Muang Ngoi: Wait, you mean to tell me that maybe I've been somewhere Facebook hasn't?

So as the sketchiest vehicle ride of my life commenced, one of the most beautiful did, as well. You have to understand this fact about Laos though - the infrastructure outside of the few cities that do exist is severely limited. The major highways are sometimes barely paved, and felt through a completely outmoded minibus, was sure to leave us sore all over.

The ride continued on, as we stumbled through "real" Lao villages. It was impossible to avoid noticing the differences between Luang Prabang and the wood huts along the roadside. By far the most poverty I'd ever seen. But that said, and this was something I continued to notice throughout my stay in Laos, is that everybody seemed to be happy. Through all the crap Laos has gone through, and continues to go through, her people seem to be pretty happy, and seem to enjoy the happy parts of life. Pretty inspiring stuff. :)

So we finally stopped to take a pee break at the first even small town we had passed, two hours after leaving LP. Except we couldn't find a bathroom. Even a talk with the locals, in which I had to fake unzip my pants in order to get my point across the language barrier. Eventually one rider, Gabe, and I found a gueshouse, but it seemed deserted, so we walked around the back. Finally, we found a couple rooms open, and seized the moment. Then a guy came out from somewhere else and pointed Gabe, our watchman, in the direction of the actual bathroom, right after I had come out of what I soon found out to be this guy's room, and the girl was still inside the other room.

Bladders relieved, we got back into the car and drove off, but not before a picture of backpacker bb!

We finally saw a sign suggesting that Nong Khiaw was nearby, when all of a sudden the driver stopped by a crowd of school kids. We picked up from the hand motions, that the lady with her infant child was trying to convince the driver that we should pick up all these kids and take them to Nong Khiaw. This propopsition was of course perfectly ludicrous, since our minibus was already just about full. But it became obvious that an unknown amount of kids were going to join our bus...and then the lady and her infant get off the bus in the middle of the street to make room for some kids. Completely bewildered, we drive off, now completely squushed, but fortunately not very far from Nong Khiaw. We later found out that this lady was the driver's wife. I assume he picked her up later.

So now our bus looked like this, for the last few minutes into the small town of Nong Khiaw (yes, there is an empty seat, as one Lao girl had gotten off at her destination:

So we made it to Nong Khiaw with a little time to spare for the 2:00 boat to the small village of Muang Ngoi. After desparately searching for the dock as the minutes counted down, we found out the boat left at 2:30, and we settled down a bit. We tried to eat lunch, but kinda failed on time, and had to jump down to the boat, and Jesse got his rice to go.

I was less than thrilled to have to sit on a cramped wooden boat that looked like it would sink at any moment, especially with a bunch of people piled into it, but we knew the boat ride was in theory only about two hours long, so I figured I could tough it out. I mean seriously, how often do you get to take a boat ride through the Jungle of Laos? Also, Muang Ngoi is ONLY accessible by boat.

Other than the loud motor, though, the trip was fairly comfortable, as the boat wasn't entirely full (so we had some room to stretch out), and we were pretty much enthralled by the scenery. OK, well maybe Jesse had a little nap first:

No but really, check out the scenery:

There's more pictures, but I can't put them all here - look for them on Facebook someday soon, I hope :)

So anyway, after about 90 minutes, we approached the village of Muang Ngoi. But how to describe Muang Ngoi briefly? Muang Ngoi is a Lao village that became an actual tourist destination, and seemed to gain some wealth by in large part switching the village economy to promoting touristry, and becoming somewhat of a tourist town. But despite the obvious touristy-ness, it's still a Lao village two hundred miles from anywhere only accessible by boat.

Oh, and did I mention they only get electricity 3 hours a day? (6-9 PM)

We wanted to stay at a guesthouse overlooking the riverside, but they were all booked, so we ended up choosing some random place in some back alley away from the "main drag". And when I say main drag, I mean this:

And when I say back alley, I mean this:

And when I say some random place, crap, I forgot to take a picture of the room. Basically, it was very rustic, with a mosquito net (which had a hole, oops), and a rather old bed, and a bathroom with some very icy water. But hey, it cost us $7.50 for two rooms for a night. And after a quick walk through town, a short visit to the village wat, and a touristy dinner on the riverside, we got to hang out with two of the guesthouse's owner's family members, who went by J and V. J was quite the entrepreneur, who had picked up an amazing amount of English just from talking to tourists. He was upfront when he said he didn't go to university because his mom couldn't afford it, but did inform us that his younger brother (V), who didn't speak much English, was already accepted to university in Luang Prabang. V was in the same boat as so many of us in the states - when asked what he wanted to study, he sheepishly shrugged and said he had no idea.

