Vacation to Thailand + Vietnam
Category: Travel and Places

Just came back from the most awesome vacation to Bangkok and several places in Vietnam. I went with Clemens and Hai, two great friends I got to know in Germany a long time ago. Hai was born & raised in Vietnam, so he took us on a trip all around his home country. Since we had to fly through Bangkok, we stayed there for several days of sightseeing and partying.

Bangkok
Temples, Pagodas and the "Golden Palace" in Thailand are really fancy with lots of gold and mirrors and colors. Another unique and memorable thing about Bangkok are the so-called Tuk Tuks. They are tricycle motorbikes that can seat the driver and about 3 passengers. "Tuk Tuk" actually means "cheap cheap", but compared to Taxis, that is not always true. Besides, Tuk Tuk drivers have the adorable habit of always wanting to stop at some jewelry export store or other tourist trap business in order to make some extra money from commissions. The first couple of times, we had a good laugh at this. Later on, the discussions with the drivers were simply not worth putting up with any more, so we switched transportation to metered Taxis.
One of the most impressive places in Bangkok is Chinatown, where markets seem to go on and on for miles in a row. Often times, there are vendors with identical merchandise just some twenty feet apart from each other. Here's where I discovered how much fun bargaining can be. Knock-off apparel is all over the place, but mostly it is done poorly enough that you can spot it from a mile. Fake Diesel Jeans for example rarely ever look like the real thing.
Somehow large parts of Bangkok seem over hyped. Even places that our traveling guide books were raving about turned out to be less than impressive. Bangkok's reputation as a cool vacation destination seems somewhat built on it being a Mekka for backpackers.

Ha Noi
Then we went from Bangkok to Ha Noi, where nightlife was absolutely dead. Two weeks before we arrived, they had had a police raid at a club that wouldn't honor their curfew. 1600 people got arrested (I kid you not). Hence, clubs and bars were closing early and their customers stayed at home. Luckily, north-east of Ha Noi, there's a wonderful landscape called Ha Long Bay, which is actually protected by the UNESCO because it's so unique with rocks almost vertically rising out of the water. Time to kick back and spend some quality time with the travel party on our boat. On our way back, all hell broke loose in form of a Thunderstorm and some genius moped driver running into the back of our bus. He had his lower leg broken with the bones sticking out the flesh, so we rushed him to the nearest hospital. After that, we had a lengthy stay and discussion with (I think) 4 different kinds of police, including city cops, state cops, traffic cops, some kind of accident specialist unit and what not. Our bus got impounded, which apparently is not an unusual thing to do if the victim of an accident is not capable of making a clear statement and the exact circumstances of the accident are unclear. Or maybe some representative of the travel agency needs to come out there with a big wallet and straighten things out. Who knows. Our driver finally hitchhiked an almost empty bus of a construction company that took us back to Ha Noi. It was quite an experience to see the people in the countryside, where there is nothing but rice fields and heavy industry. You can see in their faces that life there is hard and they clearly looked like the wrong people to fuck with. They don't see a lot of Caucasians apparently, so we were like a sensation for the village youth.
The one thing I will never forget about Ha Noi are the moped swarms. The streets are almost ridiculously overcrowded with few cars and massive numbers of mopeds. More impressive than the sheer number of vehicles is their driving. They do not look to the left or right, not to mention to the back. This is ok though, because everybody knows that and behaves accordingly. Everybody is going at cruising speed and making room for mopeds that show up out of thin air. Honking indicates that somebody from behind is about to pass. If you run one of these screen savers that simulate a swarm of fish, you already have a pretty clear idea of how the system is working. Getting across a streets seems like an impossible task, because the stream of vehicles driving by never stops. The key is to just slowly walk across the street at an even speed. The swarm will surround you. It just never seized to fascinate me.

Nha Trang
We moved from Ha Noi to Nha Trang, which is a traditional vacation destination for Vietnamese people, but rarely visited by foreigners. The beaches there are not to believe. You need to be there early in the morning, when half the town is taking a swim before heading to work, and again in the evening, when half the town is relaxing after work. The mid-day hours are even hotter than Austin, Texas. The sun is Chernobyl-strength. We spent our days in Nha Trang traveling around with mopeds we had borrowed, visiting Hai's friends and family and just hanging out and going out for food and drinks at night. Nha Trang also marked our first encounter with "bar girls". Many bars and clubs all over East Asia have young women working for them to have conversations with the guests. In Vietnam, they usually expect to be at least tipped for that. In other places (like Hong Kong), this kind of service will add a small fortune to your bill. Kudos to TimeOut for pointing this out :)

Saigon
For our last stop in Vietnam, we hit Saigon. While Ha Noi and Nha Trang are fairly uneventful towns with a lot of tourism, Saigon is all business. Tourists are there, but the streets are filled with mopeds (who would have thought) and all kinds of people taking care of whatever their job is. Partying in Saigon was particularly great since we had one of Hai's brothers, who lives there, showing us around town. We went to all the renowned clubs, from Lush to Apocalypse Now to Q-Bar and at least a half dozen more. Guess who had a blast. Sightseeing in Saigon is centered around the victory of the communists (which for many Vietnamese is not exactly a reason for celebration - to say the least). Check it off the list and sit down in one of the countless Vietnamese coffee shops. Talking about coffee shops. There is no Starbucks in Vietnam, which makes sense, cause Starbucks is only good if it is the only coffee shop in town. Vietnamese coffee is one of a kind, you get the whole filter with ground coffee and water and it slowly drips into a glass that optionally contains a sweet mix of cream and sugar. Once it's done, you stir it up and put it into a glass full of ice. Delicious. Fuck Starbucks. If you live in Austin, check out Texspresso on Anderson Lane instead. Back from Saigon to Bangkok (2 hours) to New York (18 hours nonstop flight, right over the polar cap) to Chicago (2 hours) to Austin (2 hours). I took a 2 day break in New York to do some shopping, cause Texas is not exactly the place to help yourself to some cool apparel. My hotel room was upgraded after I had to kill a cockroach in my bathroom ... welcome to the big apple. Nuff said, watch the pics on my site. And yeah, there where times when I was too busy to take photographs.

