More from laos... sorry for lack of subject titles
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
18
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Luang Namtha,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Sunday, October 5, 2008
tues 30 sept...
another day of not much, i'm afraid to report, but we should have been on the road today, but due to the lack of buses, we remain in chiang mai for one more day. so, we begin by having a western breakfast in the UN irish pub, next door to eagle house 2. after some internet time, which i think ended up simply consisting of my whining about the thai kids in the 'three kingdom's cafe' and not much else, we had some dinner and then exchanged a whole lot of currency. me, not understanding the buying and selling rates at the money exchange, and being absolutely petrified at all things money related, i left sean to handle how much US dollar and thai baht we would need to get for laos. we read that there was no chance of getting to an ATM for some days so drew out loads of money. in hindsight, we come to realise that the lonely planet can be decades out of date where their information is concerned, and not only did huay xia have atms and a bank, as does luang namtha, which you believe at first glance could be stuck in the dark ages! but no, they have ATMS, and coca cola, and internet access! people wear shoes and drive cars...! anyway, so after going through hell with the money business, we did more nothing and just read some more. that evening we walked across town to a pokey little indian place, called bombay, which bob had recommended to us. we had a chicken curry and vegetable dish and rice, all simple and authentic, but western fullness, which we had failed to really get with thai food. only part of the experience that wasn't pleasing were the two lassi's, which we had with the meal. i don't think i like the taste of a sour milk drink, and should have known better, especially as i don't even drink normal, english milk at home. that will teach me for being open minded and following suit with sean! after dinner, the rain came and didn't stop, so following a mini adventure in tesco lotus, to pick up 'cosmetics' as sean calls them - soap, shampoo, deodorant etc - we walked until we were thoroughly drenched and had to submit to an odd looking bar, themed around pirates?! i guess maybe they were taking their influence from the moat surrounding chiang mai's old city? after the rain finally stopped, we walked home, where we checked on the laundry we'd given in that morning. everything is there, bar my bra. who would want to take that stinky thing? now, i don't know what the matter was that night, seeing as it's not like the bra was expensive or even new - it had sweaty stains under each of the cups from far too prolonged use - but after the phone theft incident, i think this threw me over the edge. neither instances of theft or loss seemed to be my fault, making the whole situation feel even more hopeless. so i throw a wobbly and cannot settle to read or go to bed or anything. why do these things always crop up at the end of the day when there's no-one around who can help you? typical!
weds 01 october... nearly one month in!
check out 10 AM SHARP! we get up and out for breakfast before 9. i am determined to get to the bottom of the case of the missing bra asap! the receptionist says i'll have to wait until check out to ask the laundry lady if she's seen it, or if it's handed in by another guest, after appearing in their laundry by mistake. so, i wait. 10AM SHARP, 'sorry to keep on, but is the laundry lady around?' i say. she appears not to be, but the receptionist calls someone up to explain what's happened, and returns to ask me what i want to happen. i feel crappy asking but point out the small print that says they will refund you 'no more than ten times the laundry service charge' or something along those lines. she does a calculation, and though somehow it works out a whole lot less than what i understood the total should be, she offers me 150 baht and the laundry service free. i can't exactly complain, seeing as it wasn't the cleanest or newest of articles and so take the money and her apologies. before the bus arrives to take us to chiang khong, and the border for laos, we have just enough time to get our memory cards burned onto cds to send home. message to mum and dad, i got two sets of cds done - there were maybe too many photos taken in three weeks to be classed as normal - one for you and one for me. now, i would send you one of them, but i still don't trust the postal system so still have both on me. when i feel more comfortable in laos however, maybe when we get to luang prabang or vientiane, i will send you one of the cds and wait for the ok before deleting the photos off my camera. i've become a little less snap happy of late, thank god, so it seems i do still have plenty of room on the card for more pix. anyway, after collecting our cds, we return to the guesthouse, where amazingly i find my bra, just hanging there on a chair in the main driveway. i guess someone found it and didn't know how to hand it in. ok, so i have my bra, and just had a free 150 baht, which has just gone towards paying for these cds. i face a moral dilemma. stash the bra and run or tell reception, seeing as they might have been the ones to have found it, and ask whether they want the money back. bearing in mind bad karma has already struck me on this trip, sean says i should tell reception. they seem please, but don't want the money back, even after i've reminded them of my earlier compensation. i am the winner! half an hour after the bus was meant to arrive, and following too many 'should i go to the toilet? have i got time? i bet as soon as i go, the bus will come!' it finally does. for days, we'd been talking about how unfair it was that some people haven't been able to sit together on these buses, and how we'd been so lucky not to have been dealt the same fate. we speak too soon, it seems. for as the bus pulls up, pretty much full already, we find ourselves seperated. he gets to sit between two female friends who want to talk over him, though they are together so should have sat together rather than trying to take up so much room in the first place and so are now seperated by the free seat, sean now inhabits. i have to sit next to a female lone traveller, in her mid fifties maybe, from american, and seems like she could be desperate to talk to somebody on route. i, however am not! and sean seems to have had enough of his two females too, because he now sits at the back next to two norwegian, swedish (?!) guys, who i have since discovered could not shut up and were obsessed with their portable game consoles! one of them kept getting excited and leaping about and making squealing noises, i am told! i didn't hear a thing. i was trying to become too engrossed in my book to speak to my american! as with every trip through thailand, we were met by more thrown together establishments - plaster houses with corrugated roofs, wooden huts with thatched roofs. there were wild dogs and villages dotted along the roads, which again were bumpy and bendy and very, very long. at the end of the villages, mile beyond mile of fields and mountains. the drive was pleasant enough for the five or six hours it lasted, but for the air con dripping on me, the bus being way too cold, the american trying to offer me her jacket, and far too many stops. when you have a six hour bus journey ahead of you, you just want to get to the end of it, surely? we think the driver just wanted too many excuses to have a cigarette or stop off to chat with his friends along the route. anyway, we finally reach chiang khong after six or seven pm. the american has gotten over her panic that we might arrive in some desolate destination, where no guesthouse or restaurant will exist. i would sympathise with her, having had that fear in the past, but if an entire bus or two are going all that way, and that way happens to be part of the tourist route, you'd understand there would be civilisation at that destination, as opposed to a shanty town and a spear throwing tribe! anyway, we happen to arrive at the far end of town, exactly outside one specific guesthouse, which the package tourists are all booked in for. now we could have been stubborn and said we would have no part in this conspiracy between the bus company and guesthouse, but it was late and 'the boss' was offering very cheap rooms so we gave in. we check in and watch the package tourists pay over the odds for exit stamps, which we get ourselves at the border the next morning and happen to be free so, so much for the package tour being the cheaper option! after dinner beside a river, not seeming to be inhabited with disease ridden mosquitos, we head to the 'easy' bar, where the package tourist have all become best of friends! lovely. i could be sociable, but really talking can be so exhausting at times. i sometimes think how nice it would be to suddenly find my friends from home have been dropped in like food parcels from the army to the refugees! we have a drink, write something nice in the travel book, check late night internet, and 'home' to watch some thai tv on the first TV we've had in a room since we came here, and bed. in the morning we leave thailand and cross the river to laos!
and finally, i may be four days behind on my blog in reality, but if i was to say to you that i will be in laos within a matter of lines of my next blog entry, you can see how close i am to finally being up to date! finally!
