On the road again...

Now look at what a good girl I am. I'm travelling Laos and of all the exciting things I could be doing right now, I have chosen to spend a bit of time in a dodgy internet cafe to type a quick blog update so all you lovely people out there don't need to fret and worry and all that sort of stuff. It's all good- I'm here, and I'm well.

The farewell from Australia was heartbreaking. I bawled my eyes out for hours on the last day. Which some people might think is a strange thing to do, considering it was my very own decision to leave the place. But oh well, considering life is not all black and white, I think we've got some serious shades of gray going on here, and a serious storm of emotions, I might add. In any case, I got over the first heartache, and as much as I miss the people and the place, I'm now trying not to think about it too much and settle into the travel spirit instead. Which is just what the doctor ordered for me.

After two days in Laos, I'm already seriously in love with the place- and I haven't even left Vientiane yet. There is something peaceful, relaxed, beautifully spiritual about the place, which touches my soul in all the right places. The people walk slowly, even here in the capital, smile a lot, and never seem to be in a hurry. When this wonderful slowness is being combined with the usual colourful, happy Asian chaos, you end up with a very loveable place. I love watching how the monks quietly walk the street, sharing it peacefully with a few heavily decorated tuk tuks, some old vans and lots of bicycles and motorbikes. And somewhere in between there am I, soaking it all up as if it was some kind of a meditation.

I remember now how the people you meet along the way are truly one of the things that makes travelling so amazing. I met this very inspiring, interesting and warm Dutch woman yesterday after dinner, and we ended up sharing a few bottles of the devine Beerlao until we were the last guests left in the restaurant, talking about travelling, and life. Today, I met a young monk who spoke excellent English and showed me around this fascinating Buddha park somewhere out of town for a couple of hours. God, I love travelling.

I had the most beautiful message from a friend on my voicemail yesterday.

"Hello Miss B, I just wanted to call you and wish you a safe journey on your flight to Laos and then homebound to Switzerland. It was lovely to see you on Saturday, as always, and I'm really, really going to miss you. I really think that you are one of those... I think you are one of the angels that walks on this earth. That's pretty much how I sum you up, my dear, because you are the kindest, most generous person that I know, and you have a heart of gold... it's enormous. And I'm really, really proud to be a part of your life, and I hope I will be a part of your life for a very long time.

I'm gonna miss you, darling, you take care and I will definitely keep in touch with you, so... ok, I'm gonna go, otherwise I'm gonna start crying. You take care honey, and we'll be in touch, ok. I love you, bye."

It's the final countdown.

Only 10 days left in Australia. Time to get emotional. Oh, hang on... I already am. But it's all good. Nothing to worry about. The being torn and being whole, the joy and the sorrow, the goodbyes and hellos, the love and the tears, the hope and the fears, the excitement and the worry, that tight feeling in my chest and the sparkle in my eyes, it's all part of it. They call it life, apparently.

Go away. I don't want a bigger penis.

E-mail spam is an absolute pain in the arse. We all know that. Some of us are blessed with a good spam filter (thank you, dear Gmail), others just quietly endure the constant harrassment of those who insist we need a much bigger penis (a 10 inch increase, anyone?) an online degree, which will finally give us the respect we deserve (particularly if it is from the university of bullshit.com) and a work-from-home job, which will earn us $2000 a week by just working 10 hours (why we are still stupid enough to work for 40 hours at a ridiculous rate is beyond me).

But while we all hate spam, I do have to admit that I occasionally find the absurdity of it all rather entertaining. All my spam goes into my spam folder, which I am eternally grateful for. However, when I do the occasional spam folder check to make sure no legitimate e-mail accidentally found its way in there, I admit that I often have a quick scan over my many spam e-mails to check whether there are any really funny ones there. Over the last week, I particularly enjoyed the one titled "Enhance your wicked reputation", which was sent to me by Malisa. She says: Your hot secret admirer- Pushing the limits of how large you can be. I have to say I do appreciate her concern that I'm not large enough.

I also love the ones which have a title starting with "re:" to try to trick me into thinking it could be a reply to an e-mail I sent. And particularly if the title is "re: Gaining inches quickly", that's a very cunning plan, as I often send e-mails with a title like that. The e-mail itself is no less disappointing: "Massive even when flaccid- Do not let andropause stop you, keep your hormones going with our herbal help." How good is that- just a bit of herbal help and we all can be massive even when flaccid. Love it.

Arick on the other hand sent me an e-mail where he suggests I give my partner "loving action" and supports his statement with the convincing claim that "new evidence suggests, results are true." Now I always find it hard to resist a claim which is as scientifically proven as this. So thank you, dear spam, to keep me entertained, and to share your real honest concern for the size of my penis. That's the sign of a true friend.

Let's have a bite of that cute puppy

While without a doubt there are many much more important questions we should discuss, one thing I asked myself the other day is: Why is it that if we see a cute puppy, kitten or baby, we often have the reflex to squeeze it really hard? My good friend Paula goes even further and wants to bite really cute things. I remember one time we were in the lift with a mother who had an extra cute baby in her pram. Paula got all excited and screamed that she wanted to bite the baby into the feet! You can imagine how freaked out the mother was. Before Paula saw her new baby cousin for the first time she said that "he'd better watch out, because I'm gonna bite him so much he won't know what happend to him." I was a bit concerned for the child's safety.

I'm not saying it's a unnatural reaction- I get it too sometimes. I passed a guy yesterday who had probably about the world's second cutest puppy (I saw the cutest one the other day) and I noticed how I was clenching my teeth and felt like squeezing it. Which really makes me wonder who came up with the idea of installing this urge into people. Surely, it can't be good in any way. Some cute helpless baby or puppy comes along, all innocent and stuff, and happens to be so damn cute that someone squeezes it to death? So sad.

My friend Paula the baby feet biter is Brazilian and I always enjoy blaming weird things on her nationality. But that still wouldn't explain why even us Swiss, who are known to be sensible, have an expression which literally translates as "this is so cute I could eat it". And we like to use this one for babies particularly. Maybe we are all just nutcases.