si phan don juan de marco, etc
you must all be wondering where i've gone. well, i haven't been swallowed up by the southeast asian earth or trapped under a pile of rice (though i was trapped ON a pile of rice... see following entry). we've just been places that email was not quite handy. or handy but ridiculously expensive (10 cents a minute! that's 10 times what it is everywhere else. but we were on islands without electricity so i guess it's pretty impressive they had internet access at all, hunh...). so i've missed you.
let me back up here. when last we saw eachother, i was happily watching dvds in an australian apartment in vientiane, correct? yes, we were happy there... watched maybe 8 movies or so in the space of 3 or 4 days. ahhh. the good old times. in any case, the australian whose apartment it was was due to return, or so we thought, but we weren't ready to leave yet. so we called up the australian with the jeep and the International School teaching and said, i know it's short notice but can you take us now that your wife's gone and it's not chaos anymore? and he of course said "no worries, mates." so we were whisked off to bruce's beautiful house. the school pays him $700 a month for it, but it only costs $400. so the rest goes towards the night guard and the housekeeper. pretty frickin brilliant. and it was a really nice house. 3 bedroom, 4 bathroom, super high ceiling in the living room - open plan... in a word: nice. something i could get used to for a bit, let me tell you. they ARE looking for teachers here, too. that's a note for anyone else potentially interested in teaching and/or travel. it's really a great school. i think i wrote about it last time? lemme check... well in fact no i did not. we visited the Vientiane International school where Bruce the Aussie and his wife Jodi the Aussie both teach. it was fantastic. the grounds were nice, the classrooms huge, the classes small, the staff pleasant, the resources outstanding... lots of diversity among the students and even a decent lao population amongst them (not ALL children of diplomats). i played scrabble with some 3rd graders practicing spelling and watched some 11th graders work in photoshop and dreamweaver in their webdesign class. really cool. really really.
but moving on. we stayed with bruce for a couple of nights - had some great chinese dumplings and candied apple i couldn't quite maneuver (the candy coating kept detaching from the apple innards before i could dip them both in the cold water... candy coating everywhere... you can imagine the rest). we went on a wat tour of town and visited just a couple of nice ones. we organized the pictures from thailand, as you've by now seen... and oh yeah! story time!
We were sitting in the internet cafe, working on our pictures and ready for a lunch break. in fact we were past ready. very hungry girls. we noticed the pair of men next to us working in Word and trying to type in a menu. "no no. chicken C-H-I...C..." it was painful. and the columns were all wonky cuz they were just using the spacebar. when it became unbearable, i leaned over and asked if i could just help just for a second. i put a tab in place and told them, "see? now you can just push tab and it'll line that column up." they looked at me perplexed. i demonstrated. they nodded hesitantly and we all went back to our work. after a couple of minutes, i did another column. then the last one a few minutes later. it was still hard for us to hear them struggling so hard and misspelling things... "do you want us to type it for you?" no sooner had the words been uttered than one of them got up to provide us with keyboard access. but let's not forget our grumbling tummies. and we had been just working on our photographs from cooking class to make matters worse! but we'd asked, so we went on and typed the thing out as it was haltingly dictated by the nice man whose name turned out to be Badshah - from Pakistan. His cousin with the chicken trouble was Rahim. also from Pakistan. Badshah was opening an Indian restaurant in a few days. named Badshah's. so there we are, hungry hungry hippos, typing out an indian food menu! chicken tikka masala... palak paneer.. samosas... raitas... tandoori nan... it was torture! but, as our payment, even though the place wasn't open yet, we were to have a free meal that evening - whatever the cook could throw together. so that night we met the cousins and we had mutton and potato curry with paratha and rice. was tasty. i was hoping for slightly more variety (my hungry imagination had gone a little more in the "feast" direction), but it was good and free and fun. we were the first customers. the menu'd already gone to the printers, columns were straight and spelling was impeccable. end story time.
the two evenings at bruce's were spent chatting - he's quite an engaging fellow. lots of interests and passionate about them all. of the mind that moving every 5 years or so keeps things fresh. you do it because you want to. showed us his hobby of drawing celtic knots (i'm working on it - it's tough!). we all talked about "home" and what that concept is - what that word means. where is it once you move away? everywhere or nowhere? anyhow. good conversation.
