Traditionally, people prepare flowers and perfumed water which is taken to temples and sprinkled over buddha statues. Some of the water is carried back home and gently poured on relatives and friends, to purify them and give a good start for the New Year. This all still happens and the Buddhist New Year is a beautiful time to visit a temple, stop for a prayer and do the ceremony following the locals. We also did.

A newer habit is to stand in small groups by the roadside, armed with a garden hose, buckets and water guns, and to pour or throw water on everyone who passes by. People in Laos usually drive small motorcycles, which makes them good targets. Even the majority of cars are pickups or half-open trucks, with people sitting in the back unprotected from water. If someone doesn't like to get wet, it's simply best to stay indoors. Most people don't mind, as it's part of the New Year and the sun dries everything quickly anyway.

In the gentle and polite version of the New Year greeting, people first wave the driver to stop. Then they pour a small amount of water on the neck so that it runs down along the back, accompanied with a cheerful wish of "Sabai dii Pi Mai", "Souksan van Pi Mai" or "Suk dii Pi Mai", which translate to "Happy New Year" or "Good luck for the New Year". If someone has a bag or something else which shouldn't get wet, it can be lifted up so that no damage is done. Especially elderly people were mostly greeted this way.

We as young foreigners on bicycles were naturally fair targets for all variants of the game. Often we got several buckets of water poured over us, followed by a glass of beer to drink, which we were expected to finish before being allowed to ride forwards. Children sprayed us with water guns, sometimes with water coloured in yellow, green or red. A couple of times we also got white talcum powder sprinkled on our heads. It was fun to ride around to see and feel the party.

When we wanted to play with water ourselves, we simply stopped at one of the groups of locals by the roadside. They welcomed us enthusiastically with an extra dose of water to make sure we'd be wet enough, we got buckets, a bit of colour to the face and a glass of beer, and were ready to join the team. So we also poured and threw water on passers-by, on each other and on everybody around, wished all Happy New Year and danced to the music. As for the beer, we tried our best to drink a little bit with everyone while avoiding to get too drunk. I'd say it worked out quite well.

There were also many groups driving around in pickup trucks, equipped with barrels full of water, buckets, water guns and sometimes small water bombs. They engaged in water fights with other pickups and with the teams by the roadside. Even a bigger truck with a several thousand liter tank of water drove around spraying water from a big hose. We heard that spraying water directly from garden hoses and coloured water are actually forbidden, but nobody seemed to mind. These were joyful water fights where everybody wins.

Officially the celebrations lasted for three days, from 14th until 16th of April. Some people started a day or two earlier, but 16th was really the last day with water play. Eating, drinking and dancing continued a day or two more, extending the party to a full week. Most of the activity happened during daytime, from about 10 am until 5 or 6 pm. In the evening nobody was throwing water any more: it was time to sit down, eat and drink with friends. Music was played at all times. In Laos nobody complains about loud music even at night, especially not during New Year. Still, after 9 or 10 pm most people went to sleep and it was already relatively quiet.

We were impressed by the openness of people welcoming us, even though we didn't know more than a couple of words of Lao and the English abilities of our hosts were often on the same level. In Germany or Finland strangers passing by would not be so easily invited to join and warmly welcomed to a party. The attitude of the Lao people was that shared fun is more fun, and everybody is welcome. That's something we can also try to learn from them.

Overall, the Lao New Year was one the funniest festivals we've ever been to. People were happy, playful and relaxed, having a good party mood. The water play was sometimes wild, but not rough. If we happen to be in Laos or Thailand (where the festival is called Songkran) in the future at the same time of the year, we'll certainly be on the streets again.

About 60 km north-east of Chiang Mai we came to the Bua Tong waterfall. We had seen several beautiful waterfalls a few days earlier in the Doi Inthanon national park, but Bua Tong totally surprised us. The water flowed down the cliffs in relatively small steps, which had a sandpaper like surface with a good grip. Children and adults alike were climbing up and down the falls, playing with the water. We naturally joined the party: a refreshing and fun experience!

