Since we have left Louang Prabang, things have really cooled off significantly.
We flew from LP to Vientiane, the capital, and spent 2 days checking out the sights. It is a shame we didn't spend more time in Laos, but a lot of what we want to see is in the south where the temperatures are high and the water levels are low. Returning someday after the rainy season would be more interesting, I think. That and 80% of all roads in Laos are unpaved. Call me a wuss, but I really don't want to spend a half day to a full 24 hours on a bus going down a lumpy dirt road. Originally we were going to fly to Pakse in the south and from there, fly to Hanoi. However, the heat was already as much as I could stand up north and going into hundred-plus degree weather sounded kind of rough.
Two days ago we boarded the plane in Vientiane in t-shirts, flip-flops and thin pants and felt pretty foolish stepping off the plane in Hanoi in 50 degree temperatures! I had no idea it would be so cold. We had a taxi waiting for us and drove 45 minutes to the Old City in the center of town. What a culture shock from chilled out Laos--loads of horn honking, fast driving and thousands of motor scooters. Cars and scooters are oblivious to pedestrians here. We felt like country bumpkins visiting the big city for the first time when we stepped out of the cab and had to dodge moving objects from all directions.
I kind of like the chaos here--you really need to pay attention and have your wits about you at all times, way more so than being in NY. It's fun to sit on a street corner and watch the traffic action whizz by--very entertaining, to say the least--especially when there are near-crashes every 10 minutes. So far we have only seen one, surprisingly enough.
The food here is outstanding--noodles for every meal! There is some odd looking street food specialty we saw today that neither one of us will dare to try: soda cans with the tops cut off and a small, whole bird with head and claws still attached stuffed into it. They are then dropped into a vat of hot oil and cooked, still in the can. Some turn out pitch black, some are brown. If anyone out there reading this has tried it and/or knows the name of it, please tell me!
This morning we woke up early to see Ho Chi Minh's tomb, as the last entry is at 10:15 a.m. The line was pretty long but moved fast; we even got to see the changing of the guards outside of the tomb. After moving slowly through the line for a half hour, we finally got to enter. There he was in a glass box in an air-conditioned room with police standing on all corners keeping watch. You can't stand around and look at him as the line has to keep moving around the tomb slowly. He looked exactly as he does in photos, long white beard and all. The poor guy wanted to be cremated and now he is stuck in a glass box, sent to Russia for 3 months out of the year to be re-embalmed.
We are flying to Hue later on today, which is in central Viet Nam. The weather is going to get hotter and it will be nice to go to the beach again.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Houeixi to Louang Phabang via the Mekong River
We have not quite melted yet, but have certainly started to.
The last we left off I think we were in Chiang Mai enroute to Chiang Rai. Chiang Rai is a small city that people use as a jumping off point to explore the various hill tribes that surround the region. My former Park Slope Food Coop-er, Havilah, got us in touch with her brother, Caleb, who lives in Chiang Rai and works for an NGO out there. It was great to have him show us around for the weekend, and he speaks Thai which is pretty helpful, too. He took us to an Akha village where one of his co-worker's lives with his wife and baby and it was pretty fascinating to see how the village is set up and learn a bit about their history. There were also Karen and Hmong tribes living in that region as well, and I think I would have passed out from wearing the heavy clothing and head coverings some of the women were wearing due to the heat, but I can only assume they are just used to it. Regardless, it was quite intricate and colorful.
We hired a driver to take us from Chiang Rai to the border at Chiang Khong, where we would purchase our Lao visas. It was sort of a package deal, as he drove us to various sights enroute to Chiang Kong, so we made a full day out of it. First we visited the Monkey Caves and hiked up steep steps to some dark caves full of bats and Buddha shrines, but no monkeys. The monkeys were hanging out at the bottom of the caves by some water and didn't seem too interested in people, nor did we get too close to them to avoid being bitten. After that we drove to Maesai, a big shopping town which we did none of since there isn't much room in our packs to buy stuff, but there were some great viewpoints above the city with temples and shrines. After Maesai we drove to the famous "Golden Triangle" region where you can look out and see Burma, Laos, and Thailand come together by the Mekong River. Our driver took us to this overly touristed Opium Museum, which was filled with old opium pipes, opium scales and weights and other paraphernalia, in addition to information in English on a brief history of opium. Somehow the museum staff thought it would be helpful to include a section upstairs on catfish, marijuana, bamboo waterpipes, and photos of Karen "long-necked" women. Go figure.
