A lonely place

Saturday 11th Feb
13.33
The Mag Lab...it's oh so quiet...

Travelling

My friend is travelling at the moment and this is the lastest installment...dead funny so thought I would share it with the world..enjoy!

Hmmm, ever wondered whether a white piece of string tied around your wrist
that was given to you by a Lao woman who promised you good luck could
actually be some devillish evil-bringing curse????? Well, have you????

I have to admit that since acquiring this bracelet-from-hell, I have
encountered some scary, scary shit (and i do NOT like to swear!).

So, how does Cambodia fit in? Let me explain....

I bought my ticket for the 13:05 train from Bangkok to Aranya Prathet
(border with Cambodia), only to be told later by a somewhat 'helpful'ozzie
that i should have got the 6am ticket as the busses/taxis don't run you into
Siem Reap (where i wanted to be in Cambodia) during the dark hours. I will
have to spend the night on the border.

Handy!

So i take my train anyway and decide that i would prefer to cross the border
into Cambodia and spent the night THAT side in order to get the first bus
the next day....

But the train journey is HORRIFIC!!! Talk about 3rd class - i literally
couldn't sit down in the seats as my knees touched the other side, so i had
to sit into the aisle which was okay for a bit, but then a huge crowd pile
onto the train including this extremely...large...Thai woman (you don't see
that everyday). I knew as soon as she got on that she'd want to sit next to
me - and she did - pushing me to the VERY edge of the seat. Meanwhile,
another Thai is resting her carrier bags on my head and her arse on my
shoulder - yaywoo! Add to this the old French guy sitting diagonally from me
with his shirt undone, his feet on MY chair (his foot had more room than my
bum!), and who smoked 4 joints (at least) while the heat was so unbearable
that i wanted to cry.

The train journey took little over 5 hours.

I crossed the border - no probs - got my visa and found a pick up heading to
Siem Reap (yaywoo - no night on the border afterall!!!). They want me to pay
12 US dollars and sit in the back of the truck - I argue and end up paying
10 and sitting in the cab. This is still about 10 times as much as i should
be paying but i wanna get there so...

A Spanish girl called Ana joins me and then we are sat in the car for about
30mins - the back is filled with Cambodians, and there are 2 girls in the
front seat - Ana and i are sharing the back seats with many bags!

The journey (when we eventually leave) is meant to take 3 hours - it takes 5
and it's is a truly bumpety road - JUST potholes! It is about 1am and we are
shattered - the driver stops about 6 km from the town centre and calls to a
tuk tuk driver who says he'll take us to a hotel costing 10 dollars per
night - errrrrrrrrrr, NO!!!! I wanna pay 3 dollars maximum! Also, we had
paid the pickup truck to take us INTO town - we are not paying again for the
tuk tuk!

We argue for ONE HOUR!!!!! All the Cambodians sit patiently in the car,
saying NOTHING - just staring like scary robots - it is seriously odd! THEN,
the driver decides he wants us to pay him...um...we already paid in advance
before the trip - we are pretty pissed off as you may well imagine!

We threaten to call the police just to get him to take us into town - but he
lets us call them and we all end up in the POLICE STATION.

I was so afraid! You hear so many stories of corrupt Asian police - but no,
his English is good - we explain, then the driver explains, and after about
30 mins, we are told that ''the driver is no longer demanding that you pay
him''. Ana and i are like... ''um, thanks!?! - but we were the victims
here''.

Anyway, the policeman takes us to a hostel - only once we sign a letter of
thanks to the Siem Reap Tourist Police - and he gets commision.

Happily ever after.

Only 2 weeks left of this madness!

Love you all!

Laura x x x x x

Profile or opinion piece? You decide.

After reading a detailed profile on Donald Rumsfeld from Vanity Fair (2003) I can't tell you one thing I've learnt about him - which seems odd as the piece was meant to be a profile of the Defense Secretary. And no, it's not because I'm not interested or wish I was reading Grazia, it's because the writing was hard to digest, the language difficult to read and the main bulk of material boring.

Not odd though when the whole piece contains less than five quotes, one of which is taken from another article from the big man himself. Despite describing the setting of the meeting between subject and writer (Sir John Keegan) there seems to me to be no evidence of an interview taking place. Throughout the feature Keegan throws an immense amount of information at the reader, but only includes a very small amount of Rumsfeld's direct opinion and personality.

We are given a very faint glimmer into his life, instead we are bored with big words, complicated sentences and seemingly dull facts. To me, the most important part of the feature is towards the end when Keegan brings forward views on terroists, an impending war in Iraq and 9/11. The last page of the feature is the most interesting, the page that is placed right at the back of the magazine that you have to find, if you haven't already fallen asleep.

This feature would have kept me much more interested if Rumsfeld's voice had actually appeared as the result of a detailed interview, rather than acting as a pillar for Keegan to display his own knowledge on the subject.

I thought a profile was meant to give an insight into a person of interest. The only think this feature achieves is an insight into the complicated views of a writer on an equally complicated subject, with neither valuable information nor entertaining writing. A lethal combination.