Sunday, November 18, 2007

Linkin Park Live in Bangkok

Last week-end (I know I'm late) I went to see the concert of Linkin Park in Bangkok.


I must admit that I was surprised when I first heard that Linkin Park was coming to Bangkok. I was like "Why would they come here?" lol

Anyway, they did come. And even best was the ticket price to go to the concert.

For a place in the last category - meaning quite far away from the stage- I paid 600 bahts (or 13€).

This is 4 to 6 times less than what I would have paid in Paris.


I went with a lof of friends, French, German, Iranian and Thai. Yeah it's still united color of Benetton here.



So we went to the concert which was supposed to start at 5PM. The time was quite unusual and that should have brought our attention.

We arrive at the Impact Arena (a complex of buildings designed to host all kinds of conferences, fairs etc) at 4:30PM and it turned out that they were many guest bands playing before the actual apparition of Linkin Park at... 9PM!!



This could have been bearable if the guest bands were not playing some kind of Hardcore rock mainly made of horrible growls and wierd noises. Needless to say that it was incredibly painful for my ears.

Apparently there is one thai band named Ebola (yeah, just like the virus) which is very popular in Thailand. Id (not sure of the orthography), the thai friend was a great fan of them. Good for him.



While waiting, we went to some other buildings to find some foods. We ended up in one of these very common food center where you can find all kind of food, japanese, vietnamese, of course thai and western food. It was one of my worst experience in a Food center but I want dig that subject.


9PM found us in the middle of a huge crowd, made of normal people and less normal (meaning fanatic) people dressed in black and stuff.

Of course the concert started late, at 9h30PM.

Despite being quite far from the scene, I was seeing quite clearly what was happening on stage, and the 3 giant screens were there to help from times to times.



Speaking of the live prestation, it was HUGE, AWESOME, WONDERFUL and I can keep going like that for another page lol.

really, I was impressed by the quality of the show. The way the sets of lights were playing, the audio quality were outstanding.

I have the feeling that Linkin Park did come with their technical team, cause Thai people didnt really accustom me to that kind of quality (no offense, just a fact).


Linkin Park delivered a impressive performance too. I dont know how the singer manages to scream that much but I swear that If I try to do the same, I will lose my voice in less than half an hour.

I think that is one of the reason why the concert was that short. A mere 1h20, it was short but intense.


The audience was delighted during all the show, people were jumping around, singing half of the time. Of course, we had a fair share of more than just tipsy people.

It wasn't surprising, the were selling tons of beer outside, and the smallest format was a glass of...1 liter of beer.


I took very few pictures of the show, it was quite dark (it was an open air show), and I was quite far.


Overall, it was a great, enjoyable evening.

I'm still hesitant about going to the concert of Muse at the end of this month.
What do you think?

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Pictures of Bangkok: Touristic places

I've made a post with pictures of normal Bangkok streets with cabs, buildings, ad banner and all those stuffs you have no idea how they look like until you come to visit Bangkok.

However, Bangkok as you know is also a very touristic city with a lot of beautiful temples and some interesting market.



These are the places I want to show here.


I created an online Album on my Picasa Gallery

I'm gonna add more and more pictures on this album.

Hopefully the embedded slideshow below will be updated automatically.









Feel free to comment and to visit my Picasa pictures gallery.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Thai Cuisine: Sweet and Sour Chicken

It's been a long time since the last time I blogged about food.

I know that you, readers, miss that so I'm gonna blog about it more often and I already have a bunch of food pictures.


Today dish is the quite famous and classic Sweet and Sour Chicken (can be Pork too).

Thai cuisine has a lot of dishes which mix sweet and salted. It's a little bit bizarre when You first try it but eventually you quickly get used to that.


So here are two pictures of this dish.

Of course, you eat this one with Rice (as usual).








Thursday, November 08, 2007

Monitor Lezard spotted in AIT

AIT is a very green campus. To describe it best I would say that it's a bunch of buildings erected on the middle of a forest.

We are surrounded by trees, natural gardens and all kinds of insects that come with such an environment.

We even have a Lake (partly artificial but it still does the job) with a food booth nearby so that one can eat sitting just near the lake.


This welcoming environment leads to a very rich fauna and flora.

One day, I was going for lunch when I spotted this big monitor lizard near the lake.
It is one of the biggest lizard I've ever seen (actually IT IS the biggest).

you can see by yourself on the pictures below.
