then came a 10 hour bus ride south to a town called pakxe. nothing eventful there. went to a cool old ruin of a khmer temple (warmup for angkor wat, you could say) in a town called Champasak. it was a very awesome ruins. very awesome ruin? grammar fairies! help!
next we wanted to take the boat down to the 4000 islands (si phan don) at the bottom of Laos - the mekong splits and runs between all these little islands (and some not so little ones) and it was supposed to be beautiful. but there was no boat that day. sooooo... we took a tuk-tuk to the ferry to a tuk-tuk to the side of the main road where we sat with an old lady chewing betel nut and spitting the red juice onto the ground (betel nut is this stuff that only old women here chew- turns their teeth and lips blood red but something's really dignified about it and i think it helps them keept their teeth) until "something going south" came by. we flagged it down and crowded ourselves into the songthaw. it was a bigger version of the ones we'd taken before. 3 benches in the back instead of two. bigger truck. more stuff piled in and on. our packs were flung on top. we rode a few hours down and down. truck went on the ferry and ferry arrived at Don Khong - the biggest of the islands (like king kong, but different). we stayed there for one night in a big old teak house that looked really nice but had very weak water pressure. we met an american couple travelling - bill and diane. he's a vietnam vet, she was a teacher/psychotherapist/something something, they were living in guatemala for a while and are now looking for the next place to live. they were lovely and we went out to dinner with them later on. it was interesting to hear bill talk about going back to visit vietnam (they'd just come from there) for the first time since he dropped bombs on it from an air force jet. war is strange indeed. everybody believes they're right. of course they do - or else they wouldn't go to war for it. and if everyone thinks they're fighting for peace and freedom and independence, how does blowing people up fix anything? everyone wants the same thing in the end...
next day, after a brief nervous breakdown on my part following a mechanical breakdown on my bicycle tire's part, we took a very expensive little boat to a smaller island, Don Dhet. popular with the backpacker crowd. what we'd heard was: no electricity, lots of hammocks, very chill, the bungalows cost $1 a night. that was true, but there was a little bit more drinking, smoking, generators running than i'd hoped. besides, i'd finished my book, so what was i gonna do in a hammock all day if i wasn't drinking and smoking?
but we spent a nice day and half there - two nights, steaming in our bamboo-box-with-a-bed, eating nice food at Mama Mon's kitchen (mama gave us a string bracelet for good luck when we left after our 4th meal there in 2 days. i felt very honored.), and seeing the big waterfall where the elevation drops right near the cambodian border. we also met some nice backpackers we travelled with on back to pakxe. that trip was also in one of those big songthaw bus things, but we blew a tire about an hour in, with a sound that was reminiscent of gunfire. everyone grabbed for a metal railing, and luckily we stayed on the road. skillful driving, as there were bits of tire on the road for a little way back. eventually another, smaller, songthaw came along and as many of us could manage piled into the already-brimming vehicle. there was a wee spot of hanging off the back, but nothing too dangerous.
then we made our way to a pretty waterfall or two on the bolaven plateau, famous throughout all of... Laos... for its coffee, tea, and cooler temperatures. 'twas nice. nabia and i took our tired selves for a splurge and stayed at the resort at one of the falls. that night we showered, felt cleaner than we'd felt in days, and slept well WITHOUT EVEN A FAN! it was exciting. and nice.
