the last on Laos

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Today we made an overwhelming journey, from Pakse in southern Laos, third largest city in Laos, where Thai imports and culture sneak across the border, across the Thai border, to Ubud the nearest Thai city by a new international VIP bus. We went into Ubud by songthaw from the bus station for lunch, landing randomly in the middle of town and picking by default what turned out to be a very simple and friendly soup and noodle place where other patrons got up and recommended their dishes to us by shaking their plates. We went back by tuk tuk to the airport, and now we are in Bangkok for the night, steeling ourselves for Burma. Bangkok is a modern city by any reckoning, with 5 expressway lanes of traffic (each way) to prove it. We are in the Soukomveit neighborhood, a modern one on the skytrain, Bangkok's answer to the New York subway, where we have stayed in before. Steve is out with a friend for dinner and I just ate around the corner. As I type I'm listening to a party in the conference room next door, a thank you party for the hotel's agents. They are into the karaoke, old John Denver and Peter Paul & Mary tunes.
The travel today gave me time to contemplate once again how resource intensive the modern lifestyle, including mine, is. How quickly I grabbed a taxi at the airport, jumped in the hotel elevator, turned on the radio in the room! Pakse has 24 hour electricity from a central grid, but many other places we've been don't. When we crossed the border, one of two big differences that jumped out was trucks on the (paved) road. The other, only near the border, was the relative health of the natural landscape, which is not used as intensively, and the green fields, denoting the presence of pumps to move water in the dry season, and the fuel to so.

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Photos

border baskets
Lao rattan table tops at the border crssing

Pakse rooftop
view from the 7th floor rooftop restaurant in Pakse, highest building except for the former prince\'s palace

Bagkok traffic
enough said...

Comments

[judy]

loved reading your adventure
hi... keep those pics and commentary coming...a bit of homestyle travel. its great to see where you are and what you are seeing, all's well in Takoma Park... one day of summer, one of winter, never can tell ! take good care Judy