'm going to pray for your safety." I
never forgot that. I always considered his prayers my good luck charm, and
when I walked out of Beirut in one piece three years later, one of the
first things I did was thank Nathaniel for keeping watch over me. He liked
that a lot.

I only wish I could have returned the favor. You see a few years later
Nathaniel gave up editing and became a reporter himself, first in
Argentina and then later as the Times business reporter in Europe, based
in Germany. Nathaniel was a wonderful reporter, who was one of the most
un-cynical people I ever knew. Indeed, the book on Nathaniel as a reporter
was that he was too nice. His colleagues always doubted that anyone that
nice could ever succeed in journalism, but somehow he triumphed over this
handicap and went from one successful assignment to another. It was
because Nathaniel intuitively understood that there was a big difference
between skepticism and cynicism. Skepticism is about asking questions,
being dubious, being wary, not being gullible, but always being open to
being persuaded of a new fact or angle. Cynicism is about already having
the answers -- or thinking you do -- answers about a person or an event.
The skeptic says, "I don't think that's true; I'm going to check it out."
The cynic says: "I know that's not true. It couldn't be. I'm going to slam
him." Nathaniel always honored that line.

Unfortunately, Nathaniel Nash, at age 44, was the sole American reporter
traveling on U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's airplane when it crashed
into a Croatian hillside in 1996. Always remember, real journalists are
not those loud mouth talking heads you see on cable television. Real
journalists are reporters, like Nathaniel Nash, who go off to
uncomfortable and often dangerous places like Croatia and get on a
military plane to chase after a visiting dignitary, without giving it a
second thought -- all to get a few fresh quotes, maybe a scoop, or even
just a paragraph of color that no one else had. My prayers were too late
for Nathaniel, but he was such a good soul, I am certain that right now he
is sitting at God's elbow -- taking notes, with skepticism not cynicism.
So be a skeptic, not a cynic. We have more than enough of those in our
country already, and so much more creative juice comes from skepticism,
not cynicism.

Lesson #6. Nathaniel's untimely death only reinforced for me the final
lesson I am going to impart to you this afternoon. It's very brief. It's
"Call Your Mama." For me, the most searing images and stories of 9/11 were
the tales of all those people who managed to use a cell phone to call
their loved ones to say a last goodbye from a hijacked airplane or a
burning tower. But think of the hundreds of others who never got a chance
to say goodbye or a final "I love you."
When you were just in elementary school there was a legendary football
coach at the University of Alabama named Bear Bryant. And late in his
career, after his mother had died, Bell South Telephone Company asked Bear
Bryant to do a TV commercial. As best I can piece together from the news
reports, the commercial was supposed to be very simple -- just a little
music and Coach Bryant saying in his tough coach's voice, "Have you called
your Mama today?" On the day of the filming, though, when it came time for
Coach Bryant to recite his simple line, he decided to ad lib something. He
looked into the camera and said, "Have you called your Mama today? I sure
wish I could call mine." That was how the commercial ran, and it got a
huge response from audiences. My father died when I was 19. He never got
to see me do what I love. I sure wish I could call him. My mom is 86 years
old and lives in a home for people with dementia. She doesn't remember so
well anymore, but she still remembers that my column runs twice a week.
She doesn't quite remember the days, so every day she goes through The New
York Times, and if she finds my column, she often photocopies it and
passes it out to the other dementia patients in her nursery home. If you
think that isn’t important to me than you don’t know what is
important.

Your parents love you more than you will ever know. So if you take one
lesson away from this talk, take this one: Call your Mama, regularly. And
your Papa. You will always be glad you did.

Well, class of 2005, that about does it for me. I'm fresh out of material.
I guess what I have been trying to say here this afternoon can be summed
up by the old adage that "happiness is a journey, not a destination."
Bringing joy and passion and optimism to your work is not what you get to
do when you get to the top. It is HOW you get to the top. If I have had
any success as a journalist since I was sitting down there where you are
30 years ago, it's because I found a way to enjoy the journey as much as
the destination. I had almost as much fun as a cub reporter doing the
overnight shift at UPI, as I did traveling with Secretary of State Baker,
as I do now as a columnist. Oh yes, I have had my dull moments and bad
seasons -- believe me, I have. But more often than not I found ways to
learn from, and enjoy, some part of each job. You can't bet your whole
life on some destination. You've got to make the journey work too. And
that is why I leave you with some wit and wisdom attributed to Mark Twain:
Always work like you don't need the money. Always fall in love like you've
never been hurt. Always dance like nobody is watching. And always --
always -- live like it's heaven on earth.
Thank you.