ummmm... then... oh, we're up to yesterday. woke up with the intention of getting back to pakse, running errands, then using the following day to get to savannakhet and then across to the vietnam border (those who are confused, retrieve a map.). on our way back from the waterfall, though, in the bed of the truck giving us a free ride, we decided it was early enough, we could take the "normal" bus (which usually takes a bit longer than the VIP buses) to Savannakhet, do our errands there for the afternoon, and maybe even get on the nightbus across the border and wake up to a "good morning vietnam." so board the normal bus we did. we waited 2 hours there as the 10:00 departure turned to an 11:00 departure due to too few passengers. it was a bustling marketplace there and we bought some roasted corn, a waffle, some lychee, some custard apple... watched people pile their purches onto the tops of songthaws... finally we left and made it all the way to.... another bus station. where we had to get off our mostly empty bus and get on a mostly full bus. mostly full of people, but completely full of rice. and lettuce. seriously. the back was full to the ceiling with lettuce. the entire floor of the bus was covered in sacks of rice. you couldn't put your feet down anywhere. you had to walk on the rice (sacks stacked at least 2 high) to find a seat. when you found your seat, you couldn't sit with your legs forward cuz the seats were too close together (for ME even. and i've got ubershort legs!). and you couldn't rest them at all cuz there was too much rice on the floor. you found an acceptably comfortable position with your knee resting on the seat in front of you, foot dangling, and the other leg on the seat next to you. but the little bugs that live in the rice bags found their way onto you every few seconds anyway. they didn't bite, just tickled. besides, you don't want even harmless bugs crawling all over you, do you? and speaking of bugs... people eat bugs here. you knew that already. but you hadn't seen it up close. nope, not until this day. somewhere, at one of the BILLIONS of stops this normal bus took between the towns of Pakse and Savannakhet, causing the 3 1/2 hour ride to stretch endlessly to 7 hours, the women who rushed the bus offered some grasshoppers-on-a-stick in addition to the usual eggs-on-a-stick or chicken-on-a-stick or pork-on-a-stick or squid-on-a-stick options. the lady perched on the rice bags in the aisle next to me took advantage. so did the two ladies in front of me. i observed. the heads were eaten first. then the rest of the body in bits, along with sticky rice of course. eeew. the lady next to me (who kept throwing her discarded fruit peels, etc onto my foot, accidentally i think - she seemed perfectly nice) noticed me eyeing her snack surreptitiously (i'm actually not sure i was so discreet -i might have been making a horrible shocked face, eyes bulging and drool staining my already sweat-soaked shirt. but maybe i wasn't.) and offered me a taste. i forced a smile and shook my head no thanks. but it was too late. i'd already imagined it. vomiticious for the next little while, but thankfully nothing came of it. the other horrible moment of the bus ride (as opposed to the mostly frustrating and endless after 4 hours rest of them) was when they put about 12 pigs on top of the bus. the process involves grabbing the pig by the ear or back leg and handing them up to the person perched atop. this is not very pleasant for the pig. the pig screams and it's a sound i never want to hear again. something between a human scream, a chainsaw, and nails on a chalkboard. horrific. and lucky us, it was directly outside our window. then they wanted to put my bag on top of the cage to hold it in place. i do not think so, thank you. already stinking slightly of upset pig, our bags came inside to ride uncomfortably next to us in the bus seats. but otherwise, it was fine. luckily, i'd stolen a fluff book from the resort, so at least i had something to DO for 7 hours. read! we arrived much later than planned, searched and searched for a decent place to stay, found it, had some dinner or something (so tired, couldn't really process), finally wrote some postcards, watched about 30 horrorstruck minutes of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, and went to sleep.
This morning we went to the market and wrote some more cards, and the rest of the day has been spent here with you, on the computer. how i've missed you so! and tonight, then, we will board the bus to vietnam. tomorrow, we shall be in Hoi An, if all goes according to plan.
I think, my friends, that we are now up to date. keep the emails and comments a-coming. i apologize for my broken link - it won't happen again. i've posted it again below. hopefully laos pictures won't be a month in the making.
And speaking of a month, we should be back in Bangkok in about a month, so if you want to give another go at sending me a package, you have a bit of time. the address is:
Amy GREENWOOD (underline the last name too, if you would)
c/o Poste Restante
Ratchadamnoen PO
Bangkok, THAILAND 10200
And i think the Thai postal service is a bit more reliable than the indonesian one, so if you want to try sending me (lightweight) newyorky stuff like postcards or a couple little keychains to give away, that'd be great. or a card. whatever you feel like... or don't. but of course i'd love it if you did :).
ok. i'm going. thanks for reading.