As usual, feel free to comment.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Hole in The Wall Initiative.

Normally I focus more on the travel/backpacking/Lifestyle subjects.
But from time to time I talk about other subjects.



Today I want to talk about one interesting initiative. The Hole-in-the-Wall initiative is basically trying to bring computer access to the poor children.

In the meantime, the aim is to help children to acquire new knowledge just by playing on computers without any external supervision.


What is interesting is that the computer is basically embedded in a wall and there is absolutely no restriction to the access.

The idea is that children will naturally learn, driven by their curiosity.


It's quite a counter-intuitive idea and the first time I heard about it I was thinking :" Whats the point".


The essay, which came as a part of my assignment in my ICT (Information and communication technologies) course, is exploring that initiative in the context of e-learning.



Feel free to read it (click on this link for a full screen version) and comment.





You can download the full version as a PDF or as a Word document.

The document is under the creative common licensing, which means that you can reused it as long as you explicitly mention the author (that would be me). If you can also link to this blog, its even better :)

Trip to see the "Pygmées" (Kribi, Cameroon)

This is the last post on the Kribi part of my journey in Cameroon.

I've already uploaded a fair number of pictures.

So I'll try to select just the most interesting ones. Of course, if you want to see the complete set of pictures, you just have to click on any of the pictures.





Me, getting on the dugout ("pirogue" in French")

Mum was very reluctant to get in that dugout. Initially, she wanted to wait for us in the car.

In a attempt to reassure us (I assume), the dugout driver told us:

Dont Worry, the boat is very solid (I guess he means we should not rely on the appearance of the boat).

Then he added something that makes us all feel more comfortable:
It's safer than the Titanic!

Dude, what A RELIEF. Good thing he didnt say "as safe as the Titanic.

This guy should have been a shrink.





There is no engine so some people have to make the dugout keep going, isnt it?




Some people use cars, some other dugout canoes.





The dugout parked at the "dock" (sort of).




Somehow, this is the "road" we took.




One Pygmée house.




Probably the Pygmee version of a Duplex.




A place where people gather together.




Frankly, there is not that much to see in that "Village"




Except posing with the so-called Chef weapons.




Even Mum was in.





The beds. No comment





The Pygmée people. They are distinguishable by their small height, usually between 140 and 160 centimeters.

This is one of the first (and maybe) only thing I remember from the early classes of the primary school in Cameroon.






Oki. we took a lot of pictures. What do expect?



Ok that's enough folks. More pictures are available after the jump (on the last pic).

Again, feel free to leave comment.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Song of the day: Ayo

Ayo has been with Corinne Bailey Rae, one of my favorite artists lately.

I've been blogging quite a lot today.

So I will go straight to the point.



The album is a masterpiece (nothing less) and its title is "Joyful".

If you want additional information, just click here


The 1st song is the famous single "Down on my knees".

Just press play, i dont know what more to say, its just breathtaking.






The second song just happened to be chose by iTunes which decided to start playin it exactly when I was typing this sentence.

It's "Watchin You", a soft, sweet love song.

So enjoy.








Edit: Ok fellows, since I like you, I decided that you deserve a little gift, so here it is.

No info on this one, just press play and when the song finishes and that you open your eyes, well just leave a comment ok?


More pictures from Kribi and the neighbourhood


Dude, I've seen more solid bridges in my life (not sure I've seen scarier ones though)




The waterfalls. Not that impressing hein?




Well people use them to wash their clothes.




And do fish too.




Which is kinda of stupid cause the fish is clearly too young.




Ok, it looks more interesting from this angle.




It's amazing what you can do with a close-up. Now it (almost) looks impressive.




My Bro walkin on the Water...well sort of.





I guess we can say that he's in harmony with the nature.




The last one. I like this one.



That's all folks...for now.

That's one hell of a catch up (thx bro for the pics)


The next post will be on the trip we made to see the "Pygmées".

So if you want to see more pictures or you want to know who are the "Pygmées"? well, stay tuned.

It's coming soon. Meanwhile, feel free to comment (note that if you dont want to sign in yo can always leave an anonymous comment).
If you want to know who are

Pictures of Kribi beaches (Cameroon)

Ok, if you are just about pictures, then this post is for you (unlike the following post lol).

Since I wasn't the one uploading the photo, I can't embed the slideshow like I have started to lately. So it's gonna be a bunch of (selected pictures).