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Some of my favorite records ...
Category: Music

Heather Nova – Live From The Milky Way

As the name of the record implies, this is not from this world. Heather Nova is an awesome song writer, an outstanding poet and one of the most gifted live singers under the sun. This CD is what many of her fans call the performance of her life. Listen in to it on iTunes Store or whatever, you won't regret it.
find it on iTunes

Queen – Live Killers

Queen at the top of their game. Back in the 70s, when they could whip up a new show just like that ... I would give my left kidney to have been hanging with them back then. What a record, what an atmosphere, what a spectrum of sounds, songs and moods, what a document of one of the greatest things that ever happened to rock music. Plus, it has the ROCK version of "We Will Rock You".
find it on iTunes

Tori Amos – From the Choirgirl Hotel

As much as I like her piano play, she's so much better with an actual playback. "Spark", "Cruel", "IIEEE", "Jackie's Strength" - it doesn't get much better than that.
find it on iTunes

Nine Inch Nails – Perfect Hate Machine

The arrangements were unheard of, the lyrics were sensational, their vision was years ahead of anybody else. This was before they went noisy-industrial and before they tried to be Charles Manson, but even after they did all that, they never followed the trend, they were the trend (the Trent, actually). If you ever get a chance to see them on stage, kick yourself if you don't take it.

Evanescence- The Open Door

This is probably the newest one on this list, but it's great songwriting with a great voice, and I just like it right now.
find it on iTunes

Prince – Sing 'O' The Times

Prince at the peak of what he could do. Back when every little detail in his show came at the right moment. Back when every note in his song, every command to the band, every fake smile, naughty look and every splits occurred at the exact point in time it was meant to be. Back when "Prince and the New Power Generation" had this thing called groove. If you get a chance to watch "Sign 'O' The Times" on the big screen, go for it.

Portishead – Portishead

This CD has been in my car CD changer for 5 years, and it's been the only one that has never been thrown out. That is a record that will probably never been beaten. This music is so unique in so many ways, and I just freakin love it.

Mariah Carey – Music Box

Mariah at her best. Back when her voice was so clean, so pure, so sparkling and so full of energy that she could make you smile and dance and cry at the same time. That Mariah has not been seen in a long time, and I miss her badly.

Swamp Terrorists – Grim Stroke Disease

You might not know that one, but that was an underground electronic band that was so far ahead of what was coming that just nobody got it. They whipped up a whole new thing out of sampling movies, thrash metal, hip hop, pop music and whatever the hell they came across. Their energy is not to believe. For various reasons, Swamp Terrorists never broke through, so this album is for the history books.

Meat Loaf – Bat out of Hell

You know it, I know it, what is there to say. Jim Steinman feeding the guy who would rock it until right into the oxygen tent.

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Some books you should have read before you die ;-)
Category: Writing and Poetry

Motherless Brooklyn (Jonathan Lethem)

Lethem is an artist with words. He paints pictures with words, he uses expressions you've never seen before, his metaphors are unmatched in anything I've read before. I've read several of his books, this guy is a genius of story telling, but this one I consider his masterpiece. It's a story about a boy growing up in the middle of the Brooklyn small-time mob some decades ago, the story is completely unpredictable, and there's all these moments when you look up from the book, thinking "I can't believe he wrote that". If I had to pick my favorite book, this would be it.

The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)

This is as good as a thriller can possibly get. I literally left work early to get back to reading it, got home and read it until the morning grew. The movie is genius, the book (guess what) beats it. Interestingly enough, while "Bourne Supremacy" is a great movie, the book can't touch it's predecessor. It just doesn't have this thing that keeps you up all night.

Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

This book is so sad it breaks your heart, but it is so enthralling that there is no way you can stop reading it. Because in the middle of all the pain and suffering, there is this integrity that keeps the main character fighting to do the right thing as good as he possibly can, regardless of what beats he has taken and what blunders he has committed. This book has a lot to offer, describing a culture that I haven't even been close to. But essentially, it is a book about being human.

Fight Club (Chuck Palaniuk)

Yes, there's a book. Yes, the book was first. Yes, the book is good. But originally, "Fight Club" was a short story in a newspaper, and the book was written around that short story to make it thick enough for a book. The short story itself is a fucking masterpiece. The rest is still worth reading. I always thought that looking at Edward Norton beating himself up in the movie was awkward (even for Edward Norton measures), and the book doesn't have that awkwardness.

Pimp (Iceberg Slim)

What a page-turner. A black guy growing up from being a small time hustler to a legendary pimp in 1930s Chicago, going through all kinds of successes and hardships. One of the best stories ever told. Besides, you learn a lot of gangsta lingo (the book actually has a glossary), so all of the sudden, I can understand what all the gangsta rappers are talking about (and I'm German).

Please Understand Me (Keirsey & Bates)

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"Angel of the North" - this thing is not to believe
Category: Art and Photography

Not sure if I would travel to England just to see that one, but I sure would love to see THE ANGEL OF THE NORTH.

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Just bought this picture...
Category: Art and Photography

Laser-Tune-Up by Vladimir Kush. Looks great on the web, looks just incredible on my wall. This guy is a freaking genius. Take a look at these ...

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This game is addictive as hell...
Category: Automotive

The official Mercedes AMG Drifting Game ... drive like a German . Even the weather is authentic (at least for now).

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