So there we were drinking some Beerlao, and then J wanted to know if I had any American music. So in short order, I'd given him about 7 rock/metal songs, and we were blasting Japanese metal in a Laotian village.

J had really been trying to sell us on a trek, as trekking is one of the main activities to do in Northern Laos. As it turned out, our limited amount of time in the country precluded us from any such undertakings, but finally he convinced Jesse that we should wake up at the crack of dawn for a mini trek up to see the view of the village. Gabe and I were less than enthralled about waking up at 6, when the boat left for Nong Khiaw at 8 AM. But J assured us that there was another boat at 9:30. In the end he and Jesse convinced us. But what really clinched it was that it was only now that we learned the power went off at 9 PM. 9 PM bedtime, 6 AM wakeup...well that's plenty of sleep! Gabe and I actually played a game of Scrabble in the moonlight before heading off to bed.

And sleep did come. And fortunately, mosquitos did not. But we didn't count on another epic slayer of sleep. Or like hundreds of them. 3 AM...enter...THE ROOSTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RARRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The roosters started crowing, and by God, they never shut up. It was a chorus of hundreds of roosters crowing for hours on end. It was almost kind of hilarious. Fortunately, I was tired enough that I managed to fall back asleep for a couple hours, before finally giving up hope at about 5:30 - which was fine, because I'd already gotten almost 8 hours of sleep, and quite frankly felt good.

So we met J outside and started out mini-trek. After weaving our way out of the village, we started up a path. And I use the word path very loosely, as the path seemed to soon go up more vertically than it did horizontally. Soon it was mostly stepping from boulder to boulder, with the occasional bamboo ladder to climb up, with nothing really to support you, except your own will to persevere. I'm actually vaguely surprised that I survived. But then we got to the view of the river, and it was all worth it.

And we journeyed a bit more to see the view of the village. And then it was another one of those moments of pure awesomeness. The whole village was spread out before us, flanked by the river, and surrounded by the mountains. It was a view I suspect few people ever get to see, completely one of a kind. It was one of my favorite moments of the trip.

But the hour was getting late - we're talking 8 AM here, folks. So we had to somehow get back down this same trail - an equally daunting task. Somehow we all remained intact, and hustled back to the guesthouse. Before we left, we asked J if he had facebook or anything, so we could keep in touch. And wouldn't you know it, he had never heard of Facebook. And his family did have some sort of internet access, as their guesthouse has an email address. No Facebook??? !!! ??? !!! It was sort of a reinforcing fact that we were almost as isolated as you could possible get - so far off the map, so hard to reach, that things are completely different here. We were in a rush, so I didn't have all that much time to think about it, but it sort of summed up the entire experience of visiting this village. And keep in mind, Muang Ngoi is a touristified village, so I can only imagine what other villages are like (unfortunately we had no time to visit any others).

Before running off to catch our boat, we took a picture with J. I bet he's gonna do just fine for himself - the savvy entrepreneur would just strut through town, and you could tell he was well respected around the village.

Back up at the viewpoint, J explained to us that Muang Ngoi would soon be getting a road. As we boarded the boat, we asked each other: what will be the fate of this town? what is it's future? I don't think I'll be back to Muang Ngoi anytime soon, but I will watch from the eyes of wikitravel what happens to this little village. I suspect it will be fascinating. And then, what village will be the next Muang Ngoi?

Anyway, we got back on the boat to head back to Nong Khiaw. This boat was much older, and much more crowded. I was honestly a bit spooked, but we made it back downriver to Nong Khiaw in an hour. I wasn't really looking forward to another minibus ride, but it was better than those damn wood panels. And before I know it, I'm sitting on another boat bound for Luang Prabang. 7 long aching hours away.

