The Debacle

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Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.

-Oscar Wilde

I was gonna go with "Tobias, you blowhard." But I wanted to sound more elite.

At long last I've returned to the travelog. There has been much travelling since I last wrote but I'll start where I left off. After leaving chiang Mai, I went down to Lampang to visit a college buddy of mine who has a job as a teacher. I spent about three days with him and met his students and all that which was pretty interesting. His class is kind of a joke, the kids learn a few phrases of english such as what's your name and how are you but that's about it. But that's not to say he isn't working hard it's just the kids take the class with the same seriousness I took spanish all through high school...very little. I also went bowling in Lampang though we were the only people there. I guess it's about as popular over here as it is back home. I left Lampang via bus to head back to Chiang Rai where I had to stay a night to catch the early bus the next morning to Chiang Kong, a city right on the border of Laos. When I arrived at Chiang Kong the next morning I was ferried across the Mekong river into Laos but quickly found out that I hadn't actually recieved my depature stamp in my passport for Thailand and so had to ferry back across. I got the stamp and went into Laos and had my temperature checked for a second time. There were tons of people lined up waiting to get their visas so I stood in queue along side them. When my turn came I was frantically searching for my passport photos and of the eight I had, found none. So I got out of the line and kept searching all my luggage (these backpacks have way too many pockets) and finally asked a guy if there was a place to get a photo taken. He said all I had to do was ask the visa people to photocopy my passport. And I was all like well why didn't they tell me that when i was up there. But I didn't say that and just got back in line. Had to pay like 2 dollars to get the passport copied but everything worked out. Then I had to get a ticket for the slow boat to Luang Prabang that everyone raves about. It's a two day trip, each day taking seven hours on this boat...that is very slow. So that all gets taken care of and I head down to the pier and get on boat 032 along with about 150 other people. The thing is there are only seats for about 100 people. The rest of the passengers were forced to sit on the floor which actually might have been nicer than the rickety (cricket) wooden benches I had to sit on. The trip was agonizingly dull but I did snap a few good shots. Not only is this boat a passenger ship it also acts as a delivery boat to all the little villages along the way so we had to stop every hour or so to drop off like 48 eggs or a dvd player or something. It took forever. After staying the night in a guest house in some little town where the power went off at 9:30 I woke up the next morning to get back on this molasses watercraft. Just as uncomfortably we floated down the river for another seven hours until we got to our destination. Luang Prabang is a pretty small city but there is much to do. First I had to find a place to sleep. I thought I might treat myself to a nice room after two days on the tortoise dingy but the hotel that said 40$ a night in the lonely planet guide turned out to be 120$, I assume this is because it was in the lonely planet 3 years ago and was voted the most "chic" hotel in laos or something. It really didn't look all that special to me so I just went a few blocks down and got an aircon room with a hot shower for a fraction of the price. There are some really cool shops here so I got myself a nice tee and also some gifts for others. Laos isn't as cheap as I thought it would be. I did have an incredible pizza last night from some laos bistro place, i mean you can only have so many noodle and rice dishes. My guest house closed up at 10 each night so I couldn't stay out that late but I had a few beerlao after dinner and retired early.
So in about 45 minutes I'm hopping in a what they call a minivan which to us looks like an actually van to travel to Vang Vieng. Apparently it is smaller than Luang Prabang so I might only stay a day there. From there I'll travel to vientiane, the capital and stay there for a few days. Then I'll catch a flight to Hanoi, I would go by bus but apparently it takes 24 hours and it's pure hell, and hopefully have enough time to climb fansipan before hopping on my flight back to America. So little time left I better make the most of it so I must be off.

"My veal cutlet got off the plate and walked down to beat the hell out of my coffee...my coffee just wasn't strong enough to defend itself"
bnm

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Comments

[Cuzin J]

Huh?!?
Joey Gladstone

[brother]

jiminy cricket
Your travels sound awesome - I find it hilarious that you were dropping off eggs and dvd players to local villages. The coolest part is that you are taking just about every form of transportation to get places. I laugh every time I check your weather and see that the forecast has been T-Storms and high 90s everyday for the past 2-3 weeks. I thought you said you weren't going during monsoon season? You need to plant a tiny american flag on top of fancy pants mountain.

[Stolper]

A place called Miss Saigon opened in Amherst last semester that marketed itself on authentic vietnamese food. The health inspectors shut it down before I had a chance to make it there. Bring me some pho noodle soup to make up for it?

[Mr Fancy Pants]

Mr Fancy Pants.
That's my Mountain. I agree, it needs more flags.