mixed tape masterpieces: london II
i've failed you all...
firstly, i've been a bad photographer. you may or may not have heard that it snowed here in londontown. i was being too miserable and cold to actually take any pictures for you to see. and to be fair, it was pretty lame snow. it wasn't even enough to make dc stop running (which means less than 2 inches). although i did see a picture of big ben all decked in white, which was pretty.
secondly, i've been a bad blogger. as a side issue, i've also been a bad student, which has significantly contributed to my overall lack of productivity. i've been trying hard to finish up my lao-postings but i need to organise photos. so those are coming soon...ish...
thirdly, i've been a bad sharer. you are probably thinking that the reason i'm not writing is because i lead a sad sad life of inactivity. well, you're wrong. sorta. i'm moving and for the last 2 1/2 weeks, i've been staying with friends. friends who have a tv. i believe the last time i had a tv was in dc, so i have been doing a fair amount of sitting around... but there's activity all over the place!
well... i bought tickets to see the arcade fire on march 14th. that's probably the most exciting thing i can think of right now.
anyway, apologies x 500. i'm still alive.
snap
lao day 4: vang vien - luang prabang
bus rides can be fun... when you aren't sitting next to ... ohh... saayy... a girl who listens to awful music very loudly on her headphones and passes out with the window open. the drive was, however, extremely beautiful. we drove northeast through the mountains and the peacefulness of the landscape was consistently ruined by blasts of whatever nonsense the girl next to me was listening to. actually, i'm exaggerating. the music was annoying but the landscape was beautiful enough to make me ignore it. and the fact that the window was open meant that at least half of the noise went straight out the window and the other half was melded with the sound of the engine. okay, enough of that.we stopped for lunch half way and met some of the other riders: lucy, gemma, and tai - all australian. when we arrived in luang prabang, we discovered that the bus drivers have a deal with local tuktuk drivers. the "bus station" is several miles outside of town and you are stuck there unless you are willing to pay the tuktuk driver to think about giving you a ride into town. we got into town and found a hostel with our new bff tai.
i liked luang prabang. it was by far my favouritest city of all. i can admit that it was the most tourist-friendly. and by that, i don't mean backpacker-friendly, because vang vien, with all of its opiates and daybeds and tubing activities is pretty backpacker-haven-esque. luang prabang is neater. it's nicer. there is a pretty fun night market that makes use of cute little kids that con you into buying things with their sweetness...but i guess i like it because it caters to more people. my parents:
expensive restaurants in gorgeous french-style terraces, me: night market food - $1.5US for grilled mekong fish on a skewer and a full plate of whatever sides you could want with it, or the locals: squirrel. mmmmm....
day 5: kuangsi waterfalls
absolutely amazing. we met some other people to share the tuktuk with. the aussies from before and two swedish guys. after looking around for a good price, we just stuck with the guy from our hostel because we figured he had the keys to our room. it took awhile to get out there but i always enjoy the drives through the mountains.
i guess i'm just gonna leave you with those pictures... but to answer some questions:
1. yes, the water was seriously that colour.
2. yes, that is a monk sitting almost perfectly in the middle of my picture
3. yes, we swam in the water and yes, it was freezing.
lao day 3: vang vien
i hate roosters. y'know why? because they're obnoxious. i don't have a problem with people/animals that feel they need to wake up at 4:30 in the morning but raucous activity at that time is a little rude. lao roosters are everywhere and they cock-a-doodle-doo funny. and it sounds like they're having conversations with each other about the right way to cock-a-doodle-doo. i can say this from extensive research, having been woken up daily by said roosters for the rest of the trip.
we gave up at around 7:30 and just woke up and went for breakfast. we sat in a day bed and had some very cakey pancakes. it was like a crepe, except not. it was 
literally a birthday cake smushed down covered in bananas. we spent the rest of the morning trying to digest the "more cake, less pan" and find a way to get down to the river and get on some tubes (see pretty picture). we eventually found one but were told it wasn't worth going down until about 11 when it was warmer so we walked around and found a monastery a little bit outside of town.
