Given'er on the River

I was just in a small town called Vang Vieng that is truely a diamond in the rough. You can walk across town in about 10 min. The town is in a valley with mountains all around it next to a river. The best part about this place is the tubing on the river. I will try to explain why this is so much fun. It startes at about 10 or 11 in the a.m. and goes until sun down. All you do is float down the river and stop off a bars that have rope swings, zip lines, sand volleyball courts, bocce ball courts, and of course all the semi-cold beer lao you can drink. The only hard part is budgeting your time wisely so that you don't get stuck on the river after dark. I made that mistake only once before to realize that I didn't want to do that again. And yes, the second time was just as fun as the first was.

Laos

So I'm in laos now. I took a two day slow boat to Luang Prabang. The boat was suppost to hold 80 passangers, but they put 150. some people were worried and started to make a fuss to the captain to try and get two boats. The arguement was easly settled by the captain as he says, "Ok, two boat." he then untied the boat and we were off . . . . . . . on one boat still. After about an hour into it everyone was put to ease because the boat seemed to handle it and 80% of the boat brought whiskey bottles. i was one of the masses and soon the other 20% realized how boring an 7 hour boat ride is and joined the festivities. I met a lot of really cool people on that boat and have been have a lot of fun in Laos with all of them. the one down side of the boat was that the Burmese have been throwing the bodies of their dead into the river, so there are a couple of floaters.

Yesterday, about six of us went to a waterfall about an hour outside of town with 10 people. it was really fun and they had some natural swimming pools with a rope swing and a cliff jump were we spent most of the day relaxing. I did have to make a rescue on some dutch girl who swallowed some water under the water fall. i was a hero for the day and got bought a couple beers for my good deed.

Tomorrow I'm off to Vang Vieng for some tubing and fun.
Hope everyone's doing well.

Crazy bus driver

Today I took a bus from Pai to Chang Mai in Northern Thailand. The bus driver was freakin CRAZY!!! It was pouring rain and he was bombing down the mountain and swerving in and out of traffic so much that people in the bus were screaming out loud. The driver didn't seem to mind that much. A couple of people in the front of the bus were begging him to slow down which wasn't really working to much until a lady right behind him called the police. He then shaped up quick and slowed down. i would have to say that i have been on a couple crazy rides here in Thailand, but this one takes the cake. Oh by the way love you Mom.

Going to Lao in two days, I'll keep you posted.

So I am in this place called Thailand.

So i have been here for about two weeks or so and have to say that it is amazing. I flew into Bangkok on the 18th of October and have been working my way up north slowly but surely. I got out of Bangkok as fast as i could because it just wasn't my cup of tea. It was very chaotic and I got ripped off twice within an hour that almost got myself a knuckle sandwich if i didn't pay. Since then i have kind of figured out the rules of the road so to speak and have gotten very good at bargaining.

The first stop north of Bangkok was an ancient city of Ayutthaya which had a moat around it as well some really amazing looking temples. From there it was on to Lopburi for the day that had a temple with about five hundred monkeys all over it. These monkeys are considered such a blessing by the Buddhists for the money the bring to the city that they can do what ever they want(i.e. steal food and water from tourists, play on you like a tree in the jungle, etc.).

Then up to Phitsanlok where myself and a Canadian were forced on stage in a local bar to sing some western songs, some of which i had never even heard before. After two or three songs we were allowed to pick songs that we knew and the band started to have much more fun.

I have since gone threw Lampang where i had a cold and then recovered. This place was funny because i tried to get to a national park near by but since it wasn't a very touristy town it took about two and a half hours to figure out that yes, there was a bus but no one knew how to get to it. I have a pretty funny video clip of about ten or so Thais try to figure out where the bus station was. i thought the map would help, it didn't.

In Chang Mai, I took a cooking course on a Thai farm that was all organic. There I found out that I am allergic to some of the spices that they have as well as learning that fish sauce is horrible.

I didn't spend to much time up Chang Mai because i heard about this place called Pai that is a very small city in the basin of some mountains and it is absolutely beautiful. I have only been here four days, but have seen the town and went on a two day river rafting trip. The rapids were only a class three but it was still fun because the guide let myself and one other guy on the trip kayak some of the rapids which made it a little more interesting. Like Jako the guide said, "More danger, more fun!." At the end of the trip there was a 45 foot cliff jump into about 5-6 feet of water that besides the guide i was the only one to do. i had a little bit of a butt check on the bottom that didn't hurt thanks to the sandy bottom, but my knife did happen to fall out of my pocket. oh well. I'll stay here a couple more days before going back to Chang Mai and on to Laos.