It was 7 hours of beautiful scenery, but it was 7 hours of stiffness, awkward positions, and sweat. As I was telling Gabe midway through the boat ride, it was totally painful then, but as soon as we made it back to LP, I knew I'd be glad I did it. And that's exactly how I feel. But I'm getting sore just thinking about it...oh wait no, that's because I just walked all over Hong Kong today, and am about to board my 12 hour flight home to SFO. moar motrin naoooo.

Fortunately we did get one break in the middle of the ride. There were too many rapids, so we all had to get out and walk along the riverbank until we could get back on the boat. And then we finished the remaining hours of soreness. But eventually we met up with the Mekong, and eventually Luang Prabang slowly crept into sight. Getting off that boat was, I won't lie, incredibly satisfying.

I actually don't have many pictures from this boat ride because my camera batteries ran out, but the scenery was much like the prior boat rides - breathtaking and awe inspiring. If you should ever find yourself in that part of the world, please do yourself a favor, and boat up to Muang Ngoi. One final offering of the scenery, for now:

We checked back into the guesthouse, and then ambled over to the main road. We were too tired to explore too much, so we went to a tourist place on the main road...and were pleasantly surprised at how good the food was. It was actually really good.

And then we went home. And went right to sleep. We'd though about leaving for Phonsavan the next day, but it was clear we needed to sleep in, and we had one extra day to spare in Laos, so we decided to allocate it to exploring Luang Prabang. And that is where the next entry will pick up.

Luang Prabang Part 1 - What to make of it?

Landing in Laos was the start of the last "main" part of the trip. It became obvious as soon as we landed that this was a very different country from anywhere else I'd been. Yet as we drove into the town, it seemed oddly...wealthy. This was a constant source of confusion for us, despite the knowledge that Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage City. My guess is that a fair amount of money is pumped into this city because of this status, and as a result, the country's widespread poverty is unseen in this tourist town.

We checked into our guesthouse, and went to look for some food. We ended up at a tourist restaurant overlooking the Mekong river. We ordered a bunch of dishes, and they were all solid, but not overwhelmingly awesome. Afterwards, we went back to the guesthouse to plot our next day, in which we hoped to overnight up north. Walking around town, we found out that the 100 Waterfalls tour was not only a ripoff, but took up way too much time, so we quashed that idea quickly. However a new idea surfaced, and you'll hear about that idea in the next entry. After we booked some transportation for the next day, we went to the main wat, in order to watch the sunset over the Mekong. Despite being overrun by tourists, we were treated to a magnificent sunset, and a fantastic view of Luang Prabang town. From here, we could see the "rest of the town"; that is, the part which wasn't all touristy. We vowed to explore it later.

From here, it became dinner time. We were all in agreement that we wanted to stay off the main drag, so we walked. We made a few turns. And then walked a few blocks. And then a few more. And it became less touristy, and more local. But we weren't finding anything. We were about to turn back, when all of a sudden we came across what appeared to be a hot pot restaurant on a swamp. Bingo! We figured this was it, so we sat down and ordered a huge heaping plate of meat. It wasn't traditional hot pot; rather, you put a cube of pork fat on the grill in the center, and then put broth around the side of the grill. You cooked veggies and noodles in the broth, and grilled meat on the grill.

This meal also marked the first liters of the Lao national pastime of drinking Beerlao. And I have to say, it wasn't all that bad. Now once I was made aware that the cmpany actually sanitizes and reuses empty Beerlao bottles, I was a bit sketched out, but beer is beer, and Laos is a communist country, so your options are limited. Jesse and I took down a bunch of Beerlao which led to superior picture taking skills like, and Gabe became the grill master.

So we finish this gigantic plate of food, and then Gabe wondered if we should get some more. Long story short, before an incredulous Jesse's eyes, Gabe and I proceeded to order a second gigantic plate of meats...and we devoured it.

It was definitely one of the besr meals of the trip because it was just one of those moments (er two hours) where everything was just in perfect harmony - at a local joint on a swamp on some random street in Northern Laos.