---------------------------------------------

Thomas L. Friedman won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, his third
Pulitzer for The New York Times. He became the paper's foreign-affairs
columnist in 1995. Previously, he served as chief economic correspondent
in the Washington bureau and before that he was the chief White House
correspondent. In 2005, Mr. Friedman was elected as a member of the
Pulitzer Prize Board.
Mr. Friedman joined The Times in 1981 and was appointed Beirut bureau
chief in 1982. In 1984 Mr. Friedman was transferred from Beirut to
Jerusalem, where he served as Israel bureau chief until 1988. Mr. Friedman
was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting (from
Lebanon) and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting (from
Israel).
Mr. Friedman's latest book, "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the
Twenty-first Century," was released in April 2005. His book, "From Beirut
to Jerusalem" (1989), won the National Book Award for non-fiction in 1989
and "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" (2000) won the 2000 Overseas Press Club
award for best nonfiction book on foreign policy and has been published in
27 languages. Mr. Friedman also wrote "Longitudes and Attitudes: The World
in the Age of Terrorism" (2002) and the text accompanying Micha Bar-Am's
book, "Israel: A Photobiography."

Duck preparing for some S&M later


K Box session at Marina Square... where is the K Box CAI!!!!


Guys concentrating hard to get some prawns


FIRST BLOOD....


Sean off the mark too

there are some cheaper alternatives for a 2 week holiday, given the fact that the air fares are going to hit rock bottom soon... ahhaha... tiger airways is having the 2 tix for 1 price offer... and jet star flys to india for 90 bucks only... okie, here are some suggestions brought to you by the eccentric travel agency, that provides safe but eccentric (or maybe not so eccentric) tour itineries...

Itinery 1 : A French Affair
Visit the french protectorates of vietnam and laos... experience the culture of the minority groups, as u get to interact with the chins, kachins, karens, shans and so on... you'll also be able to understand what a TONKIN is and the mandala idea of urbanisation... discover the beauty of the WATS(temples) and more WATS... (there're cheap discounts for tiger now...

Cost: 1000 est.

route of advancement:
Day 1: Fly to Bangkok via Tiger
Day 2: Move to Kanchanaburi (2hrs by bus). Visit the death railway and the famous area of the battle "Bridge over River Kwai"
Day 3: Move to Ayutthia. Visit WATS... Hostels start from 8 sing per night.
Day 4: Move to Korat. It's like a suburb town like place.
Day 5: Move to Udorn, another town in Thailand.
Day 6: Move to border and take a ferry via mekong river to Vientiene, Laos. There might be gunmen along the way, but it's normal to see them apparently.. but won't get killed one... actually, it's more like a sampan type of ferry.. Explore Vientiene.
Day 7: Visit Luang Phrabang.
Day 8: Cross over to Vietnam, quite a long trip to Hanoi
Day 9: Visit Hanoi.
Day 10: Visit Hanoi/Move to Hue
Day 11: Visit Hue
Day 12: Visti Ho Chi Minh
Day 13: Visit Ho Chi Minh / Fly back from Ho Chi Minh

okie, shall post more itineries soon... next up... algeria, sierra leone, nicaragua, antarctica, moon, pluto..

sorry to disrupt ur holiday discussion.. haha... pls help yihua, bernice and i do this survey. Thanks!!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=597771854761

paiseh.. dunno why the link doesnt come out.. must copy and paste it.. opps
At the end must play some typing game. quite fun one. enjoy! haha.. thanks!!

ok more updates..

we can go with 6 a grp, or if we cant find enuff pple, its 4 a grp..

we are basically going to travel in a motorhome aka campervan for most of the days...

may shuld be a better time to go as its end autumn/early winter.. by july, its already mid winter, so its cold vs damn cold..

the rates for airfare and campervans shouldnt change, since both may and july are off peak..

hihi ppl...62 jiaobins are organising a road trip to new zealand. revert if interested. but for guys only cause we do not want to see any auckland chan or christchurch chee in future. but if interested girls can form a group together, then we can chiong sua in nz together..cheers!

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