One of my greatest regrets so far is that I didn't start my photo blog of Chinese people asleep at work. At least once a day you would see someone just dead ass asleep at a store or restaurant or something. One time I had to wake up a woman to ask about a train ticket and she was so pissed.
Anyway, I'm not dead. Merely been away from the internet again. I decided to go to Laos and so I took a minibus with some English girls, some Austrian girls, one Dutch couple, and what I think is a gay man and a lesbian traveling together who were from Finland. We stopped at a town where you pick up the boat for the two day trip down the Mekong to Luang Phabang. In the morning we went through Thai and Laos customs and so on and headed down to the boat. Oops! The boat is full! This turns out great actually since they put another boat into service and it was bigger and less crowded than the other boat. I had a seat to myself which was nice since if there was someone else there it would have been a fairly cramped. The trip was six hours and then a stop and then six hours again the next day. The trip itself was pretty great. The scenery was just amazing, and I'm not a scenery guy for the most part, but just being able to look up from my book and see these amazing hills and with all the different shades of greenery was great. Eventually we pulled into Pak Beng which is a city that has these boat tourists coming through every day. I had paid for a room beforehand in Thailand and I can only say it was pretty much a huge mistake. The place I stayed was the worst place I've ever stayed. Everything was totally uncomfortable, including the pillow which was unusable, and the bathroom was concrete with just a candle. Which was fine with me actually. It was like you were pissing in a medieval castle or something, but the bed was so bad that I hardly got any sleep and I'm pretty good at sleeping in most places. The next morning I went to brush my teeth and I heard the loudest retching from the other bathroom and then the owner of the guesthouse came out with a big smile on his face and said "Too much to drink last night!". I wasn't surprised since he reeked of alcohol when I met him on the dock.
The next day we were only in one boat and it was filled to the brim with people on the floor etc...A few people complained but finally the guy said "Only one boat." and I mean, what are you going to do?
So, we set off and we saw some villages, someone pointed out we had not seen any roads at all on the banks, we saw an elephant, and then we saw a dead body floating down the river. It floated so closely that you could see the beard on his face. Some guy behind me said "Oh, that's not real!" but unless someone had thrown a very lifelike mannequin in the water, it was.
Finally we showed up at Luang Phabanfg and I got a guesthouse that was very comfortable and there were two young boys playing Playstation when I got there so it is very homey.
So, here I am. Next stop: The Plain of Jars.
Anyway, I'm not dead. Merely been away from the internet again. I decided to go to Laos and so I took a minibus with some English girls, some Austrian girls, one Dutch couple, and what I think is a gay man and a lesbian traveling together who were from Finland. We stopped at a town where you pick up the boat for the two day trip down the Mekong to Luang Phabang. In the morning we went through Thai and Laos customs and so on and headed down to the boat. Oops! The boat is full! This turns out great actually since they put another boat into service and it was bigger and less crowded than the other boat. I had a seat to myself which was nice since if there was someone else there it would have been a fairly cramped. The trip was six hours and then a stop and then six hours again the next day. The trip itself was pretty great. The scenery was just amazing, and I'm not a scenery guy for the most part, but just being able to look up from my book and see these amazing hills and with all the different shades of greenery was great. Eventually we pulled into Pak Beng which is a city that has these boat tourists coming through every day. I had paid for a room beforehand in Thailand and I can only say it was pretty much a huge mistake. The place I stayed was the worst place I've ever stayed. Everything was totally uncomfortable, including the pillow which was unusable, and the bathroom was concrete with just a candle. Which was fine with me actually. It was like you were pissing in a medieval castle or something, but the bed was so bad that I hardly got any sleep and I'm pretty good at sleeping in most places. The next morning I went to brush my teeth and I heard the loudest retching from the other bathroom and then the owner of the guesthouse came out with a big smile on his face and said "Too much to drink last night!". I wasn't surprised since he reeked of alcohol when I met him on the dock.
The next day we were only in one boat and it was filled to the brim with people on the floor etc...A few people complained but finally the guy said "Only one boat." and I mean, what are you going to do?
So, we set off and we saw some villages, someone pointed out we had not seen any roads at all on the banks, we saw an elephant, and then we saw a dead body floating down the river. It floated so closely that you could see the beard on his face. Some guy behind me said "Oh, that's not real!" but unless someone had thrown a very lifelike mannequin in the water, it was.
Finally we showed up at Luang Phabanfg and I got a guesthouse that was very comfortable and there were two young boys playing Playstation when I got there so it is very homey.
So, here I am. Next stop: The Plain of Jars.
posted by Josh at 11:37 PM
2 Comments:
Some guy behind me said "Oh, that's not real!
WTF?
I love to repeat the story of how this guy was murdered in Kobe, Japan, and his decapitated head was impaled on a fence downtown and it sat there for days because everyone assumed it couldn't be real. I suppose I should check my facts but I believe it.
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