Kitt, our driver for the day, drove us through some really pretty countryside areas while we sweated our butts off in his "air conditioned" jeep, and in the afternoon, arrived at Chiang Khong. He found some guy, whose name and actual job description I never got, to secure us visas and tickets for the longboat journey on the Mekong into Laos. We handed over some money and our passports, and assured us he would see us at 8 a.m. the next morning with our visas and drive us to the dock.
Chiang Khong is a one-road town that is quiet and peaceful. We stayed in very modest accomodations (I think $5 a night) that served food and beer. That night we met Lynn and Andrew, she from Ireland, he from Wales, who met while travelling in New Zealand. We drank and chatted with them that night and learned they were also going on the boat the next day to Laos.
Next day, 8 a.m. we are ready to leave and no sign of the man with our passports. 8:30 comes and Paul sets off down the dirt road to find him (it is a small town, remember?). Five minutes later a motorbike comes down the road with the man with our passports and Paul on the back!! He forgot all about us, our passports, and our visas, and hurried to get them. He returned with a friend who is on a motor bike and I get on the back of one and Paul on the other, with our semi-heavy backpacks mind you. Off to the docks! Visas get stamped, exit fees from Thailand paid, we are rushed onto a longboat and away we go. Minutes later we are on the Laos side of the river in Houeixi, Laos. Paul and I are talked in to paying for a room in a guesthouse in Pakbeng, where the boat is heading to on the first leg of our journey "because it will be too dark for you to find a place when you arrive, so it is best to secure one now". Yep, we are scammed. But more on that later.
Who do we see in the restaurant before boarding the boat but Lynn and Andrew! They also purchased accomodations for the night in the same place that we were talked into, so at least we weren't alone. We board the boat and sit in front of them. Off we go with about 100 other people down the Mekong for the next 7 hours. We were pre-warned that the benches make your butt sore so we laid our yoga mats on them for some comfort. The scenery was incredible and I can only imagine it is more so after the rainy season when the water level is higher and the trees are lush and green. It was a long day on the boat and we were relieved to know they sold beer which came in quite handy after the 4th hour or so.
The benches, by the way, were not very stable and were in serious danger of collapsing from under us. I tried my best to tell this to a crew member, who only shrugged and seemed uninterested in this information. Paul lashed a daypack to the bench and connected it to a post in hopes this would prevent a disaster. When Lynn and Andrew moved temporarily to sit on the floor of the boat in front to stretch their legs, I took over their bench to have some more room. Sure enough, their bench collapsed from underneath me and some other passengers took photos of the now in pieces bench, as it was pretty hilarious. A crew member carried the pieces off, no questions asked, and didn't seem surprised in the least.
Finally we arrive in Pakbeng and loads of children race to the dock in hopes of earning some money for hauling bags up the steep steps. The four of us had none of this and grabbed our own bags and followed the guesthouse worker up the street to where we would spend the night. Mind you, it was not dark out and there were PLENTY of places to stay. Regardless, we were shown our room and it would have been ok except for one thing--the bathroom was so unbelievably disgusting that no amount of incense we lit could remove the foul stench. I actually dreaded having to use the toilet and preferred to hold it in, much less take a shower. I wish I could say I am exaggerating, but I am not. Lynn and Andrew paid a bit less to have a shared bathroom and instantly wished they had shelled out the extra buck or two to have their own, as they were pretty disgusted as well. The beds looked ok, until you sat down on them--I think they were made of wood or concrete, no joke. Despite all this, the village itself was quaint and lit by candlelight as electricity was scarce. We had a good dinner and basically called it a night.
Everyone complained of sore hips the next day from the awful beds and were pretty eager to get out of town. We ate breakfast and headed down to the boat and lets just say that was another experience all on its own. The stairs headed down were very steep and covered in sand and I had images in my head of tumbling down them while wearing my 30 lb. pack and breaking my ankle. To top it off, you had to literally walk a narrow wooden plank to get on the boat. Luckily everyone made it just fine and Lynn and Andrew nabbed some seats for us in the back where we would have more leg room.