after we walked around the monastery for awhile, several little monks started
talking to us. by little i mean they were small but also young. only one monk was an actual monk, lew (far left). the rest were novices. (gotta be at least 20 yrs old). one of the novices, tao (far right), had phenomenal english so we just kept asking him questions and him us and generally had a pretty good time. they asked us to come to evening prayer so we were kinda excited about having woken up so early and having had the time to wander off.
so we spent the day tubing which was fun but cold. we did manage to stop off and have some beer and find a cave and walk in and look around. unfortunately, we were in bikinis and flip flops, and there was a lot of mud. that swim suit is no longer in use, needless to say. and not just because london is freaking cold.
by 3pm, we were cold and not done tubing so we decided we needed
to get back into the water so we could be back for evening prayer. we also figured we'd need time to change because we probably shouldn't roll up to evening prayer in bikinis, especially when it looks very much like i'm not even wearing that in certain photos (ahem, cool tree). so we got back, changed and headed back over to the monastery.
when we got in, they were stalling and being a little strange. finally one of them asked me if i could help him with his english homework. this was pretty standard practice in china so i wasn't too surprised, i guess. 
after a little while, evening prayer began and we got to sit right up with them and watch everything close up. afterwards, we asked them very dorky music questions and were quite satisfied with the whole evening.
then we were sitting around with two of them and they asked us what we were going to do that night. we said we were thinking of meeting a friend for dinner and going out. they said (no joke), "oh because we could all go down to the river and go to a pub... and listen to english music." and then we went, "huh?" and i followed with, "... are you guys allowed to leave?" because i clearly thought that monks were chained to the monastery or something...we declined in the end but we were a little confused. we left having given them our email addresses and hopefully not too bad an impression.
we kinda spent the rest of the night walking around being confused and wondering if monks were... well... not what we thought.
lao day 1: london - bangkok - vientiane
to clear up the lao vs laos issue. i've come to believe that laos is a franco term and that lao is correct. it also helps me justify my obsession that little bit more. everything and everyone says lao and they are therefore all mine. take the following evidence.
=a.
b.
c.
d.
(lao rice wine, aka lao lao)
e.
vientiane was quiet on the saturday night that i arrived. noone was around, even when we arrived downtown. the city was totally dead. the population grew by about 10 people the next morning. favourite sight of the night: the neon-lit church (sorry no pictures). ps, i'd like to imagine they sent jesus off with a neon-crucifixion despite what all the pictures seem to imply...
day 2: vientiane - vang vienneither alexis nor i were that interested in vientiane. we spent the morning walking around and looking for things to be excited about but in the end it boiled down to
the two of us looking at each other every once in awhile and saying, "we're in lao. oh look, there's the mekong," or "we're in lao. man that's a pretty temple."
that afternoon, we got on the bus to vang vien, which is northwest of vientiane. the bus was actually pretty nice. we did stop off somewhere for a short bathroom break and they were cooking what i can only imagine was some former live animals' intestine. it looked as appetising as it sounds. it didn't help that there were mangy cats running around everywhere. it obviously wasn't cat intestine because there was too much of it but anyone who knows what r.o.u.s. stands for can just nod with me.
when we arrived in vang vien, it was already late. we found a hostel and went to find food. as we approached the centre (read: the intersection), it seemed that restaurant options came down to the place with the day beds playing episodes of friends, the other place with the day beds playing episodes of friends or the one place with the day beds playing episodes of the simpsons. i do exaggerate a little...
there were other places... but this stuff: ...
seemed like a pretty standard purchase in this town so the daybeds just seemed a natural way to end the day.
the main point of this city seems to be the calm waters. the mountains are close so big boats can't get through. instead, tourists can hop on a rubber tire and spend the whole day tubing and stopping off for food and beer lao. not a bad way to spend the day.
more to come...
