Scotland Part 2 and it's still raining

It was a short trip but a happy one.  We took an Air bnb in Edinburgh to be close to the visa office, good food and friends.  We even had a friend from the US came to visit with us.  And it rained and rained and rained.

We spotted the elusive Deep Fried Mars Bar, I don't personally know anyone whose eaten this but it's certainly available for the brave or foolish who want to give it a try:

Scottish optimism was very evident in the tables set on the streets outside restaurants, cafes and bars.  Some of the popularity of this comes from a complete ban on smoking inside and some from an inbuilt aspect of the Scottish character that believes, no matter how crap the weather, that it'll brighten up soon.  It seldom does:

There were big doses of nostalgia. It's been ten years since we left Scotland with only two brief visits back.  Greyfriars Bobby is one of the icons of Edinburgh, a dog so loyal to his owner that, after the master's death, he set up a vigil on his grave in Greyfriars Churchyard.  You can see his own dog memorial stone inside the churchyard and his nose gets worn away by visitors rubbing it for, well, whatever reason they rub it.  He's on nose number two now:

We came back loaded with haggis, mustard, oatcakes and few other delicious bits and pieces.  The oatcakes and English mustard are long gone and the haggis is getting doled out very sparingly in the form of an IndoScottish fusion which pays tribute to both countries enjoyment of a deep fried snack. Haggis Pakora:

Vietnam, return visit

I've had a bit of a blog break visiting the old "home" in Vietnam. Circumstances meant that there wasn't a heck of a lot of photography going on but there are more than enough Vietnam pictures on this blog to make up for that.

It's the first time I've left India since settling here exactly 166 days ago (acording the the man's widget on his phone). I never know how I really feel about a place until I leave and return to it. Vietnam was entirely familiar, like a comfy pair of shoes and it was great to go back to old haunts and old friends. It felt good to be back in India though but I realise that there's a long way to go before I reach the comfy shoes stage, still, at least they're no longer causing blisters.

Laos

We had an amazing trip to Loas flying into Vientiane from Saigon via Cambodia. We liked it so much that we left a lot unseen as it's fairly obvious we're going to go back.



The architecture and statues are stunning, I filled two memory cards on the camera. If you want to see them all (and frankly I can't think of a better way of spending four hours than looking at someone elses holiday pictures) click on any of the pictures to go to Flickr.

Food is fresh and tasty, there are a lot of higher end restaurants in Vientiane and Luang Prabang but we honestly didn't have one bad meal no matter where we ate. Well, there was the weird sweet curry in Vientiane but that was par for the course because it was Stephens birthday and he always gets a dodgy curry on that day.


There were men in santa hats.


Around every corner was a classic image.


Honest Tourist Attraction notices



and we even found a bar dimly lit enough to feel seedy





The lasting memory though has to be spending two days with elephants. More on that in a later post. Meanwhile here's my elephant having a snack.