Laos is neat.

Hello. My apologies for the lack of blogging this week. I have been in Laos. Such an amazing place. The people, the scenery and the food where all just delightful, unlike old Vietnam. I just got back to Vietnam today, not too long ago actually. I took a nice little 28 hour bus ride from Vang Vieng, to Vientiane to Hanoi. I am sleepy to say the least. I guess I havent updated since I left for Laos, but there really isnt all that much to say besides Laos made the trip to South East Asia. Coming back to Vietnam was just painful. Within seconds of getting off the bus you are hassled and people are trying to scam you and rip you off. I was warning some English guys about it, and sure enough as soon as we got across the border and stopped for food, they got ripped off by this crap restaurant. I was the only non-Vietnamese of the bus who had been to Nam already and so after that they all wanted to know what I had to say. And sure as day within seconds of getting off the bus it was all becoming true. Even the freaking guys trying to sell sunglasses appeared. SO annoying. But Lao was remarkable. Vientiane is a neat little like French colonial town with a lot of European ties. Some unreal Italian and French places. And the pastries... yes please. I dabbled in a few while I was there, just to make sure it was safe so I could tell you all about it. I had an extravagant filet mignon wrapped in bacon with a nice bleu cheese sauce and mashed potatoes with some fine French wine one night for a little under $10. It felt special. I spend only a few days there before heading to Vang Vieng, which was completely different from Vientiane. Vang Vieng is a quiet little town that is developing into this full tourist get away party zone. Which is sad truthfully because its so pretty there, and all the development they are planning is going to totally take away from how cool and small it is. There is a lot of money to be made there by investors, the Chinese are getting in there already. But ethically, I would feel horrible being a part of something like that, destroying such a beautiful landscape. The people there too where so awesome. Everywhere you go you hear "Hi Buddy," in their funny accent. They, unlike another country's inhabitants which I may currently be in right now, were always smiling and talkative and very friendly. The tubing experience there is the main attraction. And let me tell you, it is wild. There is about 10 or so bars lining the river and each one has its own massive rope swing, or slide or something funny. They have some weird drink specials too, like buy a bucket of whisky and get the second free. I, of course,maintained my manners and was the responsible one. I met up with these Chilean guys and this Dutch fellow and I had to find our way home... having never been on that river or seen it before in my life. We didn't get back till it was black outside. It was pretty hilarious to me, but they were all freaking out. Drifting down the Mekong in inner tubes, blind, and no idea what was coming. Sometimes you would catch a butt cheek on a rock though, that wasn't too fun. Watching drunk guys trying to impress chicks on the rope swings and stuff was by far the most entertaining. Every other guy thought they could pull a backflip. I don't think I saw one successful one. Just belly flops, face plants and back flops. Some of the rope swings are massive, you are up about 50-60 feet and if you let go at the pinnacle you go about 70 feet up in the air. Most of the sissy boys would let it come back and forth before jumping so they wouldn't get too high. When I gave my first attempt I thought I would go for height. I failed. I executed it perfectly, and I am sure I looked amazing, but I knocked the wind out of myself. I had to pretend like I was made of steel till I got behind the bar and keeled over because I thought I collapsed a lung. I recovered quickly. Nobody saw me in my moment of weakness. I felt bad for some of the girls too that thought they would step up and be brave. It was like sick entertainment watching some of them. They would go for it then start freaking out and screaming and not want to let go. Then they would always let go at the first time, like as it was swinging back, so they would just flail onto their faces. I liked the ones too that didn't realize that it required arm strength to hold onto the bar, and as soon as they picked up momentum at the bottom of the swing they would just get ripped off the bar and explode into the water. I shed some tears from those. Overall very funny and entertaining. From Vang Vieng I went up to Luangprobang. But I was only there for 1 day because on the way up there I realized I had left my passport in Vang Vieng... that was a fun experience. I am pretty sure I thought of every single scenario of what could happen. My imagination went wild. At first I thought I would have to bride them to get it back, or that they would deny my staying there and steal it and I would miss y flight to China and I would be stuck in Lao. I had about a thousand. I tried to call the hotel too when I got to Luangprobang, but their number was not listen anywhere, I even called other hotels in the area to ask for the number and nobody knew. I was not happy. So I just hopped on the next bus back down there, another 7 hour bus ride, and as soon as I turn up the lady working just laughed. Its times like those that make you realize that not everyone in the world is out to rip you off or rob you.. but then again it was Laos and not Vientnam.... freakin nam. From what I did get to see of Luangprobang though, it was beautiful. A total hidden little gem. I would go back there to check it out again. That was the other bummer about losing the passport, I was supposed to fly from Luangprobang to Cambodia to go to Angkor Wat. But it didnt work out this time. I will or sure be back to see Thailand though, and in that trip I will go back to Lao again for certain and see Angkor Wat. That was the other thing, Laos is so cheap its amazing. I stayed in this room in Vang Vieng for $9 a night and it was one of the best rooms I have stayed in this trip so far. King size bed, full AC that kept the room like a freezer, tv, huge hot shower, comfy mattress and soft sheets. I was in heaven. The place was called Vilayvong Guesthouse. Destroyed the $12 room I had here in Hanoi. It killed the expensive hotel I stayed in when I was in Tahiti. I highly suggest to everyone that they get to Laos before that gem becomes over developed. It is one of the best landlocked places I have ever seen. And I know I was all amped on Nam too, but that was because I hadn't really experienced that much yet, or gotten the full taste. Now that I have, my advice is avoid it. Don't waste your time, money, patience, effort, or sweat. And I am sure some other people have had great times here, they may love it, not me. And on the bus to Laos actually we were all comparing Vietnam stories, and it was pretty much unanimous, nobody was going back there by choice. They were all pretty amazing by my getting robbed by the little girl story too. I dont want to talk about nam anymore. I leave here tomorrow and I am so excited. I have heard so many good things about China. I like hearing good things. Adios.

