Catch up, LAOS

Wow its been too long since i have updated this. So Wade made it back from Burma just fine, got his 15 days. I finished Massage school and had a really great time, passed my final although i really shouldnt have, i still have allot of practice before i can give a good massage.. Met up with my friends Jerad, who i know from two years ago in Colorado in a spiritual retreat, we had a geat time going to a snake show, visiting tiger kingdom (you get to pet tigers, and no they aren't drugged!), a waterfal and a temple. I think i have seen enough water falls and temples to last the next ten lifetimes! the snake show was rteally cool, although i made the mistake of giving a little scream the first time they pulled a trick (he threw the snake but held onto its tail so it came within feet of my face) so they teased me the rest of the time. dropped a cobras body on my lap, let the snakes go under my chair and pinched the back of my legs when i held the anadaconda. We made great friends with the family that owned the guest house we stayed at and they had two birthdays that week so they got us really drunk and fed us. they were nice anc we bonded with thw daughter May and partied with her allot. They were some sort of red shirt leaders though... sketch. Met a great friend Steve who owns businessed in Cahing Mai and is really a wonderful person to know around that city. he let us stay in his fortress and treated us very well, I had so much fun! My visa was running low though so we had to journy to Laos

The buses in Laos are worse then Nepal, which i didnt think was possible. took us 12 hours on the first one, 2 hours on the second where we got our Visas sorted and arrived into Venten (sp?)the capital. We decided to take a van straight to Vang Vien and met some really lovely english people on the trip over. arrived in vang vien after almost 20 hours of travel and we were tired! Vang Vien is allot of fun though a serious tourist trap, family guy and friends play at all the restaurants and its pretty funny to walk past a packed place where no one is talking at all and they just staring stoned at the tv.. The attracting in the town it Tubing, where you rent a inner tube and float down the river. there are bars all along the river and they throw you lines and pull you in. basically you get shitface and sit in dirty water. Its pretty amazing. They have zip lines and trapeeze and water slids at all the bars and its really fun to go off huge platforms and bellyflop in the river. i went on one zip line that just had a stop at the end which you shoudl let go before you reach it, i didnt know this hit the stop and it flung me into a sumersalt to land flat on my back in the water. hurt! The next day we took a sleeper bus to 4000 islands, not the best plan travel wise but i learned how to plan better in the future. another 14 hours on a bus but at least this one had a bed, a very small bed i shared with wade. We arrived in Pakse in the morning and was directed to another bus station where we had to take a long tuk tuk filled with rice, pots and locals for 4 hours to the dock. transportation is really very trying here. took a boat to Don det and had a great time chilling in hammocks by the river and bike riding around the island for a few days. We then headed back up north ( the bad travel planning) on more awful buses, stopping in tom somthing to see a huge cave. The cave has a river going through it and runs for 2km, it was really beautiful but not as creepy as the guidebook claimed. Checked out huge stalamites ect. then a short 5 hour bus trip back to capital where we stayed for a day. It had fantastic food, pizza, bread, cheese, wine! the french colonized laos for a while so they have some good food. Then up to Luang Prabang, the "pearl of the orient" which i dont think was worth the 12 hour bus ride wich for some reason was so much worse then the other ones.

A bit on the buses here and then ill let it rest. One we were in a local bus stopped every 10 min for no reason at all, they then filled the asile and lower part with bags of sugar and rice. i was thankful it wasnt livestock.. a second one was totally filled with no seats, so they took plastic stool and had people sit all along the asile! i had a guy pretty much sleeping in my lap taking up my arm rest while the ac dripped wateron my face and people vomited up front into bags they just stuck in the asile. 12 hours of this through the night. think i got about 30 min sleep...

Got a little bit of infection on my leg but should be fine with some hydrogen peroxide and antiseptic. got some really narley bites on my back as well they look like some sort of rash thing. I need to remember to take care of myself here, i think i am resilient to everything and there are some dangers here.

Wade wishes to "convey to the public" that the cokeacola here is much sweeter then home... He is struggleing to find the positive in all situations and i think he might be taking a early flight home. Asia is a little too unorganized for his standards and he thinks he is catching every diease in the sun. travel can be really shocking to the system and the mind.

Im going to head to Vietnam soon and not sure he is going to join me. Im excited to see the war museam, i hear its really intense but educational. people tell me the people there are agressive but the country to beautiful and its worth seeing. I might tell them in Canadian...