If you wanna see the whole album (with A LOT of pictures) then just hit any of the following pictures.




A close look to the sea, the water is not as crystal clear as it is in Ko Samet but it's still a beautiful view.





One of the hotel we visited in our quest for affordable prices.





The view from our bedrooms (which were 1 meter behind at the ground - and only- floor).





2 meters farther, just near the beach.





The bedrooms where we stayed.





The restaurant of the Hotel. The food is many times better than the building look.





I love this view at the dawn.





My Bro





Me





My Bro & Me





We were playing a really stupid game. So funny





Me again (sorry to bother you with me lol)





The Water flow is quite powerful, I left with some bruises (cause of the stupid game :) )




How cool is life sometimes?




Of course Hell is on Earth, but the Paradise is here too.




We were going to see the (little) waterfalls.

Trip to Cameroon: Kribi and its beaches

Ok, I have to admit that I could have done it before.

But the thing is that since I left the charger of my digital camera in Paris when I went to Cameroon, I basically don't have pics of my own, so I have to wait until my bro upload them online to display them.


I have already a couple of posts on my trip to cameroon, including one on Cameroonian Food (damn I miss it).

But we didn't visit just the capital and the countryside.

Although we had to cancel the trip to the North where we wanted to go to visit the natural park of Waza, we managed to go to a coast city named Kribi.



Well to sum up, you take a car from Douala (or from Yaoundé), you follow the direction "Kribi" (it's not really indicated so you better go with someone who knows the way) and 2 hours later, there you are.

The next step is to find a hotel. And damn that is the hardest part of the movie.

We wanted an hotel just in the front of the beach.

If you happen to want that too, be ready to choke when you check the prices.


You wont find anything below 25000 FCFA (37€!!) and at this price you will get a barely decent bedroom (and when I say decent, I'm kind).

For something satisfactory you hit 32000 FCFA(almost 50€!!) ouch!

Ok, some people might not understand why I was surprised but one have to know that it's 1/4 to 1/3 of the salaries of government employees.




What struck me was the difference with the prices in Thailand and Cambodia (and even Laos although I've never visit a coast city in Laos).

When I went to Sihanouk Ville (Cambodia), we where in a nice hotel which was 5 min away from the beach (not in the front of the beach but just behind). I wont say it was top-notch but it was a nice one, with a silent AC and TV (with gazillions of channels).

And for that we paid US12$ (or was it $10?), less than 9€!


When we went to Siem Reap (Angkor, Cambodia), one of the most touristic city in southeast Asia (if not the most touritic) we slept in a very nice guesthouse with a wonderful swimming pool and a enjoyable decoration with a lot of wood and bamboo.

For that we paid US$34 for two nights (makes 17$/night for people who dont get along that well with maths). Granted, we bargained a lot, but that's the rule.

Noted it down if you don't know yet, "In Cambodia, U ALWAYS BARGAIN, about EVERYTHING"


So, yeah I found the prices to be, to say the least, surprising.

This is the part of the movie where having the right contacts proved to be handy.

Mum managed to find us two rooms in a company-employees-only hotel which, for this reason is WAY cheaper.

Ok, the rooms were just OK (actually on par with the hotels we visited before, but without the smell we found in one of them), but we paid "just" 15000FCA (22€).

I still find it expensive but it was the best we could find if we wanted to be just in front of the beach.


The stay was very nice (except for the sleep, the beds were not so great).

The food was awesome but awfully expensive. Kribi is supposed to be a fishing city and it is actually.

But for some mysterious reasons, the fish here is actually noticeably more expensive.

I wont complain because the food was delicious, just want to let you know that you better show up with 10000FCFA (15€) per meal if you want a 3courses meal and if you are alone. If you are more than 2 people(and if you dont eat like my bro and me) you might start to tap into the economy of scale.


We stayed there during slightly less than 48 hours.

It was a very enjoyable trip, and we had a great deal of fun (and some funky stories too, but its Cameroon right).


I wanted to include the pictures in this post but since this post is already quite long I think. I'll make another post (u know the one u just read above lol).


Click the blue "comment" link below this post to leave comments.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Song of the Day: Talib Kweli

A couple of months back I discovered an artist named Talib Kweli. It wasnt a discovery per se since I already vaguely knew him and listen to one (or maybe two) of his songs.


