The city is charming. You can clearly see the colonial past in boulevards and attractive green areas. There is only a little traffic and pollution compared to other South-East Asian capitals and the only annoyance—if you can call the timid approaches that—are the constant solicitations of tuk-tuk -drivers.

Open-Air Gym and an International Film Festival

Along the Mekong river there is an excellent possibility for jogging and training in an open-air gym for free. It is popular among locals early in the morning, but there is always room for a few more people.

We happened to be in the city at the time of the Second Vientiane International Film Festival. We went to see a series a Burmese short films and participated in the discussion about the difficulties of Burmese film makers. None of the films shown had been aired in Myanmar because of censorship. According to the directors, the country lacks the concept of documentary. The festival was free of charge, but in the theatre there was plenty of seats left.

Expensive Withdrawals and Short Visas

There are plenty of ATMs in Vientiane, but it is good to note that every withdrawal will cost you an extra 40 000 kip (3,5 €) on top of exchange losses and charges of your own bank. Also the maximum withdrawal is quite small, two million kip, so if you are staying a long time, it is a good idea to take cash with you and exchange it. The best currency to bring in is Thailand Baht. Kip cannot be exchanged outside Laos.

The downside of Laos is that you can only get a one month visa. After that, you have to exit the country and buy another visa, or extend it in the immigration office, which is slightly more expensive. The way to Thailand is not long, only some 20 kilometres (5000 kip or 0,4 € by bus), but the whole idea of a visa-run doesn't make much sense. In Laos you can do it as many times as you want. Despite of that it is still a short-sighted business model that drives tourists away, especially when the nearby countries Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia, offer visa-free stay.

There has been some progress in Laos' visa policy, however. We considered visiting the country five years ago but at the time there were only two-week visas available with the same price (US 35 $), which was too much for us. We are glad that now we came for a visit, and it is also quite possible that we will return later after the rainy season is over. It is hard to imagine a better environment for writing a book or relaxing.

Not Only In China Or New Zealand

That woke up our interest. After China we have been travelling in Europe in France, Spain, and Italy, and met travellers from all over the world. We have been asking about how recycled materials are handled in different countries. Most of them did not know, but those who did told, that after recycled waste is collected, it is put together and burned for energy.

Europe is not an exception in burning trash. The same happens in green New Zealand. When we lived there we noticed, that recycling is a matter of honour for locals. Our neighbours were keenly washing their trashed, packing them to green plastic bags, and a recycling car collected the bags to recycling centres where the trash was put on display for a few months so that anyone could go there and pick it up if they needed them. Finally all leftovers, which usually totalled all the collected recyclables, were shipped over to Australia for burning them. “The system has it weaknesses, but it's better than doing nothing”, commented the local official who was responsible for the recycling scheme.

Cleaner Conscience Instead Of Nature

In Italy mafia is in lucrative recycling business. They make money disposing super poisons. The stuff is loaded into old tankers which are sunk to the sea. Less dangerous poisons are buried into mountains like nuclear waste in Finland. Near Naples they are also disposed to ditches carrying them to sea. The results are similar to burning trash: all poisons end up to nature and return to the circle of nature, because it is cheaper that way.

Do you know how that works where you live? How big amount of the trash you sort ends up re-used, where is it processed and used, and what is made out of it? Or is it just burned together with all other trash? A phone call to your city hall will help clarify this matter. Please share the information by for example leaving a comment to this story.

If the trash simply is burned, recycling is actually harming nature more than helping by tricking people to consume more, driving consumerism. In that case the only sustainable solution is polluting less by reducing consumption.

The nationalist party is exploiting Finnish racism. Most Finns are proud to be racists, but they do not reveal their thoughts publicly. Racism has been an integral part of Finnish culture and Finnishness for ages.

During the World War II, Finland was allied with Nazi Germany. There were concentration camps in Karelia and some crazy Finns were planning to conquer the Soviet Union and create Great Finland. Those war criminals were never charged and the atrocities have not been confessed nor apologized. Instead, Finns are proud of their war heroes, independence and—racism.

The positive outcome of the 2011 election result is that now Finns are openly what they are: xenophobics. The downside is that the ours what the voters are craving after, don't really exist as everything in Finland has either come from Russia or from Sweden.

