lolamatopoeia

We finally moved on from Luang Prabang and are now in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Luang Prabang was much easier to get stuck in than we expected and I had to force myself to leave. We had been getting too spoiled there. We took an 8-10 hour bus ride through the mountains yesterday to get here. It was pretty spectular and I'm growing quite fond of long bus rides. It's nearly impossible for me to sleep or read for more than a few minute spurts at a time, so I tend to just gaze out the window at the scenery and listen to music. It's fantastic down time and alright for meeting new people as well. Yesterday I talked with a young Brit who told me stories about his slow boat journey from Chiang Mai to Luang Prabang and bed bugs and mayonaisse in tea in between reading his Agatha Christie mystery. I think an Ode to Bus Rides in South East Asia is in order soon.

Vientiane is alright so far. We stayed in a ridiculously overpriced hotel last night (200,000 kip for the two of us) because all of the guesthouses within a walkable perimeter to our drop off point from the tuk tuk were either full or putrid. We switched to a much cheaper room across the street this morning and are just crossing our fingers now that our bags are still there and intact. We're finding this city quite a bit pricier than others we've visited, but I suppose that should be expected from the Capital.

We have been impressed so far with the amount of fellow travellers we've been able to reconnect with along the way; we just keep bumping into eachother. Last night we had burgers with Lucas, the German student fluent in Indonesian and fetish films, after meeting with him again on a street near our hotel. This morning we also bumped into Gavin, one of the Australians in the tour group I rode an elephant with at the Elephant Village. It's a small world after all.

We went to the National Museum today and it was fascinating and extremely painful for me. I've worked in so many museums for many years and walking around rooms that are not temperature controlled, and seeing precious artifacts not enclosed in any way (just signs that beg 'Don't Touch' nearby), and gazing at photographs with undated and out of order labels stuck directly onto the print just made me cringe. It makes me want to get some official training in Museum Studies and Historic Preservation of Artifacts and just come back here and help them to know how to take care of this delicate history.

We plan to leave here tomorrow. We'll be heading South, to Paxse and the 4000 Islands for a while to do some exploring. We've decided to cut out the Malaysia and Indonesia portion from this trip since it would just be too rushed otherwise. We love Laos and we want to be able to spend more time here, and we'd also like to have more time in Vietnam and Cambodia. Trying to squeeze in two more countries there would have just been too much. This will also just give me further incentive to go there on my own next year. I must learn to dive! Alright, off to see about a bus ticket and to take some more Imodium.

I'm now sitting in a place called, and resembling a kind of, "Utopia" in Luang Prabang, Laos, overlooking the Mekong River. I'm listening to Lionel Richie singing "You are my destiny" and "All Night Long" being played through their speakers. I am happy. I am satisfied. I am on a lounge chair overlooking nothing but green, and straw hats, red brown rivers, green blue mountains in the distance lined by clouds, and I'm listening to gloriously cheesy 80s music being pumped through the speakers. They've just put on Sade.

Today is our fourth day in Luang Prabang. I suppose that I should catch up on my writing.

( Days One to Four in Luang Prabang )

Today was just an in between, kind of recovery day. The aim was to go tubing - the big attraction in this town - but we got up late (definitely needed it though after a long time in transit) in our almost too luxuriously comfortable guesthouse. We had to get a bunch of things sorted around town today and just didn't end up with enough time. We did, however, have enough time to book our eco tour for tomorrow - a day of kayaking and caving - and become extremely uncomfortable and conflicted about being tourists in this town. As I wrote earlier, this town is peculiar in that it is the most beautiful setting that I have ever been in but the tourists outnumber the locals and some of the people visiting here are kind of just assholes. It seems this town is set up entirely to cater to the foreigners - and unfortunately mainly to the drunken and disrespectful, party time kind. I stood on a corner for a good twenty minutes waiting for Bianca to come back from the bank and there were 4 separate bar televisions blasting episodes of "Friends", and two showing "Family Guy" to the tourists nursing their hangovers. I saw so many young shirtless and barefooted groups of men yelling curse words, swinging beer bottles, and stumbling down the street and several girls strolling around in just their bikinis. It makes me extremely uncomfortable to be here and a little ashamed to be a tourist. This place is so goddamn beautiful, it's just awful that it has become so exploited. We really wanted to go out and socialize and meet people today and this evening, but I don't know. I'm conflicted. I can't write it enough that this is such a beautiful place, it's just a shame about what it has become for the sake of what seems like babysitting drunk tourists. I don't know, maybe I'd feel better about it if I were with my friends here right now. We would be having a blast. This town makes me miss them. Or, maybe I should just have a fucking drink.