During my last "raid" on the music folder of a friend, which was a great raid during which I get over 40GB of music, his albums made it up onto my HDD.
So I gave the last one a try. The title is "Ear Drum". And I must say, this is one of this gem you wish you had discovered before.


Talib Kweli is a polically engaged hip-hop singer with songs with lyrics that actually SAY something.

As usual, if you wanna know more about his life and work, just href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talib_kweli">click here.



So here is a sample of the last album "Eardrum" released this year (2007).

The title is "Give 'em Hell" and its one of my favorites.

You can find the lyrics here (click only after u click on play lol).


I would like to quote this part

"Trying to get to God but ended up doing the work of Satin

Religion create the vision

Make the Muslim hate the Christian

Make the Christian hate the Jew

Make the rules of faith

That you condition to and to you gotta follow

And God forbid you go to Hell

But if you ever walked through any ghetto then you know it well"









The second song is from the previous album "The Beautiful Struggle (2004)".
I dig the title of this album, it's a very good and accurate description of Life down here.

The song, With Marie J blige in featuring, is "I try", I really like the beat on this one, but of course the lyrics are great too, so Press Play






I know the post is already long but I couldn't resist my will to add a sample of the lyrics



"Yo, the things I'm seein' on the news is insane

A stock broker shoot his kid and throw himself in front of a train

A mother leave her baby home for two weeks all by himself

Three years old, eatin' ketchup and mustard, cryin for help

Tryin' to bring your struggle to life

The label want a song about a bubbly life

I have trouble tryin' to write some shit

To BANG in the club through the night

When people suffer tonight

Lord knows I try"


The complete song lyrics are available here.


So what you think?

Electric Wires In Bangkok: An Horror

Since I'm on the topic of Bangkok city, I feel the need to speak about what makes this city's streets simply UGLY most of the time: The electri wires everywhere!


For a reason yet to be discovered, you dont have one wire, or a set of wires neatly joined together, but rather a hard to describe jumble pack of uneven wires.


It really uncomfortable to have one of those wires loosely hanging at few centimeters of you when you are taking one of these bloody bridges you are force to take when you want to cross a road (but I'll blog about it later).
You don't really feel secure, trust me.

Since a picture worth thousands words, I let you have a look.









Leave your comment by clicking on the blue hyperlink showing "n comments" (n being the number of comments currently on the post lol).

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Pictures of Bangkok

When people take pictures, they tend to take pictures of the most beautiful spots.

If you are in Bangkok for just a couple of weeks, it makes sense to focus on the Wat Po, the Royal Palace and other touristic attractions.


But I think that to really know how Bangkok looks like, you need to go beyond that.

That's why I've started to take casual pictures of BKK streets, to show a more "connected to reality" view of BKK streets.


So I've opened an album on Picasa which name is "Pictures of Bangkok" (how original is it? :D )






This is just the beginning, more pictures are to come.

So stay tunes

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Pictures from Ko Samet

And now let get in the heart of the matter.

First the beach, the sand is soft, feels like a comfortable mattress.

The water is crystal clear, I was simply amazed.


We went from Ao thian to Ao Wai and, WAOH, the beach was even more beautiful and there was absolutely nobody. So basically we had the entire beach for us.

Say it was great is not enough. I was playing like a little children.

Since I'm a good guy (!) I had a (quick) thought for my friends in Europe which are in the middle of the autumn. And then I jump in the sea :D (yeah life is unfair what were you thinking).


Feel free to watch the slideshow embedded below or click on it to go to the album.

There are not that many pictures, sorry I was too busy actually enjoying the sea,sun (damn where was the sex? lol) to take a lot of pictures.







Feel free to comment as usual ;)

Trip to Ko samet (Thailand)

I blog about this quite some time after the trip but I was a little bit busy working on re-creating a software ecosystem for blogging.



Ko Samet is an island 3h hours away from Bangkok.

The bus ticket is 178 bahts (roughly 4€) one-way.

The bus leaves you in Ban Phe. From there you take a boat to cross the sea.

The cruise last roughly half an hour.

The boat ticket is around 100-150 depending on which Ao (meaning Bay) you are going to.


The boat left us at the northern part of the island (we arrived late so there was no other option).

We had to take a taxi to get to Ao Thian which is the southest part of the island.

we were looking for a beach as remote as possible to avoid the crowd. And Ao Thian looks like a very good yet affordable spot.