PS I made a photo album in Laos because Facebook finally worked there, but the blog site didn't... now the blog site works but Facebook doesn't again. I will post the album on here when I am out of south east Asia.

"This is an adventure." -Steve Zissou

Welp, I've had some good times and some not so good times in Nam. Not really going to dredge into the bad because who really cares about it and I am sure it is no fun to read about. Just a few words of advice to you my friends, #1 never take a train through Vietnam, #2 never let your guard down in Nam, and #3 do a boat trip to Halong Bay if you ever come to Nam. I will catch you all up to speed though on what is going on in my travels breifly. I took the train from Ho Chi Mihn to Hanoi, took a very long time and was not fun to say the least. Got to Hanoi and there was some shifty activity, brought me down a little, but oh well I got over it quickly. I had heard from many people that Hanoi was not that great, and it could be skipped, I would probably say the same. But at the same time when you feel like that, and you have lost all faith in mankind, you go out for dinner and meet awesome people that totally make up for anything and everything. For example, my first day here was dumpy, and when I went out for dinner that night at some seriously random joint. The bright lights drew me in like a moth. But it ended up being this wild little Vietnamese food place where there is this conveyer belt moving little dishes of uncooked food around, and in front of you there is this little boiling pot and some controls for the heat. It ends up being an all you can eat place for about $6 USD. When I walked in nobody smoke english, and it was the heaviest struggle to get a place to sit because none of us had a clue what was going on, I didn't know what they were saying at all, and they thought I was out of my mind or something by the way they were looking it. After a good few minutes I got a seat next to this funny little Vietnamese couple who ended up being able to speak pretty good english, and they helped me out with the servers and whatnot. They were super cool and nice and had a great chat with them over a few drinks. They were impressed about my world tour and the fact that I was eating Kichi Kichi (which is the name of the restaurant and style of food I guess). I actually went back there again tonight for dinner and both times I have not seen one other whitey. But yes, that was a great meal and this waitress there was the sweetest, cutest girl. She only knew about 5 lines of english, and they were all like funny phrases, like "its all good" and "see you later alligator" type stuff. I tried to talk to her but it was hopeless, she understood "beer" though, but not water. I tried to order a water because my meal was a bit spicy, she brought me ice for my beer instead, which actually kind of did the trick. She was a babe. So the next day I was off to Halong day. I booked some tour thing, which I was really unsure of, and did not do any research on it what so ever. I just knew I was being picked up at 730am. That was it, and that I was going to Halong bay. Some van picks me up and packs in a bunch of asian people and a french dude and his Thai girlfriend. It was like a 3.5 hour drive to Halong city from Hanoi and I just had the Ipod on the whole way, slipping in an out of sleep, listening to the "Art of War" for the 4th time. Awesome book by the way, or audiobook. The drive out there was pretty nice and serene, basically what you would expect. Lots of jungle parts and lots of rice patties with some buildings here and there. We get there though and it is chaos, there are like thousands of people, going nuts and I am just like wow, what did I do. They put us in these little groups for our boats and start going through all these check lists and whatnot and the tour guide starts asking me if I am going all by myself and stuff and starts laughing when I say I am going solo. At that point I was like crap, that stupid travel agent booked me on a couples deal and I am going to be the weird single guy there. It ends up not being so, we get on this little boat and it takes us to this awesome floating hotel boat. So unreal. It was like a 5 star hotel on the water. The whole trip, including food, stay, tour, kayak rental, and transport was only $60. So worth it. I end up meeting this French guy on the boat once we are all settled in and everyones kinda cruising around, and he ends up being one of the funniest guys I have ever met. We had the best time messing with the Asians. I have had some good laughs on this world tour, but the past 2 days were some of the best. Everyone goes on this big cave tour and whatnot and it was cool, but not that interesting truthfully. I stopped paying attention to the tour guide and just kept messing with the asians with this guy Sebastian. We would stand and point at random things in the cave and see how many Asians we could get to stand near us to look at nothing. Or my favorite thing was to stand near like an electrical box and pretend like I was spending a lot of time to focus my camera on the electronics and then see if I could get any Asians to take a picture of it too. They never would, but they would walk right up on top of you basically to see what you