In Chiang Khong we crossed the border over the Mekong river to Huay Xai, Laos. There we took a break from cycling and joined the Gibbon Experience, a one and a half day trip to the jungle with ziplines. Wearing a climbing harness and hanging from a metal wire, one glides through the forest and above the treetops. It was a series of exciting rides and great views to the nature at the same time, with the longest ziplines being almost a kilometer long. The night was spent in a treehouse, swinging gently in the wind several dozen meters above the ground. We didn't see any gibbons, but enjoyed the forest which had some magnificent giant trees. According to the Gibbon Experience website, the income of the activity is funding the protection of the forest. Without deeper knowledge it's hard to say how large a share truly goes to preservation, and how much building the ziplines and riding them disturbs the nature, but I do believe it's a more sustainable business model than logging and burning the forest to fields.

From Huay Xai we continued further east across Northern Laos. The Lao road network is much less dense than in Thailand, so we couldn't easily plan a route on secondary roads. Fortunately the main road number 3 towards Luang Namtha was far from a busy highway, rather resembling the countryside roads we had been cycling in Thailand. The population density of Laos is less than a fifth of that in Thailand, and only few people have cars. Heavily loaded old trucks and minibuses occasionally unfreshened the air with thick black clouds of exhaust while passing us, but the traffic density was low enough not to bother us too much.

The road continued to go up and down large hills, with beautiful views down to the valleys on higher passes. The surface was paved and in good condition, a pleasure to ride. The land was partly covered by forest and partly deforested, with mainly Chinese and Vietnamese buying the wood. We saw many small rivers, which were generally cleaner than in Thailand, probably due to almost complete lack of any industry in the area.

Both Lao and Thai people have a habit to burn patches of land, often to prepare a field but sometimes with no apparent purpose. Most of the burning happens between February and April, which in combination of the long dry period makes the air misty and dusty, like constantly being inside a thin cloud. It has not been difficult to breathe but we have certainly felt the difference from fresh and clear mountain air. We've also missed the blue sky, which will only appear again when the rainy season begins in May or June.

Roughly every five kilometers the road went through a small village. Children were happily waving and shouting "Hello" or "Sabaidee", often running to the roadside to meet us. They didn't have much but were laughing, playing and seemingly enjoying life. We rarely heard a child crying or anybody shouting in an angry voice. Adults were a bit more reserved but many still greeted us, staring, smiling and wondering why on earth were we pedaling all those uphills by bicycle when also motorcycles had been invented.

Most of the houses in villages were modest bamboo huts, probably similar than they've been for hundreds of years, except being nowadays equipped with electricity, tv and a satellite dish. Cooking was still commonly done on fire and washing at the village well. Here and there between the huts appeared fancier newer houses built from concrete, especially in villages located near bigger towns. Almost every village also had an elementary school, often built with the support of some charity organization. That was the situation in villages next to the main road. Rural villages tucked between the mountains, many of them accessible only via narrow dirt tracks, are apparently still less developed.

We cycled about 400 km from west to east via Luang Namtha and Oudomxay until Muang Khoua, a small town near the Vietnamese border. From there we took a two-day boat ride south on the Nam Ou river, finally joining the Mekong and arriving in Luang Prabang. The ride was very scenic, villages by the riverside only accessible by boat, fishermen, water buffaloes, small rapids, rock formations, sandy beaches and majestic mountains. Between the two days spent in the boat we stayed for two nights in Muang Ngoi, a riverside village transformed into a backpacker hangout as a result of all the boats stopping there. Despite the tourist crowds it was still a quiet and atmospheric place, having no cars and electricity only between 6 and 10 pm produced by a generator. That said, a new electricity line was just being installed and a road being built, which will certainly make a big change.

In Luang Prabang we went to see some of the well-known sights. The old and beautiful Xiengthong temple and the Kuang Xi waterfalls 30 km outside the city with idyllic turquoise pools were really worth a visit. After that we headed again out to the countryside and started cycling towards Phonsavan. The road was even a bit more mountainous than earlier parts of our route, making some of the days quite exhausting. Villages seemed to be a bit wealthier than in the north, but ironically the first time children came to beg for candy and money. It didn't happen often, but a few times during our ride through the region.