Afterwards, after inadvertantly getting ripped off by a tuktuk driver due to the launggae barrier for a grand total of like 25 cents, we walked through the market, basking in the glow of our surprising dinner success. I picked up a Beerlao t-shirt, and then we headed back to retire for the night. We were all exhausted (Jesse and I were still recovering from Causeway), and the next morning was to be an early one as we journeyed off still more north into the depths of what we would soon find to be a breathtakingly beautiful country.

I don't like buzzed pictures of myself much, so this mid tuk-tuk ride picture was actually a totally fine effort on my part.

And the next morning, we were picked up by a minibus already full of people going to our transfer point (Nong Khiaw), as well as Phonsavan, our future destination a few days down the road. And then more people got in. And then our baggage was moved to the roof because MORE PEOPLE GOT IN. And we couldn't figure out why we all were in the same minibus if we had different destinations...and then, an hour after getting into the minibus a mere three miles away, we showed up at the bus station. The journey hadn't even begun. Welcome to transportation in a country with almost no infrastructure...to be continued.

Exhaustion

Thanks Blogspot, for thinking that because Vientiane is so close to Thailand, that clearly I must want the website back in Thai again.

Anyway, I'm sorry I've fallen so far behind on blogging. I figured this would happen - when you're super busy having one of the best months of your life, sitting down and writing a lot isn't all that easy. <train ride>

So I've been away now for about a month. And yes, it's been incredible. But as I thought would happen, I'm starting to get exhausted. Sleeping in different beds, with pillows I can't adjust to well, bus rides, boat rides, early mornings, late nights, upset stomachs etc...I'm just running out of steam. I've noticed it in the past week, especially in that I've been going to bed before 11 PM every night. I'm still having just as much fun as when I got to SE Asia (if not more), but I'm just running out of energy.

I'm actually thrilled that I've gotten this far into the trip. I knew 5 weeks would be a large undertaking, but I think I've gotten much more out of this trip by going for a more extended period of time. But all that said, damn am I tired.

As a quick update:

- Afternoon in Vientiane (Hungry Burger!)
- Train(?) to Bangkok overnight - blog a bunch, I hope!
- Fly to Manila tomorrow - 2.5 days there.
- Day in HK
- Fly home

its 10:13 AM, and I want to sleep. But don't get me wrong - I'm still enjoying myself and so thrilled with all I have done in the last month, and will continue to do these last 5 days in Asia. :)

For now, we're just waiting to hear if we got train tickets. If not? Plan B. What is Plan B? probably another mini bus...

Johor Bahru and Singapore – So Close, yet So Far.

So I wrote part of this entry a few days ago too – and yet I’m just finishing it now. Needless to say, we’ve been incredibly busy. But to thank you for dealing with my tardiness in posting, please accept this entry, filled with pictures! :D

I feel so bad for everybody on this flight. I feel worse for myself, since I am closest to who is undoubtedly the loudest, most annoying baby on the face of this planet. Now the dad is PTFO, and the mom must not really give a crap either. Can I smack the parents? Someone smack me if I ever let my kids misbehave so badly someday.

We only got a brief view of Singapore en route to the Zon Regenecy Hotel  By The Sea in Johor Bahru. It was a fairly comfortable bus ride, minus the stops for immigration in both countries. But when we got to the Zon, I was overtaken by the cigarette smoke everywhere. It was absolutely disgusting. We didn’t even make it into our first hotel room, as it was worse than the poison in the main atrium. But of course there were no nonsmoking rooms available, and we ended up in a renovated room which was marginally better, although I found myself having trouble breathing even in that room. Fortunately, Dielle showed up and we went out to dinner nearby at a hawker stall. The food was decent, but not as good as Bangkok.

There wasn’t really much else to do other than try and get some sleep for the tournament. And be amateur acrobats:

Since this isn’t a Scrabble blog, I won’t drone on and on about the tournament, but just touch on the non-Scrabble highlights.

Well first, a picture of Jesse and I playing. I won this game, but I drew very good tiles.

The food overall was quite good, but maybe not quite as good as Bangkok. Actually, my favorite meal in Malaysia was a Chinese dinner, but a simple Nasi Goreng Daging (beef fried rice, Malaysian style) is super tasty. I would liked to thank KL-er Vannitha for taking us to some very tasty street food, and providing some insight and translation (since she speaks Malaysian!)