At some point the boat pulls in to bring on more passengers and we all seemed shocked--where would they sit?? There are no seats left! There went our leg room. I'll tell you right now, if you have issues with personal space, don't take the slowboat down the Mekong! People thought nothing of squeezing in between others and just plopping down at their feet. Live roosters and baggage get piled on top of the boat, and then the boat just won't start. You can hear the engine struggling to start as someone is banging on the engine. People suddenly begin to theorize: Will we have to get off and wait for another boat? Will we get stuck here? Where are we, anyway? Someone paddles out on another boat to try and help. Next thing you know, a group of men are holding onto a heavy rope that is attached to the engine's flywheel, they start counting in Lao, do the heave-ho move and yank hard a few times until the engine roars to life again. Everyone cheers loudly and the boats takes off.
No one seems to know what time the boat is due to arrive in Louang Phabang (I see different spellings on the name--sometimes it is Prabang, other times Phabang)--some are told it is shorter than the first day and will take 5 hours, some were told 6, some 7. In all, it takes 9 hours, a total of 16 hours in two days. I have a meltdown of sorts on the last 2 hours of the trip due to a wave of pre-menstrual depression and people try hard to cheer me up, but nothing seems to work. I just stood in the head and cried, how pathetic. I hate when this happens, and luckily it does not happen every month, luckily for Paul.
Paul and I feel we have earned a night in an expensive hotel at this point after sitting for so long on a 2 day boat ride and take a tuk-tuk to a place we read about; they are fully booked and reccomend another place called the Merry Lao-Swiss. Everything there is written in German and English, and I'm not sure if I understand the connection, but there you have it. It is a lovely place and we check in, take a shower, and head to The Apsara, a swanky, New York-priced place for dinner. The food is delicious, and we both wake up around 2 a.m. feeling horrible. We have food poisoning! The next day is spent in bed but at some point I manage to make my way downstairs to let the staff know the A/C is broken, we are sick, please fix it! Within 10 minutes 3 guys come to the door to replace the relay in the A/C, and we are relieved to be spending a sick day in a comfortable guesthouse and not on the boat or in Pakbeng.
The next day we finally get to see the sights of Louang Prabang and have been here ever since. It is a cute place with friendly people and a laid-back atmosphere. LP is an early to bed, early to rise kind of town and there isn't much going on after 10 p.m. We have been to several Buddhist Wats, or temples, as there are loads of them. There are also many young (by young I mean at least 10 to 15 years old) "novice" boy monks with shaved heads all over town, who are here to study. They carry parasols to shade them from the hot sun and I think they look adorable.
Tonight we are off to the capital, Vientiane via Laos Airlines. More updates to come from Vientiene before we head off to Viet Nam.
The last we left off I think we were in Chiang Mai enroute to Chiang Rai. Chiang Rai is a small city that people use as a jumping off point to explore the various hill tribes that surround the region. My former Park Slope Food Coop-er, Havilah, got us in touch with her brother, Caleb, who lives in Chiang Rai and works for an NGO out there. It was great to have him show us around for the weekend, and he speaks Thai which is pretty helpful, too. He took us to an Akha village where one of his co-worker's lives with his wife and baby and it was pretty fascinating to see how the village is set up and learn a bit about their history. There were also Karen and Hmong tribes living in that region as well, and I think I would have passed out from wearing the heavy clothing and head coverings some of the women were wearing due to the heat, but I can only assume they are just used to it. Regardless, it was quite intricate and colorful.
We hired a driver to take us from Chiang Rai to the border at Chiang Khong, where we would purchase our Lao visas. It was sort of a package deal, as he drove us to various sights enroute to Chiang Kong, so we made a full day out of it. First we visited the Monkey Caves and hiked up steep steps to some dark caves full of bats and Buddha shrines, but no monkeys. The monkeys were hanging out at the bottom of the caves by some water and didn't seem too interested in people, nor did we get too close to them to avoid being bitten. After that we drove to Maesai, a big shopping town which we did none of since there isn't much room in our packs to buy stuff, but there were some great viewpoints above the city with temples and shrines. After Maesai we drove to the famous "Golden Triangle" region where you can look out and see Burma, Laos, and Thailand come together by the Mekong River. Our driver took us to this overly touristed Opium Museum, which was filled with old opium pipes, opium scales and weights and other paraphernalia, in addition to information in English on a brief history of opium. Somehow the museum staff thought it would be helpful to include a section upstairs on catfish, marijuana, bamboo waterpipes, and photos of Karen "long-necked" women. Go figure.