Overall the pace of life in Laos is slow, slower than in Thailand. Selection in shops and on the markets is smaller, there is not much effort in arranging things attractively on the shelves and never a push to buy anything. Restaurants are serving more basic food, which however is usually tasty and not too spicy. Nobody seems to be in a hurry to go somewhere. This helps also the traveller to adopt a more relaxed and simple lifestyle. We will see how the atmosphere will change in a few days, during the celebration of Pi Mai, the Lao New Year. In addition to old traditions of cleaning homes and paying respect to the gods, the festivities include some wild partying and water throwing. In these temperatures being sprayed with water is a pleasure, so we're looking forward to joining and getting wet.

A car came from our direction and started slowly driving around the elephant. We followed behind the car together with the Thai motorist. Just as the car was passing, the elephant turned and started again crossing the road. The car and the Thai motorist got through, we weren't sure and stopped. Should we get off from the moped and slowly retreat on foot, or what should we do? Fortunately the elephant decided to stay in the middle of the road, leaving us enough space on the side. Sandra held her nerves well enough to point the camera towards the giant and take the photo.

We started our Thailand tour on the 14th of February by flying to Bangkok and taking a bus to Hua Hin. There we visited Sandra's father, who married a Thai woman after the early death of Sandra's mother, and who is now living in Thailand with his new family. In addition to meeting the family, Hua Hin was a good place to get adjusted to the climate, to try out Thai food and delicious fruits, to spend a bit of time on the beach, to enjoy a Thai massage, to visit a few temples and to get used to the left hand side traffic. The trip to Palau by moped was an exception, mostly we rode our bicycles which we brought with us.

After a week in Hua Hin we spent two days in Bangkok, which was a quite hectic experience after the more relaxed Hua Hin. We cycled once across the whole city from the western bus terminal to our hotel, which we had less wisely booked in the eastern part of Bangkok. After that we switched to public transport and walking. Once we rode motorcycle taxis, the fastest way to get around and an experience in itself. Of the most famous sights we went to see the big lying golden Buddha statue at Wat Pho, but skipped the Grand Palace. The backpacker oriented Khao San area was a bit more laid back, including roads without cars, with food stands on the side and foot massages outside in open air. We also shortly met my old friend Phisit, who kindly invited us for lunch near his workplace.

From Bangkok we took a train north to Phitsanulok and started our cycling tour. We rode first to Sukhothai spending one day around old temple ruins, and from there through the countryside and small towns towards Chiang Mai. Now we are at Chom Thong, near Thailand's highest mountain Doi Inthanon and the surrounding Doi Inthanon national park.

Especially smaller roads have been nice and motorists surprisingly polite. Cars and trucks mostly leave a large safety margin when overtaking us — sometimes vehicles coming from the opposite direction have to cope with a much less space than we do. People are yelling "Hello hello" from their houses when we're passing: the smaller the road the more attention we gather. A few times we've got spontaneous gifts such as bottles of drinking water or a watermelon. Unfortunately the locals' English ability is usually limited to the "Hello" and we don't speak enough Thai to really communicate with them.

Daily high temperatures are constantly over 35°C, and the sun shines strongly. We try to start relatively early in the morning and find accommodation latest early afternoon, leaving time to rest during the hottest time and to walk around later in the evening. Hotels and guesthouses are mostly easy to find, and cost around 400 Baht (10€) for a modern and clean room with air conditioning, less with fan only. Two times we stayed with CouchSurfing hosts, enjoying generous hospitality and learning more about the local culture and habits.

Staying connected in Thailand is quite easy nowadays. Almost all hotels and guesthouses have free wireless Internet. And when that's not available, we can use our one month / 1 GB mobile Internet package which we got for 500 Baht including the SIM card and some talk time. Phone calls with Thai SIM cards are cheap too, even when calling abroad. Roaming fees are absurdly high, so our Finnish and German cards we're keeping out of our phones.

Compared to our expectations there was actually a lot of light. We thought it'd be mostly dark, with just a little bit of red in the horizon. But for about four hours each day it was bright enough to call it daylight. First it was an hour long sunrise with all shades of red and yellow, then about two hours of blue sky and after that a one hour sunset. Even at noon we didn't see the sun of course, so it felt a bit strange to see blue sky, sometimes with the moon in the middle of it. Taking photos with automatic white balance settings produced constantly more reddish results than the eye would see. Either the camera software was confused or perhaps our brain partly filtered out the red, hard to say. We tweaked the settings to make the colours as close as possible to what we saw.

