SE Asia Part One

It is currently 10 am in Luang Prabang, a city on the Mekong in Laos (also the ancient capital. I have been in Laos for about 4 days now, and it has been quite an experience. While the entire trip, since arriving in Bangkok, has been quite the culture shock, Laos is much more so than Thailand. This is not necessarily a bad thing. For one, it's good because it means that the taxi cab drivers arent constantly trying to rip you off and its not so chaotic everywhere you go that is considered a tourist spot. On the other, it is harder to communicate in places like this, more off the beaten path, and comforts (like water, toilets, and even electricity) are much harder to come by. This post is going to be really brief because I don't have much time before I need to get a Tuk-Tuk (like a cab but open air) back to our Guesthouse, pack up, and head to the airport to fly to Vientiane (the capital of Laos).

Hmm where to start? I arrived in Bangkok on the 7th of April, late at night, and was really really tired from a very very long day of travel. After an interesting ride to the hotel (lanes are just suggestions on the highway here, and stopping at any point is totally normal), I basically collasped into bed. The next morning I woke up early and figured I'd go out walking around the hotel to explore the area, as I normally do in other cities that I travel to. This time it was much different. Not only was the heat absolutely suffocating, but the streets have absolutely no order to them, so getting lost is not exactly hard, and for someone like me it happened right away. Also, I soon discovered my hotel was not exactly in a tourist friendly area, so everything was written in Thai and all the markets were not really designed for the kind of shopping that would interest me. I retreated to the airconditioning of the hotel to get directions to the place where I was meeting my friend Sophie (she's a junior at Richmond and studying in Bangkok for her semester abroad). I decided to just head there early and read in the airconditioning until she came. I was really looking forward to talking with her so I could feel a lot less culture shocked. I didnt do as much research as I normally do, before arriving in Thailand, so there were a number of questions like tipping and how much to pay for internet that I needed answered before I could feel more comfortable in the country.

After lunch with Sophie, and my first experience bargainning with the stall owners, I headed back to the hotel and relaxed in the rooftop pool. It was so hot that the pool felt like a bathtub! The next day I met up with Sophie and one of her friends for breakfast and then went off exploring one of the main backpacker-shopping roads. That evening I met up with the Intrepid group that I am now travelling with. After filling out paper work, answering questions, and the usual introductions we went to a nice Thai meal. My group is pretty good...although I'm already starting to get annoyed with travelling in a group (like having to wait for people every 5 min and arriving in a large group at restaurants), but I would not be able to enjoy this experience as much if I were not in a group, so I really shouldn't complain. I am happy though that the obnoxious ones are not Americans because I am so sick of everyone forming opinions of American tourists as the worst (I'm the only American, FYI, so hopefully I'm leaving a good impression!)

After a day of temple visits in Bangkok we got on the night train to Chiang Mai, a 14 hour train ride to northern Thailand. Arriving in Chiang Mai that morning, I signed up for a cooking class, which was such a great experience. I made 4 courses, learned a lot about the ingredients and had a great time enjoying the food with the others in my group. That evening some of us went to the most beautiful temple up a hill in Chiang Mai where we were blessed by a monk and then watched/heard them say their evening chants. After that I went to see Thai boxing...more on that later...must go now!