Piotr

[ I cannot give a specific link, but you might want to read "From Soft Landing to Hard Cot" first, for some context ]

Late afternoon, returning to the guesthouse, I found the "zombie" awake - seated at the room's desk in front of a laptop, wrapped in a huge set of headphones.

Piotr is from Moscow, 30 years old. He managed to get away from serving in the Russian army, and ended up settling on a job of climbing buildings.
The job had its moments - watching sunrises and and sunsets from the roofs of Moscoe buildings - but Piotr says this job can change a person's mind, and not for the best. Slowly but surely, you get to talk in foul abusive language and drink too much.

Piotr has since changed again.
He is just out of India, where he lived and traveled for the last 15 months. Apparently he picked up all of his English during this period(!).

As he says - he barely has money for survival now, but he likes the way "freedom" is changing his mind (and creativity) again, and would not go back to Russia for now.

He's a bit tiered of traveling, so he is taking it easy in Jinghong, trying to write some music. Chill-out music, apparently.

Back in India, he was involved in some Goa parties, so could get free accommodation, food, plus some pocket money.
Here, he doesn't really have anything, but he can see some potential.

He's teaching himself some of the surrounding musioc - some regional, Chinese and Mongolian songs - while getting himself some gigs here at the local cafes/ bars. He's carrying with him a local newspaper clipping that has his picture playing some exotic type of flute in one of these local gigs.

When he's ready - he'll head to Shanghai and see if he can make a proper living with what he likes doing.

Piotr helped drive it through for me. He asked if I came here on my way to Laos (which would apparently be the natural reason).
When I told him I'm only visiting here before heading to Dali he was quite surprised: "so what are you doing here? there's nothing interesting here. You should head to Dali tomorrow, use the extra days there".

Words of wisdom indeed.

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