The main story happened on the last night. We went to dinner at a noodle shop in the mall below the hotel, which tried to close 45 minutes early on us, rather than accept our orders and money. Eventually we convinced them, and despite the fact that they were out of most of the food, it was actually a pretty solid meal. We next went to KTV (Karaoke), also in the mall. After buying one hour of karaoke time, we struggled for a good 15 minutes figuring out how to get the machine to work, which was clearly an old and well-worn system. Jesse was visibly angry. But a pitcher of Tiger later, we were hard at work singing to some very strange covers of pop music (and the occasional actual song). Highlights of the night included Jesse singing Jay Chou, Sandy and Vannitha going all out at “Dancing Queen”, It’s MY Life (Bon Jovi) and of course, THE FINAL COUNTDOWN. According to everyone else, I killed on “Bad Romance”. Karaokeing was actually pretty fun – maybe I’ll try again sometime (yes, this was my first time karaokeing.

So what happened after karaoke? Well, we tried to buy another hour, but were told by the workers, who were very tuned into their facebooks, that they couldn’t give us more time because there was a police search. We were rather befuddled, since there were no police inside. After about 10 minutes, we gave up and left. But then, from outside the karaoke place (keep in mind, this is the fifth floor of an incredibly seedy mall, which is below an additional 11 story hotel), we saw down to the floor below, where a bunch of Malay police had surrounded a restaurant. Drunk guys kept staggering out, but finally the cops walked away with what we could only assume were some hookers. It was probably the most boring shakedown ever, but all the locals seemed rather enthused. By this time, I was falling asleep, and headed upstairs, while the others apparently took down a tower, and listened to the “cellophane slappers”. Who are the cellophane slappers? They are the lounge singers who sing every night in the cigarette smoke infested “open air” lounge at the Zon Regency. Apparently in the past they have been downright terrible, but honestly this batch wasn’t too bad. I heard them sing Bad Romance at one point, and didn’t think it was too bad, but it got far less rave reviews than my karaoke performance, so take my words with a grain of salt. *shrug*

As it turned out, in the Scrabble tournament, after lots of upswings and downswings, unending exhaustion, and lots of frustration from the word list difference previously explained in my entry on the Princess Cup, I ended up in 6^th place, and won $700, which paid for a couple more flights, and the tournament itself. Granted, I lost my last 4 games to get 6^th, but this tournament has one of the strongest fields each year, and I already had the huge dictionary handicap, so it was hard to be too upset.

Not the best picture ever, but all we could get of me receiving my prize from a higher-up in Johor:

We hung around for a bit, trying to figure out the best plan of action on how to get to Singapore. Somehow, we convinced Dielle to tag along to Singapore with us for the evening, so eventually the three of us headed off to catch a taxi to the bus station. Before we left, we talked to Pakorn (tournament winner) and Sha-Lyn, and agreed to possibly meet up at a blues club in Singapore later that night, which was supposedly a pretty awesome joint.

We hopped a taxi pretty quickly, and made it to the Causeway without incident. We then got on a bus to cross. Once we tried to go through the Singapore customs, we realized we had not filled out departure cards. So we waited in line a second time, got through, and headed down to find our bus. Apparently our bus was running rather infrequently because we had to wait for close to an hour in the stuffy bus terminal for our bus to some place in the city. Our dinner reservation was for 8:00, and I'd say we showed up at maybe 9:15. Actually we were saved by Jesse's Chinese speaking abilities when hiring a taxi in Singapore itself to get to dinner because the cab driver had no idea where to go otherwise, or so it seemed.

Actually I was pretty impressed with Jesse's fluency in Chinese. I think he took it for a couple years at Yale, and then spent what sounded like a pretty darn awesome year in Beijing learning the language more after undergrad.

So it was finally time for the meetup with Gabe. He was there, with a couple friends, as well as Sandy, who had taken a private car from Johor to Singapore and was actually likely the only person who was actually on time to the dinner.

