making our way back..

yesterday was our last day in laos. the three of us (there’s this new zealand dude named anthony who’s been traveling w/ us for the last few days) were all pretty bummed to be leaving here. even though the food has been wack, going to laos has been a great experience. it’s gonna be weird to go back to thailand which is so much more industrialized and westernized than here. after bumming around for part of the day we grabbed a tuk tuk to go to the border.

it’s weird how it’s always the little differences about a place that really surprise you. sure, when you go to a new country you expect all the big differences: different architecture, different language, different transportation, etc… but when you see something totally basic done in a way that you never would have expected, it’s always so bizarre. like how the showers here are just part of the bathrooms. well, another one of those weird things happened today. i went to a restaurant to get a coke for my ride… and they gave it to me *in a bag*. literally. she grabbed the bottle of coke, grabbed what essentially was a medium sized sandwich bag, poured the coke into the plastic bag and handed it to me. so odd.

we were crossing the laos border when anthony remembered that he had some opium on him that he had bought at some point. luckily for him, he ditched it. that night on the train, all of a sudden about 10 soldiers walk in. 6 of them have huge dogs on chains and they proceed to spend a considerable amount of time sniffing all of our bags. of course we had nothing to worry about, but it was still pretty nerve racking. we met this japanese canadian guy on the train who gave me a bunch of advise on what i can do w/ the 12 hours of time i have in tokyo. tokyo is gonna be FUN! the attendants on the train sold beer, so the 4 of us proceeded to drink a ton of beer and play card games.

this morning i woke up feeling like crap. again. it’s really weird, every single morning now for 7 or 8 days i’ve woken up totally congested with a really really sore throat that then goes away after an hour or so… but then returns the next morning.

we get off the train back in bangkok, and as we’re walking thru the train station, this music starts playing and all of a sudden everybody comes to a dead halt. huh? so the song playing was the national anthem and thai people are very very serious about the anthem here. the whole scene was so surreal. hundreds of people who were all just walking, carrying things, or whatever, are now all standing at attention completely frozen in their tracks as if time stopped. it was almost eerie. then the music came to an end, and literally the very second it stopped, all of a sudden time unfroze and everyone rushed ahead as if freed from a magic spell. seriously, the whole thing seemed like it was out of some trippy movie.

so now i’m back in bangkok. i have a tiny bit of time left to do some shopping etc before i fly out tomorrow night. that guy anthony went off to catch his flight back to new zealand and jamie left to fly to chang mai. it’s weird when you end up spending so much time hanging out with a friend 24/7 (or in this case 24/11), night and day… and then all of a sudden they’re gone. i really hate that feeling. like when you go somewhere w/ your friends for a whole weekend, and then the end of the weekend comes and everyone has to go their separate ways. it’s always so depressing. and when it’s 11 days instead of just a weekend, it’s even worse… *sigh*. so i was pretty bummed… and then all of a sudden i started *totally* missing everyone from back home. so many people i havent seen in sooo long. it sucks. i’d almost rather just leave *right now*. i don’t really wanna be here by myself. traveling alone was totally fine earlier, but today i’m just not feelin’ it. oh well… just one day left… and also, i’m sure this feeling will pass.

wow, only a couple of more posts left…

-v