week ten
good morning saigon.. it's a sunny 35 degrees here and we're trying not to enjoy it too much.
the bad news is that i've had my camera stolen and had to buy another. this means about 1 week of photos were lost and some jerk in cambodia is wondering why anyone would want a picture of nisha restaurant. (you'll understand shortly)
Nov 6th.
three of us and our guide, vong are hung over, and we head out on a tour of the plain of jars sites. the jars are mystifying but repetitive. at one site 2 jars have been split open by a tree growing inside. some bear engravings of human form and other designs.
for the 3rd night in a row we go to nisha restaurant for indian food. this made possible because nisha has 3 branches across laos run by relatives from india. the third of the set is located at our next destination, vang vieng.
Nov 7th.
the bus to vang vieng leaves at 7:30am and we arrive at 2pm. famished because we skipped lunch, we stumble into the street in search of nisha... and miraculously, it appears right in front of us.
afterward we head to the internet cafe for a session and head to bed early to prepare for a big day of river tubing.
Nov 8th.
river tubing may seem like fun depending on the river but in our case it was downright dangerous. if not for the steady current and hidden rocks beneath the surface, then by the insane number of bars encouraging heavy drinking and sporting enormous booms to swing out over the water from high platforms.
it was all laughs and beers until dusk. when darkness set in, the river was suddenly black and difficult to navigate. the stress of figuring out where and how to dock in the moonlight may have sobered us up a bit, but not for long.
at the guesthouse we continued headlong through more laolao and beerlao being passed to us insistently by the locals. danielle was completely immobilized by 10pm and i headed back out in search of food. instead i ran back into the locals and drank more with them as they quizzed me on canada and english. at some point i found some pad thai and made my way back to the room after 12 hours of booze and crashed.
Nov 9th.
Danielle is stationed in bed until the evening. i get up around 1pm feeling queasy, but peckish. i make a slow recovery and spend a few hours on the net.
Nov 10th.
in the morning, take a local bus to the capitol of laos, vientiane. the bus is in terrible shape. the seats are either mounted crooked or are nearly not bolted to the floor at all. even the seat pads are sliding around freely as they are not properly secured to their frame. worst of all, the road is littered with pot holes and construction and our bus has no shock suspension system to speak of.
in vientiane, we run into our friends from the yukon who also joined us river tubing. it seems our paths will diverge soon so we leave saying we're sure that we'll see them again some place.
Nov 11th.
the national museum of laos in vientiane is a basic history record with short descriptions in english and takes us no more than an hour to view in full. the highlight, sadly to say is some confiscated narcotics on display for no clear reason which includes a kilo of heroin, a package of opium and a brick of marijuana.
that evening we drop into an english pub for beers and a game of pool. i'm challenged by a local woman and i choke on a free shot on the 8 ball after she'd already scratched on it. i am now 0-2 in international play.
the bad news is that i've had my camera stolen and had to buy another. this means about 1 week of photos were lost and some jerk in cambodia is wondering why anyone would want a picture of nisha restaurant. (you'll understand shortly)
Nov 6th.
three of us and our guide, vong are hung over, and we head out on a tour of the plain of jars sites. the jars are mystifying but repetitive. at one site 2 jars have been split open by a tree growing inside. some bear engravings of human form and other designs.
for the 3rd night in a row we go to nisha restaurant for indian food. this made possible because nisha has 3 branches across laos run by relatives from india. the third of the set is located at our next destination, vang vieng.
Nov 7th.
the bus to vang vieng leaves at 7:30am and we arrive at 2pm. famished because we skipped lunch, we stumble into the street in search of nisha... and miraculously, it appears right in front of us.
afterward we head to the internet cafe for a session and head to bed early to prepare for a big day of river tubing.
Nov 8th.
river tubing may seem like fun depending on the river but in our case it was downright dangerous. if not for the steady current and hidden rocks beneath the surface, then by the insane number of bars encouraging heavy drinking and sporting enormous booms to swing out over the water from high platforms.
it was all laughs and beers until dusk. when darkness set in, the river was suddenly black and difficult to navigate. the stress of figuring out where and how to dock in the moonlight may have sobered us up a bit, but not for long.
at the guesthouse we continued headlong through more laolao and beerlao being passed to us insistently by the locals. danielle was completely immobilized by 10pm and i headed back out in search of food. instead i ran back into the locals and drank more with them as they quizzed me on canada and english. at some point i found some pad thai and made my way back to the room after 12 hours of booze and crashed.
Nov 9th.
Danielle is stationed in bed until the evening. i get up around 1pm feeling queasy, but peckish. i make a slow recovery and spend a few hours on the net.
Nov 10th.
in the morning, take a local bus to the capitol of laos, vientiane. the bus is in terrible shape. the seats are either mounted crooked or are nearly not bolted to the floor at all. even the seat pads are sliding around freely as they are not properly secured to their frame. worst of all, the road is littered with pot holes and construction and our bus has no shock suspension system to speak of.
in vientiane, we run into our friends from the yukon who also joined us river tubing. it seems our paths will diverge soon so we leave saying we're sure that we'll see them again some place.
Nov 11th.
the national museum of laos in vientiane is a basic history record with short descriptions in english and takes us no more than an hour to view in full. the highlight, sadly to say is some confiscated narcotics on display for no clear reason which includes a kilo of heroin, a package of opium and a brick of marijuana.
that evening we drop into an english pub for beers and a game of pool. i'm challenged by a local woman and i choke on a free shot on the 8 ball after she'd already scratched on it. i am now 0-2 in international play.
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7:16 AM
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