On cloudy days it was clearly more dark, and the time one could easily walk outside without a lamp reduced from four or five to about three hours. Clouds also blocked the moonlight, which was quite strong on clear days. Northern lights appeared a few times, but unfortunately only relatively modest green stripes; no multi-coloured show filling the sky.

Another surprise was the temperature. We had not really checked any long term weather forecasts and were prepared for temperatures down to -30°C or so. That was indeed the case 100 km inland, but the coast is so strongly warmed up by the Gulf Stream that extreme temperatures are rare. On Karlsøya it was between 0 and -10°C, on some days even above zero. There was less snow than we had in Southern Germany in December when we left.

We slept inside a building which had earlier been a school and is nowadays mostly used only during a yearly summer festival. With more than 50 people the space was tight, but at least it was warm enough. The program of the gathering consisted of eating, preparing food, discussion circles, workshops, live music, singing, dancing and lazying around. Most of that happened inside, so it was good to also get out and go on walks around the island. That required a bit of attention — it was too easy to stay up until late night, get up late in the morning, have a slow breakfast and miss the daylight completely. Towards the end of our stay it happened to us more and more often.

One of our nicest walks was climbing on top of the nearby hill on December 21, the shortest day of the year. The peak rose to about 200 meter altitude from the sea level. There was a view over whole Karlsøya and towards higher snow-covered mountains on nearby islands in several directions. The midday moon and sunset over the scenery was a beautiful sight.

We wish all of you a merry end of the year, in whatever way you're celebrating it, and let the new year 2013 be full of happiness! The photo in our season's greetings card is from our summer and autumn trip to Finland and Sweden. We were hiking in the the Sarek national park in Swedish Lapland and set up our tent next to a small river in the wilderness, far away from trails and huts. Around half past ten in the evening the sky was illuminated by this beautiful arc of green light.

We spent also several weeks visiting family and friends in Finland. Mushroom and berry season was great so we ate plenty of chantarelles, blueberries and lingonberries, and also filled quite a few jars with them. At my father's summer cottage we spent a week renovating the sauna as a 65 year birthday surprise for him. We also had time to read a few books, but somehow didn't manage to update the blog. :-)

In the beginning of October we returned to Germany, in time for Sandra's best friend's wedding. October is usually a good time for outdoor activities in southern Germany and this year was no exception, many sunny days with blue sky. When not being outside we worked on a few more things in our flat and tried our best to get bureaucracy stuff done. It takes an amazingly long time after selling a business before bills and other letters from various directions finally stop coming.

During winter and/or spring 2013 we're planning a trip to South-East Asia, particularly to visit Sandra's father who is living in Thailand already since more than five years. But before that we'll see how we'll manage the cold above the polar circle. At least it's not only a camp - there should be some kind of heated building and maybe even a sauna.

The changes had been in preparation already for some time. Like most small entrepreneurs, Sandra had endured stress and long working days for many years, and felt she needed a longer break. One of her employees was quite interested in taking over — a perfect opportunity to give her the chance of running the shop instead of a much harder decision of shutting it down.

I had continued working for CSC from home after moving to Germany. From a technical point of view it worked quite well, my employer had a positive attitude and I was able to make useful contributions to the projects. However, during one and a half years the lack of social contacts became more and more evident. I was more motivated to study German or help out with simple tasks at Sandra's shop than to work alone on a technical document in the corner of the living room. Therefore it was eventually not a hard decision to call an end to it.

The nature around Halblech is beautiful. On the east and south side are the Alps with high peaks up to 2000 meters and a large network of hiking and cycling trails. Towards the west and north are hills covered by meadows and forests, with rivers and lakes in between. I hadn't thought about it before, but a location at the foot of the mountains offers more varied scenery and opportunities for outdoor activities than a place deeper in a valley between high mountains would.

During the first weeks after moving in we didn't have to think about what to do with our additional free time. On sunny days we explored the nearby hiking and cycling trails, otherwise arranging things at home kept us busy enough. Building the kitchen was the largest amount of work.

