In a rare, infact unprecedented display of solidarity, even my fiance agrees that the following is the most irrelevant and self indulgent editorial in the history of car magazines:

“This is a motoring magazine, I know. But it has to be said that suicide, no matter how galantly potrayed and noble in Seven Pounds should have no place in the real world… I have to say this because I know how influential movies with big names can be, and I know there are quite a number of folks who read this magazine, even the younger susceptible set. So again, suicide, however ‘worthy’ the cause is and will always be wrong. There, I said it.”

It’s almost a moot point that if he cares for the younger, more ’susceptible’ readers maybe he wouldn’t overtly go out of his way to alienate those who are in a bad place. Let alone waste valuable magazine space with his degrading opinion. I can’t wait until next week when he shares his opinion on gays and abortion. A quick reminder Top Gear, why do people read car mags? For completely NEUTRAL, unopinionated escapist romp in tarmac fantasy-land. That’s why. And with one incredibly arrogant and self indulgent, completely socially irresponsible statement he destroys all that, and any credibility his magazine may have had. It’s bad taste and completely bad form.

To be honest, I am very close to mental health care professionals and have recently experienced a friend’s suicide. Irrespective of both those points, Cheah’s comments are still completely nonconstructive and completely distasteful.

Oh and it gets better. Letter of the month goes to some local boy who tells some sob story about losing his girl on Valentines Day. A letter so pathetic that the writer basically states he wants his letter published to boost his ego. Perhaps this is down to cultural differences, but this was just pathetic. Donald gives him a pep talk and offers him a Teh Tarik (”pull tea” – a Malaysian beverage). So now we’ve gone from judgmental, to the ‘pussification’ (thanks George Carlin) of a car magazine. Not acceptable! Who reads car mags to hear about someone’s hurt feelings?! WHO CARES!

In the next horrid installment, Cheah provides a two page attempt at satirising apartment life in Hong Kong. The only link to cars being that he was sent there to see Top Gear Live. However only manages to mention how great the show was, of course. You can hear the crickets chirp in your head as you get past paragraph 3. It’s er, COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY IRRELEVANT TO MOTORING.

Given that Hammond and May provide great, witty, slightly self deprecating articles that always have a common thread about motoring, this guy gets two pages to gloat about how KL is better than Hong Kong.

Oh and in the piece where he’s actually meant to talk about Top Gear Live, all he mentions is that the shark fin dim sum was great, real champagne was served and you should meet his brother if you’re in town. This is barely an exaggeration.  Oh how I wish it was. And here’s the next installment in the Cheah gloat-fest:

“Hong Kong holds no fascination for me, apart from the great food at almost every corner of any street. It’s just too busy, too crowded, too stifling and too mercenary for my delicate and refined palate.”

This is clearly not the language of the common man, as I’m sure Cheah himself would be the first to point out. But please raise a hand if you think this kind of softness belongs in a tissue box and not in Top Gear Magazine. While the magazine probably things Cheah will attract aspirational advertisers like Boss and Hennessy, 17 year old Matt Hayward wouldn’t buy that magazine again. And 31 year old Matt Hayward can’t stop cringing at gut laughing at once.

Quite literally, Cheah was so bad that I had to buy another issue to see if it was just an off issue. It was worse. Sadly though I have to admit Cheah’s a decent photographer (albeit overseas), but as an editor and journalist, don’t get me started. Two or three guys wrote in (March 2009 issue) saying how the Malaysian photography was sub and par offering suggestions to make it cooler. Cheah simply refutes their suggestions reminding them of the great format the magazine has, then in a pseudo-arrogant-trying-to-be-cool way invites them to do better.

I agree with the guys writing in, insofar that there’s a marked difference in quality between the British sourced and Malaysian sourced photographs. And in believing that the world is truly flat there is no excuse for this. It’s just plain shoddiness. Frankly I think your readers deserve better.

Already this must be the longest blog post put here in a while. I could go on for volumes but why bother? ‘Nuff said. Let’s hope one day our Malaysian brothers and sisters can get a quality, non judgemental car mag without someone trying to float his own celebrity at their expense. Let us hope.

For 40,000 Lao Kip (approximately $8 Australian, $5 USD) we got a bike for the day in Van Vieng. Cheaper for a few days at a time. Probably more in Luang Prabang or Vientiane. You’d probably pay another 35,000 Kip to fill up the tank.

Scared of riding? I’d never ridden a manual bike before, but it was easy enough. If you have a decent sense of balance and can drive a manual car, then you’ll be fine.

What sort of bikes are they? Well in Vang Vieng, they were mostly fairly new Chinese ‘postie bikes’. A derivative of your standard, old school Asian Honda motorbike. They look dead average but they can really take a beating on the atrocious, badly rutted dirt and pebble roads.

Some are fully automatic but the majority are four speed manuals no hand clutch – basically an auto clutch. Bear in mind, these are definitely not performance bikes. You could probably ride around in fourth all day if you want! The one we had had a replacement value of about $700. So that’s the worse-case scenario!

Most bike rental places will get you to do a quick lap up and down the street to ensure you can ride. Make sure your gauges and your brakes work. Don’t take anything for granted here! Our bike was in great working order but we saw plenty that day that weren’t!