On our last day in Chiang Mai, we went on a full day guided tour of six different hill tribes in Thailand. I felt severely uncomfortable and awful about the experience. I felt exploitative and intrusive and almost sick about the whole thing. We were with a group of other tourist people who preferred not to speak English around us. I'm not sure. I don't think I spoke a word through most of the day either. I really didn't know what to say.

Everyone in the group took as many pictures as they could throughout the day - posing with the impoverished people, giving the thumbs up or peace signs in their photos with dilapidated houses and livestock. I felt horrible just being there. I took only a few pictures and just of the landscape and a bit of the livestock. It just felt so wrong. No matter how many people told me it was OK, it just felt wrong.

I bought a handmade scarf from a lady from the Karen Long Neck tribe, the first group we visited, because I could actually see them making the scarves right there in front of us and I knew the money went directly to them. I felt alright about that, but the rest just made me feel awful. We were driven from village to village and asked or begged to buy things at each stop.

I had troubles pin pointing it all until I started to voice some of my concerns to Bianca who agreed and added that what was troubling was that because there are people like us who are interested in seeing these tribes authentically then it becomes this kind of awful touristy thing to do where we just swarm in to these villages in our air conditioned vans and take pictures as souvenirs to post on the internet and buy trinkets to collect dust back home holy run on sentence. The whole thing was just gross. These people are poor and desperate and its awful that they've become reliant on tourists now rather than the actual fruits of their labours.

The rest of the day followed a fairly similar path - after the hill tribes we went to a popular ancient cave. It was well adorned and packed with tourists and opportunities to buy more things. I've been to caves before - like when Tudor and I went to some caves in Virginia and were given a detailed introduction to the history of the cave and the types of formations and the scientific reasons that we could not touch the formations or stray from the path. There were certain lights in the caves and different procedures they took to preserve the caves for generations to come. In Thailand, we were given no such introduction or instructions - we were just shown the beautiful gilded images that had been set up artificially, the names that some people had given the formations, and were shown the 'formation' of a Buddha that someone had carved from the rock. Fluorescent lights guided our way along the rounded path that a group of children decided to forgo to instead climb atop the formations to have their pictures taken.

The caves were just another example of the problems that Bianca and I have been experiencing with Thailand, but just most particularly on that day. It just seems that the focus is on tourism and making money off of something rather than education and preservation. I know that's a terrible generalization, but it was just our observation and experience there. I've got to find ways that I can help, at least in some small way through a donation or something, in the future.

On a much happier note, our day ended excellently since in wandering the night market we ran into the American and Australian group we had met in the back of the truck the day before. Apparently the Brazilians in the truck were a millionaire and his girlfriend who bought them drinks all night after we got out of the truck. They said it had been quite the night but that they had needed the whole day to recover. We chatted for a while in the street until we succumbed to a plastic table and a few beer towers on the street.

Why do we always have to meet the most amazing people on our last day in a city? Meghan and Tony are a couple originally from Seattle and have just spent a year in Australia. They decided to leave their jobs together and travel around and discover the world for as long as they can. They're a pretty fun and friendly couple and I'm hoping we'll meet up again. I didn't exactly get Tim's, the charming Australian that Meghan and Tony met in transit to Thailand, story. I'm afraid I was probably too busy telling my own story after I had a few beers in me. Tim's great though. He's travelling on his own at the moment, just coming from Cambodia where he travelled with his girlfriend for a few weeks. It would be great to meet up again during this trip. He's got the kind of personality where you feel as though you've known the person for years even if it's only a few moments on a street in Thailand. I'm meeting so many people like this on this trip. It's hard for me to get used to saying goodbyes. I can't get over how really great people are in this world.