Lots of food had already been ordered, so we jumped right in. Crab was everywhere, as well as shrimp, noodles, rice, veggies – so much good food. And quite frankly, I’ve never had such big pieces of crab meat. And so tasty, too. And then you take a bunch of the chile sauce and mix it with the fried rice. Oh man. Regretably, I took no pictures since we were so late, but suffice to say it was a delicious meal. A picture with 3 of my 4 main travel buddies this trip (Dion was home by then):

We wanted to drop off our stuff at the hotel, and then Gabe finally clued us in on where we were staying. He booked us a night at the CONRAD HOTEL!!!!!! The hotel was absolutely GORGEOUS. Once we got there, I didn’t really want to leave because it was so nice. And then everything had my name on it! EVERYTHING! I made plans to bring a bunch of things home.

So then we finally got out of the hotel to go to the blues club. We tried to take a “maxi cab” (to fit 5 people), but instead ended up in a pseudo-limo that cost S$45 for like a 10 minute ride. We found the club, which was cool, but no Pakorn or Sha-Lyn. Oops. We walked around for awhile, found no other exciting bars, and then found a building with KTV places. We got off on each floor, heard the super expensive prices for all-night rates in incredibly strange dark, many-colored rooms (only pictures can describe, or just being there), and then walked back to another outside bar, where we took down a tower of Tiger. Eventually, we stumbled back to the hotel and had a nice long sleep – my first full night in quite awhile.

One KTV joint:

When we finally got up at 11 AM, there wasn’t much time to do much of anything except swim. So what did we do? Well we swam, obviously. The pool was gorgeous, up to par with the rest of the hotel, and we got every last minute out of it. I’m not sure the rich tourists were thrilled by our frisbeeing in the pool, but hey, we had a blast.

Jesse in pool-layout mode:

So yeah, staying at a Conrad Hotel, in Singapore no less, was totally awesome. Thanks so much Gabe! That was so incredibly awesome.

And yes, I got plenty of Conrad swag.

I was disappointed we didn’t have more time to see/do stuff in Singapore because it is a pretty unique place, so clean and pretty, but I get the feeling that I will probably layover through there again in the future, and will see more then. But it was a nice little break. Which leads me to the title of the post.

I can’t really speak for all of the city of Johor, but at least the area we were in was just so dingy, smoky, dirty, seedy – I could only spend 5 days at a place like that if there was an awesome Scrabble tournament there. Otherwise…eek. Now Singapore on the other hand, just a complete polar opposite. Yet somehow, these places are just a causeway away. Just a very interesting dichotomy. I’m not saying Johor is like a ghetto or anything, but it just wasn’t for me.

So then we got to the airport and found out our tickets were actually business class! So we got to fly Thai Air business class from Singapore to Bangkok! The food was fabulous, the wine was great (and free flowing), and the reclining seat was just too cool. Not to mention warm towels. And I didn’t even mention the lounge buffet. Thai partners with Singapore Air, so we got to use the Singapore Airlines Business Class Lounge. Speechless. Words cannot describe. My attempt: so much food, drink, awesome, everything, I wanna go back. Actually, it turns out our tickets from Bangkok to Manila are business class, too, so that’s something to look forward to! Good surprises rule.

PTFO, yo.

So needless to say I was nice and relaxed going into Bangkok for the overnight stop. It turned out Siam Journey was full, so we stayed near the airport in the Lat Krabang neighborhood. We walked around the nearby night market, Jesse bought an absolutely ridiculous[ly awesome] puffin-like ceramic(?) thing which we named “Sandy-Puff”, and then walked down the alley our hotel was on. It was a trip to be in a suburb of Bangkok because there were no bright city lights – it felt like we were somewhere totally different. It turned out that night was the King’s birthday, but we didn’t really go outside in time to see any celebrations, oops. Still super tired, and we had to get up bright and early to catch our flight to Luang Prabang.

And sure enough, we made it to our flight on time, and I won’t say much else about it, since you undoubtedly know how annoying the screaming baby was and the damn careless parents. Next post will start our journey to Laos. We’re currently in Phonsavan, going to see the Plain of Jars tomorrow. I don’t really think I’ll have the blog finished by the time I get home, but I will finish it – I promise! Hope you’re all well wherever you are.