Nationalism serves the interests of the elite like it has done for centuries. Voters are being promised a brighter future but the politicians will be the only ones enjoying it. Fortunately corruption and greed will quickly fix the situation. Or does anyone know any political party that has kept their promises and acted for anything else but their own good anywhere in the world?

A paradise for msg and meat eaters

There is not much else to do in Perhentian than swim, dive and sunbathe. It is a perfect place to chill out. For party animals the place is probably a disappointment as alcohol is not widely available and it is rather expensive. Just a few days before we arrived, the police had raided all the bars and destroyed one of them.

We enjoyed the peace and quiet. Food was the only thing that made us return to the mainland. There were no vegan and msg-free food available in the restaurants and when we bought toast—the only food available apart from flesh-flavoured instant noodles—fearless giant rats raced our chalet all night long to get their share of the toast. It was a sleepless night.

Good old island scams

Compared to other South-East Asian tropical islands, it is pretty much the same. There are scams when getting into the island. In addition to the jetty ticket, 50 Malaysian ringgits (12€) for return, you have to pay an extra 5-ringgit (1€) conservation fee. It is a government enforced fee. Poor Malaysia needs desperately the money for keeping the beaches clean. Despite our donation, there was some trash on the beaches, but not too much. This kind of milking foreigners reminded us of Gili Air in Indonesia and Jericoacoara in Brazil. Remote locations that require special transportation are always perfect spots for rip-offs.

If you go to the Small Island, don't take the offer to go straight to the Long Beach. They will call a special taxi boat which costs you extra. The way from Coral Bay to the Long Beach is only a 10-minute walk. From the Long Beach you can get a chalet with 20-40 ringgits (5-10€) with shared shower and toilet facilities. Not bad!

We had a chance to live in a Chinese neighbourhood away from the hassle. People greeted us in the street and dog owners stopped to talk with us. Because we were always walking, people offered us rides probably thinking that we are too poor to own a motorbike. Sometimes they thought we were lost because we were so far away from the touristy areas where the Westerners hang out.

Easy Living

The tiny island is quickly explored. Normally a couple of days should be enough for a visit. We stayed longer because we finished writing the Finnish manuscript Urban Nomads—Adventurers or Vagrants which was interrupted in Africa by the scamming landlord. We had a possibility of signing a rent agreement of a nice condo with a sauna, swimming pool and gym at affordable price for one year but we thought the contract was too long and flat too big. Now that the manuscript is in commentator's hands for some months, we are free to explore.

The weather is quite nice outside the monsoon season which is supposed to be from November until February. This year March and April were exceptional. There was plenty of torrential rain. On some days, we couldn't take our daily walk. The humidity makes everything grow mold so we experienced some flu-like symptoms like coughing. In Malaysia mold is considered an aesthetic problem rather than a health hazard. The marks are covered by paint. We are using vinegar to kill the mold.

Penang is good if you want low living costs and easy living without much excitement. That is why so many pensioners choose Penang. For Europeans, the visas are easy. You get automatically three months which is renewed with every exit for free.

A Deadly Nightly Hazard

Malaria mosquitoes are active at night. Some people told us that the dangerous time begins at 8pm, others talked about 10pm. We went to bed at sunset around 7pm and woke up around 5am at sunrise. At night, the most common way to protect yourself is to sleep under a mosquito net. The net is hanged from a hook in the ceiling. We had a few times some very well fed mosquitoes inside the net. The first one was hiding under the bed when we lowered the net and the second time happened when there was a dog sleeping in the same room. In the middle of the night, she jumped to our bed opening the net for unwanted visitors. It can become quite hot inside the net as it also hinders air flow and blocks the effect of a fan.

Another option is to use insect poison to kill mosquitoes. There are devices spreading poison all night long. All you have to do is to remember to refill the poison liquid, or change the poison pad, and plug the device. This means that also you will be inhaling the poison. The room has to be relatively air tight and there shouldn't be any screens on the windows. Otherwise the poison will flow out without expected effect.

The last night in Africa we stayed in Jollyboys' Backpackers Hostel in Livingstone, Zambia (see the photo). It was the rainy season meaning also mosquito high season in one of the worst malaria areas in Africa. We were quite surprised to see that in our dormitory of sixteen people we were the only ones having a net, which we had to go and buy by ourselves because the hostel offered none, nor spraying or any other protective measures.