were doing and then look at you like you were out of your mind, then look back at whatever you were looking at. It was pretty hilarious to me. Taking pictures of Asians posing next to things was pretty fun too. Very photogenic humans. I had a great time messing with the tour guide too, not in an obnoxious way just little games with him. He ended up being a full little pervert, funniest little man ever. He had some many left field little comments to make that were hilarious. For example I was bunking with some guy Thomas, who was European (no idea where he was from, but he sounded German kind of? He wore speedos) and Tu, the little guide, told me no kissing Thomas before bed. I about died. Some of the things the staff would say was just ridiculous. They all had horrible English, you would try to get a wine list and he would bring you a bottle of water. Funny thing though, a side note, the wine was all pretty expensive, but there was these people who row around on boats and sell stuff and you could buy the same wine that they had on the boat from these rowers for $5 opposed to $30. The staff was not pleased with us. Anyway, after that cave thing we got to rent kayaks and go adventuring around the ocean. It was heavy though because the little floating dock area where you got the kayaks had all these king fish and cuddle fish, some crustaceans and a bunch of other wild sea life in these little holding areas. You could buy fresh sea food from them and they will clean it for you and stuff. Pretty sweet. But Sebastian and I spent more time watching this lady bash in the brains of a fish then waiting in line for the kayaks. So needless to say we had the special edition. I had a paddle that was about 2 feet long and his paddle was about to fall apart. It all worked out though because we were such talented and skilled oceanic voyagers. We crashed the heck out of that kayak. We wrecked on some tiny little cave beach and Sebastian found a massive hermit crab, and he has never seen a hermit crab before. He was enthralled by it, he brought it with us in the kayak. He was terrified of it though when it started to come out of its shell and I would hear him freak out and yell in French and slap the boat to try to make it go back in its shell. We named him Jaqui Cousteau. It was a crack up of a kayak excursion, we were late getting back to the group as well and everyone was all pissed off at us. Which made us laugh even harder. We show up like 10 or 15 minutes late, with a hermit crab. Maybe it is one of those you had to be there moments, but jeeze, it was classic. The people that work at those places get so easily pissed off too, the guy was yelling at us and signaled for my to give him the paddles, which was stupid because once we handed them to him we were just left in the water floating with no paddles. After the kayak fun we for "shimming time" as the guide said, some call it swimming, but we won't split hairs. Shimming time was classic, I got to jump off the top of the boat a few times before being told that it was too dangerous. So I just did started doing back flips off the deck instead. A couple of other random Asian kids where on the boat too and during shimming time we were all having dive contests. It was so fun. The chefs came out and where doing back flips too. The evening time was pretty classic as well. It was so beautiful there. It was pretty cloudy all day and then it kinda cleared up around dusk. It was a really pretty scene at night. Cheap wine and laughing with those characters all night was worth more than any amount of money. Hanging out with Sebastian and these columbians made the trip, it would not have been the same without them. The rooms we had there where super cozy too, just like an amazing hotel. I slept like a baby. Woke up this morning feeling great, and got to cruise around in the boat and check out more scenery around Halong. We got back to the city/port around 12, hopped in the bus and where in Hanoi by 4. I did not have any hotel reserved when I got back, and frankly it did not phase me one bit. I just had them drop me off on a street corner in town and got a room for $12 with AC and wifi and a queen size bed. Steal. I was going to do a hostel for like $4 cheaper, but I figured I would let my hair down, live the luxurious life. As I said earlier, I had Kichi Kichi again for din din, and saw that lovely sweet waitress. Such a doll. So yup that is the most of it. I am taking a bus tomorrow to Laos. I was gonna fly but it was too much. I hear the buses are better than the trains though, so I hope I am not in for the same experience as I had on the train. I am excited to see Laos. Probably go there for like 3 or 4 days then come back to Nam and try to make my way to Cambodia. I tried to get flights from Laos to Cambodia but they were like $550... so nope. I'll see what happens. I have learned that there is really no need to stress about any of the stuff, and I have remained happy as a clam. This trip is supposed to be fun, so what's the point of getting wound up. As Steve Zissou says in the movie Life Aquatic, "This is an adventure."

ps. I cannot get Facebook to work on my laptop for some weird reason so I am unable to make a photo album still. Hopefully it will work in Laos or something. Sorry guys.