Blog 91 Khon Kaen to Udon Thani

24th December

Christmas Eve on the road, what a treat. The party started by a junction in the Thai countryside. He's parked up in his own back yard so he can play it loud - Thai rap?

I Stopped and This is What I Saw

What is this music? Thai rap, bit of trance, not conventional and full of attitude. Young music screaming through his fence.

The Halfway Point

Depends doesn't it. For me maybe from the Plain of Jars and southwards across Lao. From one of the largest megalithic archaeological landscapes in the whole of Asia, it consists of thousands of stone jars scattered around the upland valleys and the lower foothills of the central plain of the Xiangkhoang Plateau I will soon start my journey home from the most far flung cultural asset I will have ever seen.

So I'll mooch around on Christmas Day, hang around my new base, go for a coffee if I can, settle down for Xmas. It's very quiet. No trucks, I'm fine with that, no cars but out here there is no noise. For small periods of time I am floating in noiselessness. A whole sensation on which I relay heavily becomes suddenly lightweight. Seriously silent. Absolute silence just then was a meditation, slowly appreciating that the only noise is when a slow car passes by and you can single out the tyres sloshing as it touches the tarmac.

Map of the Day

The music echoes my feeling of being in Thailand. I don't understand anything about the culture, it's almost impenetrable short term quickly passing each other except for the barest of a glimpse, but I'm warming fast.