Home.

Some of you may have heard and some of you may not know that I am back in Boston as of today.

My second day in Luang Prabang I woke up with a terrible sore throat and body aches. I elected to stay in bed and sleep it off figuring that travel had caught up with me. I slept all day but it seemed like every time I woke up my throat hurt worse each time. By that night I was in such pain I was spitting in the sink rather than swallowing. Sparing anymore gross details, things got worse from there and my parents elected to get me home to doctors that could help, Laos does not have very good health care.

After some long flights I arrived in Boston this morning at 10 am and took a taxi straight to the hospital. The doctors told me that despite a severe case of strep throat I also had a fever of over 102, my pulse was 130 BPM and I was dehydrated. I was there for awhile but left feeling so much better.

Even though I cut my trip short I am so extremely grateful for my parents not only making this whole trip possible but also making it easy for me to come home when I needed it. I saw so many beautiful things on this trip and met some awesome people! This is a bad bump in the road but it won't stop me from getting on a plane again in the future. Happy trails!

Mekong

Our last day on the Mekong we tried everything to entertain ourselves, looking out the window, sleeping, reading, but after everything got boring one thing seemed to endlessly capture our attention, Bernard had a Thai game made out of a simple bamboo shoot, a small rubber band loop inside and a widdled stick. The object is to get the stick into the loop and get it to snap back into the bamboo. Paul, Matt, Tony and I passed it back and forth for hours, always getting Bernard to show us again.

We made short stops along the way to pick up and drop off locals, at one point I noticed everyone scrambling to the front of the boat. I wondered what the commotion was and I turned to see a small group of children selling scarves. We joked at all the tourists rushing to not buy the scarves, but simply stick cameras in these kids faces.

 We had snacks to employ us too, Matt had a rather interesting soup in a bag and there was beer to drink.

Leg room was very little, especially with Paul and I being mostly legs. The leg shift game grew tiresome a lot so I would often sit on the edge of the boat.

There were many beautiful views of jungles and waterfalls and giant cliffs. I wasn't able to get a great picture of it but we passed a temple set inside a cave. It goes back deep inside the cave with a large golden state of Buddha as well as at least a hundred smaller statues around it. It was an amazing sight.

Sun began to set over the river and it was a very beautiful sunset! We arrived very late in Luang Prabang, we got a little lost inside a street market on the way to our hostel. I didn't have an opportuity to take a picture of the looming temple on a high hill top above the city. What a beautiful day!

Crossing into Laos

Up bright and early we all were packed and ready to go. We had another small breakfast much to Uther's chagrin, and had the opportunity to meet more people who had arrived later that night. We packed up our bags and loaded up into the truck and were driven down the river to make the crossing into Laos.

After "exiting" Thailand speedy river boats whisked us across the river into Laos. The border control was a crowded and confusing place, lots of forms and numbers and running around. Luckily we made it through and were ushered to where another bus would take us to our slow boat.

We sat at a little shop with snacks and stuff, a man came to register us for the boat and explained that the place we were stopping for the night was a very small town and we would be arriving late therefore places to stay would be not very available. He offered us rooms at a guesthouse and we all signed up. After he left the woman came by and said the bus would be arriving soon but we should get snacks now as there would be no food on the boat and also we should think about buying pillows as the ride was bumpy. We got supplies and then an old broken down tuk tuk showed up honking it's horn loudly. We assumed this was the bus and started to load our things. The kid with our passports brought them back over and through broken English stated something about each of us needing to pay an extra 100 Baht for "Passport Control". I stared at my friends in disbelief, an older couple with us eagerly whipped out their wallets and just as they were about the hand the cash over the tuk tuk started to drive away. I reached out and snatched the passports from his hands and the truck pulled away from a very disappointed Laotian boy hoping for a good scam.

Speaking of scams, not only was there food on the boat (plenty of it!) but the seats were also old bus seats, in other words very cushy. I laughed thinking how many foreigners had eagerly shelled out the bills for all these things over the years, they had a good scam going.