After several days of non stop action, Bianca and I decided we needed a good relaxing day. We got up fairly late and walked around a bit to find a great massage in the streets where every other building offers massages. We found a gem though - a group for the conservation of Thai massage run by a collective of blind masseuses. It was fantastic. Painful, but fantastic.

We had to change into wrap around pants - I found this out after hopping onto the bed in my skirt and inducing a giggle fit from my elderly masseuse when she felt my bare legs. It was nice because we were in a very quiet and cold dark room with just the daylight coming through the windows. I was massaged first by the elderly woman and then by a younger man. Both were highly skilled and excellent (at least I believe so).

If you've never had a Thai massage before - and I hadn't - you've got to know that it's not like your average North American massage. It kind of really fucking hurts. I mean, I think that it's supposed to hurt a bit, but goddamn it. I could not stop whincing and moaning and twitching in pain as they pressed down in series of slow pulses on my muscles and pressure points and joints. They would give sympathetic sighs and apologies and 'tsk tsk' sounds in reply to my painful moans but it wouldn't stop the hurting. I suppose that I have a lot more tension in my muscles that I expected. That surprised me.

I think that I will need another massage somewhere along this trip (and I mean, for 4 dollars an hour, why wouldn't I?) but, to be honest, I'm a little scared to go through that kind of pain again.

It was something special though. What was even more special was when Bianca's masseuse answered her cell phone in the middle of her massage. Oh, and then when I unashamedly got undressed and redressed into my skirt in the corner, Bianca had to remind me that not all of them are fully blind, y'know.

After our massages we both loose and relaxed and decided to set down our things and chill out in a cafe for a while. We drank cup after cup of cold thai milk tea and coffee and ate Ritz crackers at the Coffee Bull where the decorations are dog themed and staff were pleasant and relaxed and the man who made our drinks spent his down time watching instructional fishing videos on youtube. It was a good afternoon.

We went to a Thai Cooking course on our first day in Chiang Mai, July 7th. It was an all day course run by Siam Rice Cooking School. It was pretty fantastic. For around twenty bucks we learned how to make around eight different Thai dishes ... and then we got to eat all of them.

We were in a group with some great people. They were mainly from the UK, with one older couple from Hawaii who came to Thailand to get their dental work done cheaply. One of the couples from the UK were in the midst of an eight month round the world tour together. They just came from South America. Another group of girls were also on an eight month tour but halfway through already. They started in Australia and have worked their way up. It was amazing though how much the one girl's personality just grated the hell out of me almost instantly, despite the perspective you would expect one to have gained from four months of travel. Her colonialist sense of entitlement annoyed me and she struck me as someone whose travels will never improve her personality or convince her that she doesn't need a full face of makeup and fancy clothes when backpacking. It's hard for me to explain, but I was just filled with a big urge to smack her.

We wer guided by a man named Pot (sp?) who picked us up at our guesthouse and drove us to the local market wher he showed us all of the fresh ingredients that we were going to be using in our dishes that day. It was wonderful, and I don't like using that word too much. We got to choose our dishes and later cook them in an outdoor, picturesque, cooking garden kitchen like thing. We cooked a soup, a noodle dish, prepared a salad, made a stir fry, a curry of our choice, and a dessert.

While making the soup, Pot asked if we liked spicy food and when I responded with "yes" since I hadn't experienced anything really spicy since coming here he made sure I had a total of 14 chilis in my soup. Apparently "european spicy" is anywhere between 6-10 chilis (most people put in about 2-6). Yeah, it was spicy ... but so freaking GOOD. I loved it. I didn't know that my tolerance for spice could be so high, especially here. I even earned some respect from Pot (who usually has 30 chilis in his soup) later as he chose to eat some of my soup from my bowl when he was hungry and needed some spice later on. It was delicious, but I had to take my time eating it. I think that the silly British girls though I was trying to show off at some point and got their noses up about it but I honestly just really like spicy food.

In any case, I think that I will need to have coconut milk and chilis with all of my foods from now on. It was incredible food and I was so stuffed. Also, sticky rice is the most awesome food in the world - and now I know how to prepare it.

We even got certificates.

On the way back to the guesthouse our group in the cab got treated to a video of Pot's synched to pop music of 90s north america girls in bikinis stripping. Yeah. It was the wierdest and coolest and just wtf things to see to end the day. We could not stop laughing, especially when the nipples started coming out.