Kitt, our driver for the day, drove us through some really pretty countryside areas while we sweated our butts off in his "air conditioned" jeep, and in the afternoon, arrived at Chiang Khong. He found some guy, whose name and actual job description I never got, to secure us visas and tickets for the longboat journey on the Mekong into Laos. We handed over some money and our passports, and assured us he would see us at 8 a.m. the next morning with our visas and drive us to the dock.
Chiang Khong is a one-road town that is quiet and peaceful. We stayed in very modest accomodations (I think $5 a night) that served food and beer. That night we met Lynn and Andrew, she from Ireland, he from Wales, who met while travelling in New Zealand. We drank and chatted with them that night and learned they were also going on the boat the next day to Laos.
Next day, 8 a.m. we are ready to leave and no sign of the man with our passports. 8:30 comes and Paul sets off down the dirt road to find him (it is a small town, remember?). Five minutes later a motorbike comes down the road with the man with our passports and Paul on the back!! He forgot all about us, our passports, and our visas, and hurried to get them. He returned with a friend who is on a motor bike and I get on the back of one and Paul on the other, with our semi-heavy backpacks mind you. Off to the docks! Visas get stamped, exit fees from Thailand paid, we are rushed onto a longboat and away we go. Minutes later we are on the Laos side of the river in Houeixi, Laos. Paul and I are talked in to paying for a room in a guesthouse in Pakbeng, where the boat is heading to on the first leg of our journey "because it will be too dark for you to find a place when you arrive, so it is best to secure one now". Yep, we are scammed. But more on that later.
Who do we see in the restaurant before boarding the boat but Lynn and Andrew! They also purchased accomodations for the night in the same place that we were talked into, so at least we weren't alone. We board the boat and sit in front of them. Off we go with about 100 other people down the Mekong for the next 7 hours. We were pre-warned that the benches make your butt sore so we laid our yoga mats on them for some comfort. The scenery was incredible and I can only imagine it is more so after the rainy season when the water level is higher and the trees are lush and green. It was a long day on the boat and we were relieved to know they sold beer which came in quite handy after the 4th hour or so.
The benches, by the way, were not very stable and were in serious danger of collapsing from under us. I tried my best to tell this to a crew member, who only shrugged and seemed uninterested in this information. Paul lashed a daypack to the bench and connected it to a post in hopes this would prevent a disaster. When Lynn and Andrew moved temporarily to sit on the floor of the boat in front to stretch their legs, I took over their bench to have some more room. Sure enough, their bench collapsed from underneath me and some other passengers took photos of the now in pieces bench, as it was pretty hilarious. A crew member carried the pieces off, no questions asked, and didn't seem surprised in the least.
Finally we arrive in Pakbeng and loads of children race to the dock in hopes of earning some money for hauling bags up the steep steps. The four of us had none of this and grabbed our own bags and followed the guesthouse worker up the street to where we would spend the night. Mind you, it was not dark out and there were PLENTY of places to stay. Regardless, we were shown our room and it would have been ok except for one thing--the bathroom was so unbelievably disgusting that no amount of incense we lit could remove the foul stench. I actually dreaded having to use the toilet and preferred to hold it in, much less take a shower. I wish I could say I am exaggerating, but I am not. Lynn and Andrew paid a bit less to have a shared bathroom and instantly wished they had shelled out the extra buck or two to have their own, as they were pretty disgusted as well. The beds looked ok, until you sat down on them--I think they were made of wood or concrete, no joke. Despite all this, the village itself was quaint and lit by candlelight as electricity was scarce. We had a good dinner and basically called it a night.
Everyone complained of sore hips the next day from the awful beds and were pretty eager to get out of town. We ate breakfast and headed down to the boat and lets just say that was another experience all on its own. The stairs headed down were very steep and covered in sand and I had images in my head of tumbling down them while wearing my 30 lb. pack and breaking my ankle. To top it off, you had to literally walk a narrow wooden plank to get on the boat. Luckily everyone made it just fine and Lynn and Andrew nabbed some seats for us in the back where we would have more leg room.
At some point the boat pulls in to bring on more passengers and we all seemed shocked--where would they sit?? There are no seats left! There went our leg room. I'll tell you right now, if you have issues with personal space, don't take the slowboat down the Mekong! People thought nothing of squeezing in between others and just plopping down at their feet. Live roosters and baggage get piled on top of the boat, and then the boat just won't start. You can hear the engine struggling to start as someone is banging on the engine. People suddenly begin to theorize: Will we have to get off and wait for another boat? Will we get stuck here? Where are we, anyway? Someone paddles out on another boat to try and help. Next thing you know, a group of men are holding onto a heavy rope that is attached to the engine's flywheel, they start counting in Lao, do the heave-ho move and yank hard a few times until the engine roars to life again. Everyone cheers loudly and the boats takes off.