LOVE!
amy
email me
let me back up here. when last we saw eachother, i was happily watching dvds in an australian apartment in vientiane, correct? yes, we were happy there... watched maybe 8 movies or so in the space of 3 or 4 days. ahhh. the good old times. in any case, the australian whose apartment it was was due to return, or so we thought, but we weren't ready to leave yet. so we called up the australian with the jeep and the International School teaching and said, i know it's short notice but can you take us now that your wife's gone and it's not chaos anymore? and he of course said "no worries, mates." so we were whisked off to bruce's beautiful house. the school pays him $700 a month for it, but it only costs $400. so the rest goes towards the night guard and the housekeeper. pretty frickin brilliant. and it was a really nice house. 3 bedroom, 4 bathroom, super high ceiling in the living room - open plan... in a word: nice. something i could get used to for a bit, let me tell you. they ARE looking for teachers here, too. that's a note for anyone else potentially interested in teaching and/or travel. it's really a great school. i think i wrote about it last time? lemme check... well in fact no i did not. we visited the Vientiane International school where Bruce the Aussie and his wife Jodi the Aussie both teach. it was fantastic. the grounds were nice, the classrooms huge, the classes small, the staff pleasant, the resources outstanding... lots of diversity among the students and even a decent lao population amongst them (not ALL children of diplomats). i played scrabble with some 3rd graders practicing spelling and watched some 11th graders work in photoshop and dreamweaver in their webdesign class. really cool. really really.
but moving on. we stayed with bruce for a couple of nights - had some great chinese dumplings and candied apple i couldn't quite maneuver (the candy coating kept detaching from the apple innards before i could dip them both in the cold water... candy coating everywhere... you can imagine the rest). we went on a wat tour of town and visited just a couple of nice ones. we organized the pictures from thailand, as you've by now seen... and oh yeah! story time!
We were sitting in the internet cafe, working on our pictures and ready for a lunch break. in fact we were past ready. very hungry girls. we noticed the pair of men next to us working in Word and trying to type in a menu. "no no. chicken C-H-I...C..." it was painful. and the columns were all wonky cuz they were just using the spacebar. when it became unbearable, i leaned over and asked if i could just help just for a second. i put a tab in place and told them, "see? now you can just push tab and it'll line that column up." they looked at me perplexed. i demonstrated. they nodded hesitantly and we all went back to our work. after a couple of minutes, i did another column. then the last one a few minutes later. it was still hard for us to hear them struggling so hard and misspelling things... "do you want us to type it for you?" no sooner had the words been uttered than one of them got up to provide us with keyboard access. but let's not forget our grumbling tummies. and we had been just working on our photographs from cooking class to make matters worse! but we'd asked, so we went on and typed the thing out as it was haltingly dictated by the nice man whose name turned out to be Badshah - from Pakistan. His cousin with the chicken trouble was Rahim. also from Pakistan. Badshah was opening an Indian restaurant in a few days. named Badshah's. so there we are, hungry hungry hippos, typing out an indian food menu! chicken tikka masala... palak paneer.. samosas... raitas... tandoori nan... it was torture! but, as our payment, even though the place wasn't open yet, we were to have a free meal that evening - whatever the cook could throw together. so that night we met the cousins and we had mutton and potato curry with paratha and rice. was tasty. i was hoping for slightly more variety (my hungry imagination had gone a little more in the "feast" direction), but it was good and free and fun. we were the first customers. the menu'd already gone to the printers, columns were straight and spelling was impeccable. end story time.
the two evenings at bruce's were spent chatting - he's quite an engaging fellow. lots of interests and passionate about them all. of the mind that moving every 5 years or so keeps things fresh. you do it because you want to. showed us his hobby of drawing celtic knots (i'm working on it - it's tough!). we all talked about "home" and what that concept is - what that word means. where is it once you move away? everywhere or nowhere? anyhow. good conversation.
then came a 10 hour bus ride south to a town called pakxe. nothing eventful there. went to a cool old ruin of a khmer temple (warmup for angkor wat, you could say) in a town called Champasak. it was a very awesome ruins. very awesome ruin? grammar fairies! help!
