Proboscis Monkey

Just came back from wknd in Borneo! I'm really glad I had a chance to see proboscis monkey from so close! It's so cute :)

Dirty Gold - California Sunrise

I really like to watch these nostalgic music videos where they use old videos from summer holidays reminding me of all the summers I spent in my summer house. Wish I had videos from that times.
I have discovered Dirty Gold just last week and I really like their music. Similar in style are Kisses with their Bermuda song. And of course Beirut falls into nostalgic music video category as well with Postcards from Italy - one of my all time favorites. These songs are great to listen to during hot sunny days when you're on a terrace watching squirrels in the garden, wondering around the house feeling light breeze on your back, lying by the pool, reading a book and looking at palm trees. Ah.... just great :)

Kisses - Bermuda

Beirut 'Postcards From Italy'

Laos

Chinese New Year (CNY) is the time of the year when you will find lots of tangerines on your desk at work, see lion dances everywhere and lots of red colored decorations, lanterns and flowers in shopping malls. If you're lucky you will get some ang pows too :) On 3rd of February 2011 the year of metal rabbit began. You can check the horoscope here;)
In Malaysia CNY means a lot of days off! First week of February had three public holidays and therefore I have decided to fly to Laos to meet up with my friend who was backpacking South East Asia.
I took AirAsia to Vientiane, capital of Laos. Basically in five days I managed to visit three places - Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang and Vientiane.
Vang Vieng full of wasted backpackers going tubing, doing flying fox and playing volleyball in the mud wasn't really for me. When we got to the river, my friend just said: Sodom and Gomorrah... hehe

Luang Prabang was definitely my favorite! Started sightseeing very early morning with watching how monks collect their daily food supply from people on the streets. No, actually, it started with tuk tuk driver trying to sell us ketamine before sunrise while police is still asleep. It was pretty funny :D

Luang Prabang is perfect to walk around on foot, see temples, French cafes and restaurants, views on Mekong river. The pace of life is very slow there and everyone lives in harmony. A really good place to relax and have some good food too.




Pictures from Wat Xieng Thong temple below

We also made some trips around Luang Prabang. First we took a boat trip with Mekong river to Pak Ou Caves, minivan to waterfalls and bear rescue centre. Bears were extremely lazy. Just lying in their hammocks and sleeping.

Water in the waterfalls had beautiful turquoise color!

Back to Vientiane. We walked around, saw some more temples, went to morning market, saw Patouxai (Vientiane’s Arc de Triomphe), had beerlao and it was time to head back to KL... I wish I could stay longer and I will definitely go back to see the southern part of Laos :)

St. Jerome's Laneway Fest in SG was rad!

It has started off a bit innocent. Light rain. We took rain ponchos distributed by the staff. Just in case. As it showed later on we needed to use them too many times... Ended up getting second round of ponchos. Heh, but I won't be writing about weather here, cause the MUSIC was the most important.

We missed the first gig by Warpaint unfortunatelly. When we entered Fort Canning Park in Singapore Ladyhawke was playing. She was really good and I can't understand why they put her so early in the line up. Followed by much less energetic Beach House. People were gently rocking to Beach House's tracks such as Norway and Zebra.

Yea, that's a picture of Beach House's vocalist, Victoria Legrand.
Actually I wasn't able to take pictures of all the artists as it was raining almost all the time! Including some seriously heavy rain that got us all wet and even rain ponchos didn't help...

The gigs I liked the most was !!! (Chk Chk Chk), Yeasayer and Foals. !!!'s vocalist, Nic Offer, jumped on stage wearing shorts and t-shirt saying "I ♥ Singapore" looking like a backpacker and started dancing like crazy. There was so much energy in there and I loved it!
Yeasayer was just brilliant. Crowd got carried away to their music.


Now biggest surprise for me - Foals were better than Temper Trap! Listen to their song - Balloons. Foals were the best on Laneway SG and the pouring rain added more power to their songs. It was epic.


To summarize my post, Laneway Festival is awesome and I will go again if I have a chance. Next time hopefully in Melbourne!
Below mud slide picture :D