The taxi doesnt come to cheap (keep in mind it's an island). We shared the taxi with two other people who were not going as far as we were but it helped keep the price reasonnable, understand 300 bahts (for 2).


Ko Samet is, as a whole, a national park. I don't know what exactly they mean by that but I do know that it reduced the content of my wallet by 400 bahts EACH (9€) just to get on the island.

The "trip" to get to Ao Thian is quite long especially since the roads are the worst I've EVER seen in Thailand (and also the worst I've ever seen in the world).

This explains why all the taxis are Toyota pick-up. And since you sit at the back of the cab you better be free of any back aches whatsoever (at least when you get in the cab)


For the accommodation we choose a nice hotel just in front of the beach. We went for the VIP room (yeah I know life is cool sometimes) with a very nice bathroom, AC and TV (pretty much worthless unless you speak Thai)

That will set you up for 1200 bahts (28€).

I dont remember the name of the hotel, it was Coconut something.




We ate at the hotel restaurant. The food was GREAT and of course quite expensive (remember its an island!). But I must admit the prices are fairly decent.


Overall getting to Ko Samet is quite easy, the trip worth it and for the pictures check the next post.

For 2days, I would suggest to budget around 3000 bahts (roughly 65€) if you are looking for something in the mid-range.

Song of the day: Raul Midon

Raul Midon is one of my last discoveries over the last two months.

Let me put it in a simple way: The man is a genius.

He plays guitar incredibly well and his has a beautiful voice.

Did I mention he is blind? More on him and his life after the jump


The song title is "Sunshine" and for me it is the best song of the album with "If you're gonna leave" (which will be embedded in another post later :) )








I saw him for the first time on "Taratata" a french TV emission on music.

I was amazed by his performance. So, although I dont like to embed videos (yeah not everyone has a broaband, high-speed connection) I think this one worth the trouble.


So just press play and enjoy



So, any comment?

A market on the train rails

Yesterday I was browsing and happened to pay a visit to the blog of my friend Max and I find these amazing videos.


Basically it's a market set up on the way of a train. Well words are not enough so here are the two videos.











Now a question: How crazy is that?
Feel free to leave a comment


Thanks Max for this one.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Song of the day: Corinne Bailey Rae

It's been a long time without any song so I know you miss it.


Today let me introduce the wonderful http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

I embed two songs which are among my favorites. Needless to say that the whole album is a gem.


It's for this kind of album that I bought my Shure 210 (will blog on them soon btw).

Listen to that album is just a wonderful musical experience. This is what i'm talkin about when I say real music

Ok enough talking, here is the first song: My choux pastry Heart






The second one is "Till it happens to u". A beautiful song too (and I mean it)






Let me know what u think in the comments

Funny thing in Thailand

While browsing, I stumbbled across this funny pic:







Yeah, I told you, life in thailand is full of funny surprise.

The Original post is here.

MAC Lover

Needless to say that since I have a MAC, like most of the switcher, I'm in love with MAC OS 10.4.9 (named Tiger).



No more bugs, blue screen of death (you know the blue screen you get when WinXP totally screw up). After weeks of use, it's just what an OS (operating system) is supposed to be.


Actually I came up with a slogan for MAC: "MAC, it just WORKS".



Another thing, are the ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) times I have when I'm talking with my friends and that they complain about Vista or about some viruses on theirs PCs.

Guess what I tell them then, yeah u have it right "Get a MAC" lol.

I also happened to see one or two weird .exe trying to install themselves on my MAC, I couldn't be more amused.

Guys, dont u get it, they are virtually no virus on MAC so stop trying lol.



Ok, I gotta stopped, I think that my friends can't take it anymore. Here is my 2 cents to them: "Try it and we'll talk about it after that ok?"



I can't let you without a small pic:




This is what I call real MAC love, what u think?

Back with a MAC

Hi back everyone





The blog has been in a sleeping mode lately.


Sorry about that I was busy then lazy lol.


And the browser compatibility issue didn't help that much.





Anyway the thing is: I'm back. Better than ever, with a sweet sweet new laptop.

Basically it was the laptop I was dreaming of namely The MacBook Pro 15'4 aka MBP





Ok, enough word, this is what I'm talkin about










































If u wanna know more about the "beast" well, just click on the link below

The MBP on Apple




And for more pictures, help yourself


The MBP pictures gallery