No one seems to know what time the boat is due to arrive in Louang Phabang (I see different spellings on the name--sometimes it is Prabang, other times Phabang)--some are told it is shorter than the first day and will take 5 hours, some were told 6, some 7. In all, it takes 9 hours, a total of 16 hours in two days. I have a meltdown of sorts on the last 2 hours of the trip due to a wave of pre-menstrual depression and people try hard to cheer me up, but nothing seems to work. I just stood in the head and cried, how pathetic. I hate when this happens, and luckily it does not happen every month, luckily for Paul.
Paul and I feel we have earned a night in an expensive hotel at this point after sitting for so long on a 2 day boat ride and take a tuk-tuk to a place we read about; they are fully booked and reccomend another place called the Merry Lao-Swiss. Everything there is written in German and English, and I'm not sure if I understand the connection, but there you have it. It is a lovely place and we check in, take a shower, and head to The Apsara, a swanky, New York-priced place for dinner. The food is delicious, and we both wake up around 2 a.m. feeling horrible. We have food poisoning! The next day is spent in bed but at some point I manage to make my way downstairs to let the staff know the A/C is broken, we are sick, please fix it! Within 10 minutes 3 guys come to the door to replace the relay in the A/C, and we are relieved to be spending a sick day in a comfortable guesthouse and not on the boat or in Pakbeng.
The next day we finally get to see the sights of Louang Prabang and have been here ever since. It is a cute place with friendly people and a laid-back atmosphere. LP is an early to bed, early to rise kind of town and there isn't much going on after 10 p.m. We have been to several Buddhist Wats, or temples, as there are loads of them. There are also many young (by young I mean at least 10 to 15 years old) "novice" boy monks with shaved heads all over town, who are here to study. They carry parasols to shade them from the hot sun and I think they look adorable.
Tonight we are off to the capital, Vientiane via Laos Airlines. More updates to come from Vientiene before we head off to Viet Nam.
Friday, March 03, 2006
Heat Wave Coming
For those of you tracking our meterological progress, things are looking a bit grim.
After abandoning our shoes for flip flops the moment we got off the plane in Bangkok, we've been enjoying some pretty danged hot weather. Temps were probably in the upper 80's in Koh Phangan - where we had frequent rainstorms that cooled things off nicely in the afternoon. Ocean temps were proably around 80.
At Haad Beach Koh Island (off the North Coast of Little Rangoon) things were definitely hotter. Daytime temps were well into the 90s and the sea had to be well into the upper 80s - some of the warmest water I've ever swam in.
One night the tide came in quite high - waves maybe 15 feet from our bungalow as we were sleeping and the moist heat from the water was palpable.
Chiang Mai has been much dryer and cooler in the evenings, but afternoon highs have been in the low 90s.
As we head north we were hoping to cool off a bit in the hill country, but it looks like this part of the world is going to be pretty hot next week. Chiang Rai (our next stop) and northern Laos both look to be in the low 100s next week - temperatures we thought we would be avoiding by not going to India this time of year.
If you don't hear from us, assume we've melted into some fancy hotel with AC, a pool and a large bottle of the coldest Chang beer.
After abandoning our shoes for flip flops the moment we got off the plane in Bangkok, we've been enjoying some pretty danged hot weather. Temps were probably in the upper 80's in Koh Phangan - where we had frequent rainstorms that cooled things off nicely in the afternoon. Ocean temps were proably around 80.
At Haad Beach Koh Island (off the North Coast of Little Rangoon) things were definitely hotter. Daytime temps were well into the 90s and the sea had to be well into the upper 80s - some of the warmest water I've ever swam in.
One night the tide came in quite high - waves maybe 15 feet from our bungalow as we were sleeping and the moist heat from the water was palpable.
Chiang Mai has been much dryer and cooler in the evenings, but afternoon highs have been in the low 90s.
As we head north we were hoping to cool off a bit in the hill country, but it looks like this part of the world is going to be pretty hot next week. Chiang Rai (our next stop) and northern Laos both look to be in the low 100s next week - temperatures we thought we would be avoiding by not going to India this time of year.
If you don't hear from us, assume we've melted into some fancy hotel with AC, a pool and a large bottle of the coldest Chang beer.