Medication benefits only the drug factories

From what we learned from Africans we met, the malaria has resistance to the drugs taken in advance that medicine factories eagerly promote in Europe. That's why we decided not to take anything. In the best case, we would have gotten a false feeling of security and in the worst some nasty side-effects. Folklore is also suggesting that eating a lot of raw garlic helps to keep mosquitoes away. We did that, too, as we love raw garlic, but the only definitive reaction we received was empty seats around us in buses and aeroplanes.

There is no way to predict the malaria risk. We met many people who had lived decades in Africa without medication and had never had malaria, so there seems to be hope. But on the other hand, we also met people who only stayed in Africa for a couple of weeks and got sick right away. If you want to be on the safe side, it is perhaps best not to travel to malaria areas at all. Trying to avoid mosquitoes is quite stressing and no matter how careful you are, some of them will anyway bite you.

Santeri's Truly Unique Election Themes

There are many things Santeri is going to promote including racial tolerance, anti-nationalism, individual freedom, veganism, paganism, cutting down the use of motorized vehicles and equality. He is also determined to fight for downscaling the Finnish public sector at least 50% for balancing the country's economy, and promoting nation-wide downshifting with the slogan: less is more. Saving the world will save us.

We are not worried about the late start of the campaign as Santeri is fairly well-known in Finland thanks to his prior appearances in the high-level media like TV and nationwide newspapers, and his reputation as a tough and unyielding entrepreneur. We decided to let other candidates smear and knock out each other, and join only the end-game for the final victory.

Thank you for all the support we have received so far and please let us know if you happen to know any free houses near Helsinki city centre available for rent for four years. The price is not a problem as Finnish politicians are fairly adequately compensated and enjoy many lucrative means of income including election support and the possibility to raise their own salaries. A garden and a sea view would be a plus.

PS. If you have any questions or you want some further information, please visit the campaign web site for answers before leaving comments or contacting us. Thank you.

It is less harmful to cool down the overheated reactor with sea water and return the radiating water back to the sea than letting the reactor melt.

It is less harmful to tell to the public that the radiation leak was as nominal as normal background radiation and not harmful at all than driving people to hoard radiation meters and iodine.

It is less harmful to tell that the reactor exploded but the casing will hold than cause an uncontrolled mass migration because of the lethal fallout.

After the reactor has melted, it is less harmful to convince everyone that the reactor will soon be sealed and further radiation leaks blocked.

It is less harmful to tell people that the reactor seal is holding and they are safe than unveil that they are going to die soon because of radiation. There is no reason to burden their last days on earth with technical details.

Could it be less harmful to downshift and reduce consumption to better match the capacity and resources of earth instead of using nuclear power?

Why Not Every Day?

If the English language speakers would like to increase equality, the whole language should be fixed. Words that separate genders—like pronouns he and she—should be replaced with gender neutral words and in some other languages masculine and feminine forms should be removed. Finnish language has very few gender dependent words and those remaining are currently being rooted out and replaced with gender neutral terms.

If you want to celebrate women, why don't you do it every day? We have proposed the same approach for Valentine's day, which we have replaced with True Friend's Day. We celebrate it every single day of the year except on Valentine's day.

A few weeks a go we got an e-mail from a fellow urban nomad who had read the Finnish book offering to do the English revision. Now face-lift is ready, language revised, and the book has a new, typographically fixed layout. La Habanera—The Escape From The Rat Race 4th Edition is hereby published in our new electronic library.

A Trip To Memory Lane

When we were proof-reading the draft the content felt still valid. A few things have changed: we are no longer smoking, drinking, devouring flesh, committing gluttony, or visiting cafés and restaurants. We also prefer walking instead of using motorized vehicles. Everything else is pretty much the same. Reading the old text was a trip to memory lane luring us to visit La Habanera and Brazil once again.

La Habanera has also been translated into Hebrew by Noam. So far the book has attracted hundreds of thousands of readers and it is the most popular book we have written. We would like to thank everyone who has volunteered to help, Tomi for making the English language revision and everyone who have sent us feedback about the book or read it. Thank you so much for your support and please let us know if there is anything we can do for you.