Finally even Vientiane just isn’t busy enough (at least by Vietnamese standards) to be what you’d call shit scary on two wheels. If you can find a Lao who’s gone over 100 kliks in a car or bike, they’re a rarefied individual. 40 kilometres an hour can feel excessive. Especially when you’re overtaking locals.

P.S. Laos is US style left hand drive.

Most people agree you can do Vientiane in 2 days. To be honest, they’re right. There’s no tubing, hiking, kayaking or going crazy. There’s plenty to look at though. So if you like to wander around and just take a place in at your own pace, then you will enjoy your time Vientiane. If you were say coming down from a crystal meth fueled bender, then welcome to hell.

So if you find yourself in Vientiane, here’s a few things you have to do.

• The Scandinavian Bake and Pizza House is absolutely amazing. Without question one of the best pizzas I’ve had anywhere in the world in a long time. Great for lunch or dinner, or both! Word of warning though, the spicy pizza is not being modest. Those unseeded Lao chillies will bite your arse off.
• The Buddha Park is bizarre to say the least. It’s a good 30 odd kilometres out of town, or about 45 mins. It’s an interesting drive past all the consulates, the Lao Thai Friendship bridge and the daily grind for the locals. Apparently it was built in the fifties as some awkward merger between Hindu, Buddhism, concrete and Disneyland. Hey I said it was weird!
• There are some grotty Vietnamese restaurants crowded with locals that will serve the best spring rolls known to man. Lao people do spring rolls too, but the don’t do all the trimmings like the Viets do, they just fry and eat. These restaurants turn the humble spring roll into a sumptuous main course
• Dodgy shopping. There’s not quite department stores here, but there’s places like Walkman Village that sell quasi dodgey clothes and suspiciously light Nike sneakers! Some stuff is clearly wrong ($4 Mont Blanc pens anyone?) and others very legitimate. You be the judge.
• Eat, eat, eat! Food is such high quality and so fresh here that if you can find a bad meal, you’re really, really trying.
• Don’t be scared to rent a motorbike. They’re effortless to ride and great fun. There’s traffic but it’s not insanely bad. I started riding in Vang Vieng, but there was no need. I wish I picked up the bike in Vientiane.

What NOT to do!

• The Lonely Planet guide mentions there’s a shooting range. Sadly it’s no longer open to the public. The sign simply says ‘close’. However they mean ‘members only. Piss off whitey, we’ve had enough’. It’s part of a sports stadium where it looks like heaps of local athletes train.
• Again the Lonely Planet mentions the Australian Consulate have some sort of social club. That’s only open to Embassy officials now and you can’t simply rock up. Apart from those two things, we’ve had absolutely no problem with the LP and every recommendation was a dead set winner.

Laos by and large was one fanstastic surprise of a holiday. If you have any questions, leave a comment. I’ll see if I can help out!

So there I was at KLIA and I found, the International Jew by Henry Ford – in both condensed and full versions. This is a collection of anti-Jewish propaganda published in Henry’s hey day of the Model T Ford, that I’ve never really seen. Apparently Hitler did though. Apparently he took some inspiration from these little memoirs of the man from Michigan.

While I wasn’t at all surprised to find such a publication in Malaysia (you should see the books about Malaysia in Singapore’s Changi airport), I kinda freaked out when I thought I subliminally saw a swastika during my in-flight movie on Malaysian airlines. So I stared at the seat in front of me ’till I saw something in the pattern. Lo and behold, there were loads of them (pic above is tilted right to it’s easier to see them). Very bizarre.

Look I am not suggesting Malaysian Airlines are Jew haters or anything, but this really weirded me out. Especially on a long haul international flight. So if you’re an airline interior decorator, just remember to check for swastikas in your patterns before deploying them throughout your fleet! Luckily, they ain’t exactly partnered with El Al Airlines.

We stayed in late March 2009, which is starting to transition into the wet season. Basically meaning you may get 1 or 2 hours of downpour max a day but within minutes, the scorching hot sun is back out again!

What is there to do? Well you can drink at the pool bar, the ‘fun pub’, or the main bar. There’s a great happy hour in the pool bar. The pool itself is in good knick, modern and quite pretty. They have a of private beach with volleyball, jet skis, deck chairs etc. Sadly the beach activities aren’t included in the price. Nor are the 2 or 3 restaurants which mostly get great reviews.

Getting around the resort would be quite difficult without the trucks that ferry you around. They run 24 hours a day and can even take you into the ‘Oriental Village’, a kind of tourist town with a great cable car and a small cluster of duty free shops and restaurants. More or less an extension of the resort.

Facility wise, the time of year that we went, the occupancy rate was fairly low. So if you go for 7 days, you’re more than likely to get an upgrade by default to a villa closer to the water. If you’re really lucky, you’ll get a chalet actually on the water. Our villa was meant to be 1000 Ringgit a night (roughly $450 AUD). We didn’t pay that clearly. These waterfront villas, with private deck chairs and verandas are unbelievably opulent. I’m told the occupancy rate was well below 50%, but that’s simply hearsay.

Worst possible case, you’ll get a forest view villa. These are mostly fully detached and brilliant, only watch out that the monkeys don’t climb into your room at night!

In short, Berjaya is pretty ‘up to snuff’. It’s well run and maintained and is not too kitschy. Not having done a resort holiday before, I feared it could be a lot worse. Thankfully it wasn’t.