My 30 Seconds of Fame
And let's just say that when a 175lb (more or less) lady decides to jump into your arms while you're simultaneously trying to get your sideways flip-flop back on straight and also boogie-down in a fashion that will be remotely entertaining to your newfound throng of cheering fans, you better be ready to catch.
Needless to say, I was not.
I was laid out flat - with her on top of me.
The crowd went wild!!!
Needless to say, I was not.
I was laid out flat - with her on top of me.
The crowd went wild!!!
Chiang Mai enroute to Chiang Rai
Chiang Mai is Thailand's second biggest city after Bangkok and we have been here for 3 days. Paul and I stayed in a modest hotel on the bank of a river, while Frank and Rebecca, the honeymooners, stayed at this hotel called The Chedi; it is the swankiest hotel I have ever seen. Our jaws dropped when we walked in, then dropped even further when we went up to their room--they were assigned their own butler, if you can believe that. We were more than happy to live vicarously through them during cocktail hour on their terrace every evening.
Chiang Mai is a really cute city that is easy to get around. The area we stayed in was not heavily touristed and on our first day of adventuring around we looked for a place to eat lunch. Everything on the menu was listed in Thai, which gave us little choice but to wing it and see what we ended up with on our plates. I have to say that I am pretty thankful at this point I have falled off the vegetarian wagon, as it is practically impossible to avoid meat if you want to be adventurous and eat in local joints. It turns out that many restaraunts specialize in just one thing, so there is essentially one dish on the menu with a choice of either pork or chicken with broth and vegetables added in, with rice on the side. It feels odd to order hot, spicy soup in 95 degree weather but there you have it. I haven't had one bad meal yet, regardless of how much I sweat while eating it!
The other night Frank suggested this cabaret/Vegas style show at "The Simon's Dream" and it was pretty hilarious. Think extreme schlock and drag queens mixed up with traditional Thai costumes and dancing, with jungle motif. I don't know how else to explain it. The costumes were outrageous and glittery and the stage sets changed with every dance routine. Of course, the gay national anthem was played at the end--"I Will Survive"--and this fabulous trannie yanked Paul out of his seat and dragged him on stage. We were laughing so hard that I almost forgot to pull out the camera. He wound up with glowing red lipstick marks all over his face by the end of it.
We couldn't board the 10:00 bus to Chiang Rai so we are currently killing time in an internet cafe, awaiting our 12:30 V.I.P. luxury bus with toilet and air conditioning -- only $12 for two one way tickets.
We keep spacing out on bringing the USB cord out with us to upload recent photos and hope to have some up on the next post.
After Chiang Rai, it is off to Laos! Just in time for the heat wave. Wish us luck.
Chiang Mai is a really cute city that is easy to get around. The area we stayed in was not heavily touristed and on our first day of adventuring around we looked for a place to eat lunch. Everything on the menu was listed in Thai, which gave us little choice but to wing it and see what we ended up with on our plates. I have to say that I am pretty thankful at this point I have falled off the vegetarian wagon, as it is practically impossible to avoid meat if you want to be adventurous and eat in local joints. It turns out that many restaraunts specialize in just one thing, so there is essentially one dish on the menu with a choice of either pork or chicken with broth and vegetables added in, with rice on the side. It feels odd to order hot, spicy soup in 95 degree weather but there you have it. I haven't had one bad meal yet, regardless of how much I sweat while eating it!
The other night Frank suggested this cabaret/Vegas style show at "The Simon's Dream" and it was pretty hilarious. Think extreme schlock and drag queens mixed up with traditional Thai costumes and dancing, with jungle motif. I don't know how else to explain it. The costumes were outrageous and glittery and the stage sets changed with every dance routine. Of course, the gay national anthem was played at the end--"I Will Survive"--and this fabulous trannie yanked Paul out of his seat and dragged him on stage. We were laughing so hard that I almost forgot to pull out the camera. He wound up with glowing red lipstick marks all over his face by the end of it.
We couldn't board the 10:00 bus to Chiang Rai so we are currently killing time in an internet cafe, awaiting our 12:30 V.I.P. luxury bus with toilet and air conditioning -- only $12 for two one way tickets.
We keep spacing out on bringing the USB cord out with us to upload recent photos and hope to have some up on the next post.
After Chiang Rai, it is off to Laos! Just in time for the heat wave. Wish us luck.
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