Almost had a boat crash! The day was long and leisurely, lots of gorgeous views of the Laotian jungle. Relaxing and reading and dozing all day sailing down the Mekong is my kind of holiday!

When we arrived at the town for the night, I laughed again as there were many many trucks parked at the dock waiting to take people to a hostel, I wondered how much we had over paid for our room. We all got settled and went to dinner. Unfortunately that night my dinner came back up and I spent the rest of the evening in bed preparing for another day on the river.

Keep on bussin'

After the White temple it was about 2 hours before we stopped at our hostel for the night, the town was quite small, only about one strip of shops. The hostel too, seemed like a ghost town. After getting settled a few of us from the bus came together because there seemed to be nothing else to do. Anya and Uther were a couple from north Germany and Bernard was from France on holiday for the winter. We swapped stories and travel plans and then were called in for dinner. Plates of fried rice with a fried egg on top awaited us and as we all sat down, Uther poked at his dinner and said "They do know we are not tiny children right?"

After dinner our little group decided to wander into town in search of merryment, we settled on drinking beers outside of a little corner store. The principle discussion was how the moon looks different in all of our different sections of the world. Conversation was complicated as accents and language gaps made for long pauses and lots of hand gestures. As we were talking a woman approached us and said "The shop owner would like you to know that there is a festival down by the river, and also you can buy beer from his shop." We wandered down to the water and were very surprised to find a huge festival with food, live dancing and singing and fireworks!

We stayed for awhile and had a lot of fun but ultimately had to call it an early night as we all had to be up at 6 am to prepare for our crossing into Laos.

The White Temple

Around 10 am the bus came to pick us up from our hostel and I think my hopeful heart got a little carried away thinking that the bus ride would be a short 20 minutes when in reality it was about 4 hours. After the first hour we pulled over for a bathroom stop and some lunch at funny little oasis off the highway.

Then it was back in the van, I was scolded by the driver for having the back window open and was sad once I closed it not only for it's relief from the heat but also the smell of 8 backpackers in on mini bus is not a pleasant one. About an hour or so later we stopped in Chiang Rai which is just north of Chiang Mai. I wasn't sure why we had stopped, the driver walked by and mumbled "20 minutes" and then walked into a corner shop. Another backpacker from the bus said "Look! It's the White Temple!" and as I turned around I had to shield my eyes from the blinding beacon that is Wat Rong Khun. I put on my longer pants and as I approached there seemed to be new discoveries at every turn.

And those are just the lawn decorations! As we walked into the temple a rather grizzly depiction greeted us.

The whole Wat was so amazing! There was something new to look at at every turn, I felt like if I pulled the rug up it would be hiding diamond encrusted tiles. Speaking of hidden treasures, as I was walking into the temple my friend Bernard from France whispered "Take a look at the wall on your way out." I wasn't able to take any pictures inside but I stood for a moment and admired the gold Buddha statue and large mural behind it. I turned around to exit and was greeted with an enormous mural depicting almost every pop culture reference from the early 80s up until present day. A giant face of the Devil reflected Osama Bin Laden and George W. Bush Jr. in his eyes. The Terminator, Neo from the Matrix, Kung Fu Panda, characters from the Transformers, the Power Rangers, and so much more all painted into one giant mural! I stood, mouth agape for a solid 10 minutes before I snapped back and went to find my shoes.

Oh this? This is just the bathroom.

From there we were packed into the van and whisked away!

Merry Christmas！

Merry Christmas!!!

Our hostel put up a little tree and I thought it was just so cute I had to take a picture.

To all my friends and family at home I wish you a very Merry Christmas！I am missing Seattle quite a lot, I am not used to being too hot in shorts and a tshirt on Christmas Eve.

I hope Santa got my change of address form!

Anyways, the bus to take us to the boat arrives soon and there is still packing to do. 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!