P.S. Thanks again to Michael Tang for putting on an awesome event. I’m so glad I finally got to attend (and in the nick of time apparently), and I will undoubtedly be back for more international Scrabble. The atmosphere in the tournament room is just so much more enjoyable than in the US.

P.P.S. Especially for you, Mom:

This picture was taken from the room in Singapore, no joke.

Ni Hao Laos!

Bangkok Part 2: Pat Pong, Ping Pong, and Thank Goodness No Ping Pong Show.

Well, I’m sorry I haven’t written more, for those of you who are reading this blog. I’ve actually gotten some comments from completely random people, so I guess more than 5 people are actually reading this blog. I’m writing this at 17,000 feet on an ATR 72 (what?) plane headed to Luang Prabang, Laos, for what it’s worth. Screaming kids whose parents don’t care, a super loud propellor. Solution? Blast death metal. Problem solved. My ears are going to hurt anyway.

Super update: sorry for posting this three more days late, aarrghh!

So when I last left off, we had gone back to Bangkok. We headed back to the Siam Journey Guesthouse where we stayed last week, and got our Monopoly Deal  fix. We still had to figure out what our plans were going to be though. It was becoming increasingly clear that the best idea would be to split up, because Dion’s flight home was out of Kuala Lumpur, and getting there (and then onto Johor Bahru) was far more expensive/inconvenient than just flying directly to Singapore a couple days later. I mulled this idea throughout the afternoon, as we unsuccessfuly attempted to play badminton at Chulalongkorn University. We decided our main plan for the night would be to go to Pat Pong and the Bangkok Red Light District – something we had managed to skip the week before. After some pad thai and noodle soup, it was off. We once again fit 7 people into a taxi, complete with beer – this time uneventfully.

We wandered amongst the stalls, and eventually ended up at some gogo dancing bar, which was pretty unexciting. We stumbled into a couple more, which all reeked of smoke, and then finally we decided that the solution was to go dancing. So Mai suggested we go to his favorite club. And Mai is a total life of the party, so it was bound to be a hopping place.

And wouldn’t you know it, Mai’s favorite club, since Mai is gay, his favorite club just happens to be one of the biggest gay bars in Bangkok (called Cabaret, I think). No getting out of that one. I lasted all of 5 seconds before getting hit on, and yet somehow it took us a good five minutes to squeeze all the way through to the bar. Shots ensued, and we awkwardly huddled into our own group, and tried to dance. It just wasn’t quite working, so we looked for a less crowded spot. And then we found the cages. Yes, Dielle, Dion, Bryce, Leo, the random Polish guy with us, and Mai spent the next 90 minutes taking turns dancing in cages at a gay bar (no strangers were involved). It was actually a ton of fun, and it wasn’t super crowded right there, so we kinda just did our own thing, and got our groove on.

After the club closed at 3, we wanted to head to another club, so we broke our record, and stuffed an additional person into the cab, for a grand total of 8 people (including the driver) in the cab. We had to pass through a checkpoint, and the cop just looked at us and laughed (and waived us through). But then we found out the club had a huge cover, so we stopped for some 4AM fourth meal. By this point, I was literally falling asleep on my spring rolls, but Leo wanted to stay out, so Mai and I called it a night, and from what I understand, the rest went to Khao San Road, shot pool, and hung out at a rooftop bar for two more hours.

And this entire night, we managed not to go to a ping pong show. Way too expensive! *laughs*

The next day was decision time. I had decided that the best course of action was to stay in Bangkok for a couple extra days, and the Saldanhas would head out to KL the next morning. Once we were all finally ready for action, we attempted to play badminton again, at another location this time. This time, the joint was full, so we had to settle for playing ping pong. I actually worked up a sweat sparring with Nate, and also worked up an appetite. But we did make reservations to play badminton the next day.

Next, we grabbed some street food from nearby, and went to Stephanie’s (a German girl living in Bangkok) apartment rooftop in Saphan Khwai. Remember, a little money goes a long long way in Thailand, so a lot of the people we met living in Bangkok were on 28^th floor apartments with panoramic views of the city, with rooftop gardens and pools fit for a king. We in fact ate our dinners up on the rooftop, and shot the breeze for a couple hours. Too much of this time was spent talking about Twilight, but hey, just about any discussion is better than one about Scrabble politics.