We were rolled out the car and Bianca and I came back to the guesthouse to catch up on journals and photos and watch traffic go by and listen to techno beats being pumped out of the speakers at our guesthouse cafe. The movie Anaconda was being played on the cafes video screen. This trip is all too bizarre and amazing at the same time.

I was right. You were right. Yesterday was so much better than the day before. Thank you all for your suggestions. All is well with the world. I am in Chiang Mai now where I was woken up by what sounded like car alarms but was actually wildlife. I can see mountains from my window at our new guesthouse. I already miss the friends I made in Bangkok. I'll update with more later.

So things are OK. I'm adjusting. Being away from my everyday situation has really thrown me into myself and I think that the reason I'm having a bit of a rough go emotionally at the moment (don't worry, no breakdowns yet at all) is that I'm getting down to the root of my problems. I'm discovering patterns in my behaviour that I need to get ahold of and it's tough to realize and tough to change but this is something I need to go through and I need to do. I need this. The trouble I am having is that I think that I am, or I want to be, a much more adventurous person than I am. Also, I'm not an assertive person and, as the old Thai man feeding the turtle in the fountain at the Grand Palace (at Wat Pho) told me yesterday - I have to let what comes out of my mouth match what is in my heart. Good words. I am seeing great things and meeting wonderful people, but really this is a lot of a personal and emotional journey for me and I can only hope that the freaking out inside my head all of the time will go away and I will come back home a stronger, calmer, kinder, and wiser person.

I will update more with stories on what I am actually doing here eventually, although I am thinking that those may have to be backlogged from my journal entries, but for now here's a picture of the view from my room at Cozy Bangkok:



We stay here for two more nights and then we are headed to Chiang Mai for Monday. That should be excellent and I'm really looking forward to moving on. Bangkok has been excellent, but it is a big city and it is crowded and chaotic and I know that we can travel much more cheaply in other cities. I keep having anxiety about money because it seems to be flying out of my hands, although in reality I only spent the equivalent of about 40 dollars yesterday - and that was an expensive day when I bought a memory card for my camera, we went on a boat ride, and we saw the reclining buddha at the palace. Today we went to MBK, a large shopping centre, and I bought an extra tunic for 6 dollars. So yeah, it's good but I think we can do cheaper.

Also, the best way to describe the atmosphere so far in Bangkok has been smells in interchangeable wafts of incense and urine or garbage or delicious food and the sounds of Thai yelling and motorbikes and soft music and barking stray dogs who shit in the street. It's a beautiful and terrifying city.

We're saying goodbye to Rej tonight - an amazing girl from England who has been travelling through Thailand on her own before she starts a new life in Australia. She leaves in the morning and it'll be sad to see her go. She's a great girl and I can only hope we'll stay in touch. We've met such great people and I'm really looking forward to the new people we'll meet and the new things we'll see. I'll just be glad to be moving on from Bangkok because the rest of the trip should be fairly smooth sailing. I'll be in touch.

So I went out and bought a teeny weeny video camera (in black - they didn't have yellow in stock) today. I loooove it so far - but it's so freaking weird to see yourself on video! I've got to try to get used to this:

( Witness the goof on camera )

I'm super excited to use this little doohickey in South East Asia, although I've been having one heck of a time trying to upload the darn videos. Flickr doesn't seem to recognize the device's format for some reason (it's the Kodak ZX1) but apparently they're working on it. I've uploaded this one to Vimeo in the meantime, but their storage space is pretty limited compared to Flickr's. We'll see what works out in the next while. I'm hoping I can get the hang of this before I hop on the jet plane. Any suggestions?

It's packing time this weekend! Wooo!

So I've been stressed lately. Yeah, stressed. Here's what been happening in my life:

( time for some catch up )

I have got so much more to post about to catch up on things but this has become way, way, way too long as it is.

Alright, off to take the dogs out and then research camera staps and rain jackets for a few hours.

Oh, wait, I keep forgetting - it's my birthday tomorrow. I'm 27. I'm feeling very old. It's all downhill from here, but I can't recall an uphill. Maybe I'll just keep forgetting and hope other people do too.