This post might be long because I haven't been back in a long time. To begin with, traveling is stupidly awesome. I feel like I should be apologizing for having such a good time. I spent 8 days in Ubon Ratchatani at the Phibunmangsahan school teaching English. By teaching English I mean playing hangman and getting my photo taken by giggling Thai students. I stayed with one of the teachers who was a total hottie who although is 26 still lives with her parents in their farm house, as is Isan custom. They were all smiley and tried to be as accommodating as possible, but the language and culture barriers made the whole experience very challenging.
Actually maybe what really made the experience the most challenging was the effing roosters. These roosters are dumb as stones and don't know they're only supposed to wake up with the sun. They consistently crowed right outside my door from about 5-9... I kid you not even slightly. 5-9 AM! I mean come on. After waking up at these unreasonable hours, it was monk feeding time. The monks eat only one meal a day and by 7 they (and I) have already been up for hours. They roam around through the village stopping by each family to get sticky rice, soy milk and unrecognizable animal parts put into their golden bins. After the last one comes, you kneel on the floor and they bless you. All this Buddhism is nice, but the waking up early and the bowing down to idols are both highly frowned upon in my religion.
The highlights of the week included going to a Thai club with my host teacher and a bunch of the other young crazy teachers. Another good one was a Thai boy-band sensation asking me for my number. Me being white in Isan made me almost more of a celebrity than he was. The Thai school girls went crazy over that interaction. They're like a cute, extremely giggly version of the paparazzi. I think the number of pictures circulating of me since I was born just doubled. Everyone lives on a farm and squats to pee but has really fancy camera phones. We also sang "The Circle of Life" and did Sir Elton John proud on the last day of school in front of thousands of people. It was our way of giving back to the community.
I was sad when it was over, but also really relieved. It was an interesting but extremely challenging experience. I did pick up some Thai though, but in Isan it's some sort of bastard child of Thai and Lao that doesn't go over well in actual civilization. In the end I can say I learned to appreciate toilet paper and urban sprawl.
On Friday my host sister dropped my friend Lacey and me off at the bus stop to again try our luck in Laos. Lucky we were though. We wasted no time in Vientiane and as soon as we arrived we hopped right onto a local bus to Vang Vieng. Our bus was half people half rice and stopped next to seriously every Lao person's home to drop them off personally. The view was so beautiful though that the 4 hour bus ride went by pretty quickly. As soon as we got there it was sandwich eating time (a rare treat for me) and Beerlao time.
Vang Vieng is arguably the best place on earth. It was discovered in the 90's by travelers passing through on their way to Luang Prabang and is nestled right in the armpit of these amazingly tall and densely forested mountainous cliffs. A gorgeous river runs through and there are numerous bars lining the banks from top to bottom. For the reasons listed above, Vang Vieng lures a host of wildly attractive and fun loving travelers every day. The atmosphere was flawless and just hanging out there was some of the most fun I've ever had. But I didn't just hang out...
The day after some rambunctiousness and unbloggable things ensued, it was time to tube.
Now picture this and tell me what it's missing:
1. perfect weather and unbelievable scenery
2. alcohol and other such fripperies
3. great company
4. zip lines
5. tubes
6. free shots
7. ill music
8. flowing river
9. crackers
10. water slides and rope swings
It was a trick question- there is nothing missing. It's impossible to really put it into words, but tubing down the river and stopping at bars to hang out and tubing some more was the best thing. Just the best thing ever. It couldn't have been designed to be any more awesome. I was totally blindsided. Who is allowing this kind of behavior? I could go back every single weekend, but that Lao visa cost is starting to get to me. We spent most of the day with these Irish people we met. They kept us on our drinking toes and were really fun. Later that night we just followed our formula from the night before and finished it to a similarly awesome end. Everyone I met was such a pleasure to talk to... the people here are so interesting. So many of them haven't been home for years. How they get the money to travel is beyond me- but I'll just go and sleep outside or something. It's the way to live.
On our way back to Bangkok (about 16 hours away) our bus got a flat tire about half way to Vientiane. This was only a minor setback and was understandable given the terrain and wild curves and we were back on the road in twenty five minutes. About 15 minutes later, the other tire popped. This time of course, we had no more spare. So we all piled out of the bus because somehow it was cooler outside baking in the sun. For about 2 hours I sat with these Jewish Australian kids and these Israeli guys and played cards and did other people-sitting-in-circular-groups-activities on the side of the road. It was actually a pretty fun wait and somehow even though so much goes wrong in these parts, no one complains and the good spirits make waiting doing nothing fun. I heard someone say they saw a shirt that says "stop complaining this is Asia." It's true. while so much goes wrong, it always ends up being fun and complaining doesn't help. Deep shit, I know.
Anyway I'm sorry I've been so terrible at returning E-mails. I didn't have internet access for so long until today and I haven't slept in days. I promise I'll get to it soon. Tomorrow I'm going to an island called Koh Chang to hang out, unwind and "study" for "midterms" which are on Tuesday. Studying on the beach seems better than staying here anyway. I'm going by myself which I'm looking forward to but it's also a little nerve-wracking. Everywhere you turn it's impossible not to instantly befriend whoever's standing near you so I'm sure it'll be really fun. It's also just something I want to get comfortable doing. I plan to make quite a life for myself traveling somehow with no money. It has to be possible.... so many crusty hobos just travel here for years.
I'll post soon about the island, until then please keep on E-mailing me. I read them all and I promise to return them soon. Even when I don't have time though- I really really enjoy getting them so don't stop on my account please.
Love and misses,
Esti
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