In Germany it's common that apartments don't have any equipment in the kitchen: there are only connections for water and electricity. So we packed all our kitchen appliances, cupboards and the sink in the moving van, transported them to our new flat and reinstalled them there. That was already the second time within one year, including a new variety of small surprises during installation. In any case, after all the planning, cutting, drilling, screwing and sweating we have a functional and quite nice looking kitchen. And if we continue moving often, we'll do it faster and better each time. :)

Now it's time to enjoy the summer - and to have a housewarming party next week!

The autumn here in Southern Germany has been mostly sunny and beautiful. In November my mother Helena and brother Erkki came for a visit. They had a chance to see how Sandra and I are living nowadays, and we got to hear how things are going in Finland. We had a nice tour to the Alps and a couple of nearby towns, including Oberstdorf and Füssen.

The last couple of weeks have been busy especially for Sandra. She organized a series of small product tasting events in her shop. I helped a little bit at home by packaging small presents for her best customers, but mostly it was her and her employees who were taking care of all the Christmas preparations.

I will spend the Christmas and New Year in Germany together with Sandra, visiting and hosting friends. We both wish you all peaceful holiday times and lots of happiness for year 2012! Our card is available in English, in Finnish and in German.

CouchSurfing has been publicly presenting itself as a charitable organization, but it hasn't really been practising charity nor been poor for a long time. The site has raised millions with a questionable verification/donation scheme during the last few years. In addition to maintaining the site, the money has been spent in salaries, free travel and wild lifestyle for a relatively small and closed inner circle of people. Criticism towards the leadership and management has been presented widely, including a a dedicated site and long detailed articles documenting the problems. In the end, after failing to get officially accepted as a charity, the switch to a corporation didn't come as a surprise. The new legal structure of CS is the so called B corporation, which requires a level of social and environmental responsibility, but it's a for-profit entity nonetheless.

I think the switch is actually a good thing. It's better to be a corporation than claim to be a charity. New venture capital money and guidance from the investors will most likely help CS to improve their service and respond more promptly to user wishes and complaints. And members are less likely to have false expectations that all their donation money would be responsibly managed and used for good purposes.

The income stream from user address verifications will probably reduce so CS will have to come up with something else. Sure, they may continue the verification business, but they cannot label it as a donation any more. My guess is that CS will sooner or later introduce some kind of targeted advertisements, even if they currently have decided against it. People are already used to advertising on many social networking sites, and 3 million registered users with lots of personal information in their profiles would be a good base to start with. Advertisements like “Didn’t find a host? This hostel in the same city would still have rooms available” could even be attractive for users who are mixing various forms of accommodation on their trips.

Another path would be to offer extra features for paying members. This is more tricky as people are used to web sites being free. However, instead of extra features there could be related services which require a company behind them. Two simple examples coming to mind would be insurance covering damages caused by guests (similar to what the paid home-stay site airbnb offers) and phone hotlines helping guests to find alternative accommodation in case they have problems with their host. Such services wouldn't make much difference for a seasoned hospex enthusiast but might make the average new member feel safer.

A lot of work at CouchSurfing has always been done by non-paid volunteers. An interesting question is how the new CouchSurfing corporation will succeed in keeping up the volunteer labor. Programmers and other core people will probably become paid employees from now on. On the other hand, local volunteers (ambassadors in CS terminology) are likely to continue volunteering as before. Organizing meetings and events and hanging out with other CS members is fun, and there's no reason to expect such activities would die just because the status of the main organization changes.

I expect CouchSurfing to continue as the most popular hospitality exchange site at least in the near future. Only a small minority will quit because of the change, and more professional development of the site is likely to attract new members. On the other hand, there are also people who will prefer to use services developed and maintained on a non-profit basis. I see this as an opportunity for healthy diversity in the hospex scene. In order to make profit, CouchSurfing will need to keep growing and make the service attractive for as many people as possible. Meanwhile, alternative sites could gather lively communities of their own, focusing on other values than quantity.

Hospitality exchange has been part of my life for about six years now. During that time, the total number of members in the world has increased from one hundred thousand to three million. It's already a huge movement! The growth has had it's side effects, but the core idea has remained the same: opening your home to visitors and being welcomed to other's homes when traveling, without any monetary transactions. It's simply wonderful.