next we wanted to take the boat down to the 4000 islands (si phan don) at the bottom of Laos - the mekong splits and runs between all these little islands (and some not so little ones) and it was supposed to be beautiful. but there was no boat that day. sooooo... we took a tuk-tuk to the ferry to a tuk-tuk to the side of the main road where we sat with an old lady chewing betel nut and spitting the red juice onto the ground (betel nut is this stuff that only old women here chew- turns their teeth and lips blood red but something's really dignified about it and i think it helps them keept their teeth) until "something going south" came by. we flagged it down and crowded ourselves into the songthaw. it was a bigger version of the ones we'd taken before. 3 benches in the back instead of two. bigger truck. more stuff piled in and on. our packs were flung on top. we rode a few hours down and down. truck went on the ferry and ferry arrived at Don Khong - the biggest of the islands (like king kong, but different). we stayed there for one night in a big old teak house that looked really nice but had very weak water pressure. we met an american couple travelling - bill and diane. he's a vietnam vet, she was a teacher/psychotherapist/something something, they were living in guatemala for a while and are now looking for the next place to live. they were lovely and we went out to dinner with them later on. it was interesting to hear bill talk about going back to visit vietnam (they'd just come from there) for the first time since he dropped bombs on it from an air force jet. war is strange indeed. everybody believes they're right. of course they do - or else they wouldn't go to war for it. and if everyone thinks they're fighting for peace and freedom and independence, how does blowing people up fix anything? everyone wants the same thing in the end...
next day, after a brief nervous breakdown on my part following a mechanical breakdown on my bicycle tire's part, we took a very expensive little boat to a smaller island, Don Dhet. popular with the backpacker crowd. what we'd heard was: no electricity, lots of hammocks, very chill, the bungalows cost $1 a night. that was true, but there was a little bit more drinking, smoking, generators running than i'd hoped. besides, i'd finished my book, so what was i gonna do in a hammock all day if i wasn't drinking and smoking?
but we spent a nice day and half there - two nights, steaming in our bamboo-box-with-a-bed, eating nice food at Mama Mon's kitchen (mama gave us a string bracelet for good luck when we left after our 4th meal there in 2 days. i felt very honored.), and seeing the big waterfall where the elevation drops right near the cambodian border. we also met some nice backpackers we travelled with on back to pakxe. that trip was also in one of those big songthaw bus things, but we blew a tire about an hour in, with a sound that was reminiscent of gunfire. everyone grabbed for a metal railing, and luckily we stayed on the road. skillful driving, as there were bits of tire on the road for a little way back. eventually another, smaller, songthaw came along and as many of us could manage piled into the already-brimming vehicle. there was a wee spot of hanging off the back, but nothing too dangerous.
then we made our way to a pretty waterfall or two on the bolaven plateau, famous throughout all of... Laos... for its coffee, tea, and cooler temperatures. 'twas nice. nabia and i took our tired selves for a splurge and stayed at the resort at one of the falls. that night we showered, felt cleaner than we'd felt in days, and slept well WITHOUT EVEN A FAN! it was exciting. and nice.
ummmm... then... oh, we're up to yesterday. woke up with the intention of getting back to pakse, running errands, then using the following day to get to savannakhet and then across to the vietnam border (those who are confused, retrieve a map.). on our way back from the waterfall, though, in the bed of the truck giving us a free ride, we decided it was early enough, we could take the "normal" bus (which usually takes a bit longer than the VIP buses) to Savannakhet, do our errands there for the afternoon, and maybe even get on the nightbus across the border and wake up to a "good morning vietnam." so board the normal bus we did. we waited 2 hours there as the 10:00 departure turned to an 11:00 departure due to too few passengers. it was a bustling marketplace there and we bought some roasted corn, a waffle, some lychee, some custard apple... watched people pile their purches onto the tops of songthaws... finally we left and made it all the way to.... another bus station. where we had to get off our mostly empty bus and get on a mostly full bus. mostly full of people, but completely full of rice. and lettuce. seriously. the back was full to the ceiling with lettuce. the entire floor of the bus was covered in sacks of rice. you couldn't put your feet down anywhere. you had to walk on the rice (sacks stacked at least 2 high) to find a seat. when you found your seat, you couldn't sit with your legs forward cuz the seats were too close together (for ME even. and i've got ubershort legs!). and you couldn't rest them at all cuz there was too much rice on the floor. you found an acceptably comfortable position with your knee resting on the seat in front of you, foot dangling, and the other leg on the seat