*FP = food poisoning
the past week has been the most challenging of our trip. of course, by the title of this blog, you might be able to guess why. that particular element began a few nights ago when we arrived in vang vieng after a long and shaky local bus ride that lasted for 9 hours. (i don't think this local bus would be able to even operate in the US; and i think we actually had a nicer one compared to others we saw on the road. no shock absorbency at all, going on sometimes bumpy roads, speeding and rattling our way as fast as the driver could go through small villages on mountain tops with bamboo huts for homes; people sitting on little stools in the aisles because there were no seats left; leaking exhaust up through the engine into the bus; stopping with a screech in villages after hooooonnnnkkking and honking to see if any locals want a ride, and picking them up with bags full of things, humongous bags of rice, a tire wheel, etc; an accident on the way where a large yellow truck was trying to pull a car up from a cliff and stopped all traffic in either direction for an hour, men with guns guarding the car (i was on the verge of tears, luckily carson kept me steady); going on such hairpin-curve roads with no guardrail feeling like the bus would tip over because we were leaning so far; coming down in the dark with rain and fog....amidst all of that, it was cool to ride with the locals and the few other tourists on our trip, and sophie too who we traveled with as well. i was glad i wasn't in the minibus that left the next day...a friend who was on it said the whole drive was in the fog, they passed several accidents, and nearly went off the cliff three times, amidst passengers crying and screaming! wow!
after my post about the great food in laos, everything else we ate was so dissapointing....we proceeded to have the worst indian food i've ever tasted in luang prabang, a bad mayonnaise/processed cheese/lettuce sandwich for our bus ride, and then the sauteed vegetables and sticky rice that, we think, made us sick. oh the horrors of food poisoning. we were both food poisoning virgins until now, and i hope i never have to experience it again. i spent most of our four days in vang vieng lying in a bed that was close to a toilet. luckily carson felt better by our last day there (which was FINALLY sunny and warm!) and went tubing down the river for a few hours with a new friend. i stayed in bed and read harry potter #5.
vang vieng is an interesting place. it is completely set up for tourists. the main attraction is to raft down the river on an inner tube and stop off at various bars set up along the river that also have trapezes, rope swings, zip lines, etc that you an hurtle yourself into the water upon. people drink and have happy shakes at the bars and continue floating down. the other attraction there are many "same same" restaurants, some even with the same menus, with american/israeli/italian/british/thai/lao/a conglomeration of all different kinds of food, none of which are cooked very well, set up in an atmosphere where you sit up on a little platform on cushions and pillows cross legged an watch either friends, family guy, or the simpsons for hours on end. (don't go to the family guy restaurant, that's where the FP happened!) our last night there we went and watched like 3 1/2 hours of friends, which equals like 10 or more episodes, back to back to back. laos closes down early, like those restaurants, most start shutting down around 11. there are more bars down by the river in little bamboo huts that stay open a little longer, and through our window at 11-12-1-2-3 AM, i could hear so many people outside screaming and yelling because they were so drunk. i didn't really like vang vieng very much; or more, i just wasn't really in the space to have the optimal experience of it. the scenery is beautiful though; from the top floor of the third guesthouse we had there, we could see all the beautiful limestone cliffs that line the valley there...the river stretching down. there are lots of caves there to explore and much river fun to be had.
we left vang vieng yesterday and took a bus to ventiane, the capital city of laos. as soon as we got there, we didn't really like it too much, and there were no available rooms at any of the 10 guesthouses we checked, so we just decided to come over the thai-lao friendship bridge and spend the night in nong khai, thailand instead. it's good to be back in thailand! i am still recovering and can't really eat too much still...i think carson is a little bit ahead of me in the healing process.
i wish we could have had a more enjoyable experience of laos....really our first three days there were the best, our long tail boat ride down the mekong, and the waterfall fun day with our friends. after that it rained and rained cold cloudy rain for days, and we just were not doing too well. oh well...i think it's a part of any trip to be expected! it was just hard.
we are going to hang out here for a few more hours, and then i think take an over night bus back to bangkok, emerge out on kho san road for an hour, and then hop on a bus over to trat, where our good friends mike and rachael are! from there we are going to take a ferry over to ko chang island and will probably wonder, why didn't we come here sooner?! i am so excited to be on an island and swim in the ocean! i've been wanting to go down there since we arrived in thailand nearly two months ago. after ko chang we are going south to the andaman sea areas, maybe ko lipe, or ko lanta, krabi, etc. and then off to bali. we are actually hoping to change our ticket back home to a little bit earlier, but we haven't heard back from our travel agent yet. being in laos in the rain and having the FP made us both feel quite ready to come home, wishing we hadn't bought our tickets for so far away! i think we will feel different when we get to the islands, i'm sure, but we are excited to be home too and continue the adventure spirit there as well :)
much love!
mel
No comments:
Post a Comment