See, what I was starting to find pretty cool about my return to Bangkok, and what was making me even more glad that I was staying the extra couple days, is that I was already starting to feel at home. I no longer felt like a tourist, but rather like just another person. I already felt like I’d made some cool friends, and the activities we were doing were far more reminiscent of everyday life, than of being tourists. And I loved that.

When we went back home, we played lots of Monopoly Deal, and I started uploading pictures. And then it was 4 AM. And then, Dielle, Dion, Bryce, Leo, and I started telling life stories. Bedtime = 6 AM again. Oops. Well, no bedtime for Dielle and Dion, whose flight left in two hours.

Holy hell, someone shut this kid up in the row behind me. In more positive news, there is absolutely no civilization below us right now, and there are approximately 94.38 trillion trees. Where was I?

Oh yeah, so when I woke up, Dielle and Dion were long gone, and our badminton reservation was almost up. CRAP. Bryce and I stumbled/ran over to the badminton place by way of BTS, and met up with Nate. Fortunately the place was empty, so we were able to play for an additional hour. I hadn’t played badminton since after-school league in middle school, but there was some muscle memory there, and I had a blast. Definitely something to look up when I get home.

Next, we walked over to the weekend market, which had started up again since the floods. Reenergized by Thai tea and pad Thai, we met up with a few friends and walked around. I’m not much of a shopper, and the only item I wanted (a specific shirt) I was unable to find. But then I decided I’d get a Christmas present for my Mom (who is undoubtedly reading this, so I’m not saying what). After awhile, exhausted and sweaty, Nate and I took the subway to another part of town to go to a weekly dinner at another guesthouse, Thailek’s.

There were lots of random people from all over at this dinner, and we ate on the floor (on mats) which was fun. And wow, was the food amazing. The best [green] curry I have ever had, hands down. I had four bowls, and that doesn’t even count the Tom Kha I finally got to have, and assorted other homemade Thai classics. After dinner, yes, we played Monopoly Deal (the game had migrated from Thailek’s with Bryce to Siam Journey).

I think that kid just made me deaf. And now my deafness is deaf.

The next day, my final one in Bangkok, Nate and I attempted to take a day trip, but it just wasn’t possible, and a lot of the options were unfortunately still flooded. So we met up with Carmen, another German girl, and did some sightseeing. We actually went back to Wat Arun, which was not nearly as cool during the day. We also went to Wat Po, with the sleeping Buddha. The sleeping Buddha was pretty awesome, but I honestly just wasn’t that into sightseeing.

But by the time we were done, Carmen had to catch her flight back to Germany after a quick meal on the rooftop of Nate’s apartment building, and Nate wanted to show me his secret cheap massage place. It was definitely a bargain, and I learned that you’re actually supposed to tip for massages – apparently the only thing you do tip for in Thailand. It was a good place, although my legs were sufficiently burnt by a towel. *shrug*

We tried to get onto some tennis courts, but they were booked. Actually, the lady let us rally for 15 minutes, which was cool. Speaking of old hobbies I should really get back into, hah.

Nate then insisted we take motorcycle taxis to BTS. I reluctantly agreed. Amazingly I still have my legs, as the driver squeezed through too-tight spaces surrounded by busses and SUVs. I was pretty scared for my life, yet somehow it was amazingly exhilarating, even if it was only for 5 minutes.

Back at the guesthouse, a group of us went out for dinner, which may have been a double cheeseburger and fries, and then went back and played more Monopoly Deal. I actually had to wake up for my flight the next day, so I went to bed at a reasonable time.

Tuesday morning, it was up and off to the airport again. I flew Tiger down to Singapore, and got in on time. I finally got in contact with Jesse, who was arriving an hour after me, and we met up in Singapore. From there it was a quick snack (and potable tap water!), and a bus over to Johor Bahru, Malaysia, for the Causeway Scrabble Challenge. And that’s where I will stop for now.

I figured the least I could do was add some pictures for this entry, but there reall aren't any good ones / ones that should be posted here, so I'll save them for the Laos part of the trip, which so far has been unbelievably beautiful.