next to you. but the little bugs that live in the rice bags found their way onto you every few seconds anyway. they didn't bite, just tickled. besides, you don't want even harmless bugs crawling all over you, do you? and speaking of bugs... people eat bugs here. you knew that already. but you hadn't seen it up close. nope, not until this day. somewhere, at one of the BILLIONS of stops this normal bus took between the towns of Pakse and Savannakhet, causing the 3 1/2 hour ride to stretch endlessly to 7 hours, the women who rushed the bus offered some grasshoppers-on-a-stick in addition to the usual eggs-on-a-stick or chicken-on-a-stick or pork-on-a-stick or squid-on-a-stick options. the lady perched on the rice bags in the aisle next to me took advantage. so did the two ladies in front of me. i observed. the heads were eaten first. then the rest of the body in bits, along with sticky rice of course. eeew. the lady next to me (who kept throwing her discarded fruit peels, etc onto my foot, accidentally i think - she seemed perfectly nice) noticed me eyeing her snack surreptitiously (i'm actually not sure i was so discreet -i might have been making a horrible shocked face, eyes bulging and drool staining my already sweat-soaked shirt. but maybe i wasn't.) and offered me a taste. i forced a smile and shook my head no thanks. but it was too late. i'd already imagined it. vomiticious for the next little while, but thankfully nothing came of it. the other horrible moment of the bus ride (as opposed to the mostly frustrating and endless after 4 hours rest of them) was when they put about 12 pigs on top of the bus. the process involves grabbing the pig by the ear or back leg and handing them up to the person perched atop. this is not very pleasant for the pig. the pig screams and it's a sound i never want to hear again. something between a human scream, a chainsaw, and nails on a chalkboard. horrific. and lucky us, it was directly outside our window. then they wanted to put my bag on top of the cage to hold it in place. i do not think so, thank you. already stinking slightly of upset pig, our bags came inside to ride uncomfortably next to us in the bus seats. but otherwise, it was fine. luckily, i'd stolen a fluff book from the resort, so at least i had something to DO for 7 hours. read! we arrived much later than planned, searched and searched for a decent place to stay, found it, had some dinner or something (so tired, couldn't really process), finally wrote some postcards, watched about 30 horrorstruck minutes of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, and went to sleep.
This morning we went to the market and wrote some more cards, and the rest of the day has been spent here with you, on the computer. how i've missed you so! and tonight, then, we will board the bus to vietnam. tomorrow, we shall be in Hoi An, if all goes according to plan.
I think, my friends, that we are now up to date. keep the emails and comments a-coming. i apologize for my broken link - it won't happen again. i've posted it again below. hopefully laos pictures won't be a month in the making.
And speaking of a month, we should be back in Bangkok in about a month, so if you want to give another go at sending me a package, you have a bit of time. the address is:
Amy GREENWOOD (underline the last name too, if you would)
c/o Poste Restante
Ratchadamnoen PO
Bangkok, THAILAND 10200
And i think the Thai postal service is a bit more reliable than the indonesian one, so if you want to try sending me (lightweight) newyorky stuff like postcards or a couple little keychains to give away, that'd be great. or a card. whatever you feel like... or don't. but of course i'd love it if you did :).
ok. i'm going. thanks for reading.
LOVE!
amy
email me
posted by theonetheycallamy at 6/17/2005 06:42:00 AM
4 Comments:
Hey there! Nice to have you back.....understand about the expense/scarcity of internet access, but glad you found a place from which to re-connect with us far-away readers. Enjoyed your entry. It all sounds, although very educational and interesting, too, too sweaty for me! Ah, youth!
Keep on having fun, and writing when you can....big hug to you and to Nabia.....Elaine
It was wonderful to see your new entry up there today, but I have to tell you that this had to be one of the funniest you've written! I was laughing uncontrollably at your adventures with tears rolling down my cheeks (of joy, not despair!) The trip with the rice and pigs and grasshopper lady HAD to be the best description ever. Omigod, how will you ever come back down to our boring lives!!
I'm so glad it's all still fun and novel. And the people you are constantly meeting sound so generous and friendly- just makes me feel sooo good.
I love you much and look forward to easier internet access. Yay.
Mom
This was too amazing! How many adventures in your days, my dear ! So you didn't go for the grasshoppeer on the stick....I heartily understand. Hope your next stopovers are great, and write soon as possible. Hugs, Barbara
According to Jennifer Bryan, Goddess of all things Old and English, and also pretty cool beside, Celtic Knotwork is not actually Celtic, but rather Anglo Saxon. Who knew? Well, apparently Jen did. And now you, and anyone else who might stumble by.
Clearwater was fun, but not the same without you.
-Alec
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