Laos
I’m back baby! Yes, it’s been a while I know. Things have
been pretty insane here. Remember that post while back when I wrote about how
happy I was? Well, basically the last month has been the opposite of that.
About 90% of the friends I made last semester have gone home... And I am still
here. Also, a lot of the things that were going really well before have gone
down the toilet – to put it politely. Everything went wrong all at once in a
supremely epic way. So I was feeling pretty down in the dumps for a good few
weeks. It feels like it was someone else’s life. But, things are looking up. I
hope. The one good thing that came from my misery is I realised the one thing
that was keeping me going really was teaching and how even when I was feeling
at my worst, I still had teaching to look forward to. I realised that if I love
teaching so much, maybe I should keep doing it.
So, I’ve decided that I want to be a teacher “in real life”. I think
I’ve known this for a long time, but now I have made the conscious decision to
pursue this career. I’ve started looking into teacher’s college in Canada, and
what I need to do. I won’t be able to start until September 2014, and it’s if I
even get in. But whatever happens, I have a general plan for the next almost 2
years of my life – which is strange after a few years of not really knowing and
trying many different things. BUT ANYWAY...
April 16
The planning for our trip to Laos was of the super-slacking
quality. Both Laura and I had been travelling for quite some time, and we both
weren’t into making elaborate plans. Fortunately, a group of teachers Laura
knew were also planning on going, so we were able to latch on to their plans.
So we met up with them on the morning of the 16th – the plan was to
take a bus to just past the border near the Thai province of Nan.
We met at our friends’ hostel pretty early that morning, I
think around 8am. From there, we piled into a mini-bus chartered to take us to
our destination. The group consisted of the following: 6 teachers from Chonburi
(John, Jon, Krysten, Millie, Kayla and Matthew), and 3 friends of “The Johns”
who were visiting from the States. The ride was beautiful – through the country
side of north-north-eastern Thailand. The scenery was quite mountainous with
many trees and fields. Naturally,
because of the mountains (or large hills), the road was very windy. The person
sitting next to me (who I had met basically that morning) was asleep... which
meant with every turn he practically fell into the aisle or into my lap. It was
quite entertaining. However, after a few hours in a hot and sweaty van and on
windy roads made most of us feel pretty lousy.
We arrived at the border in the late afternoon. We had to
walk from the Thai immigration point to the Laotian immigrant point. It was a
nice walk, but also hot and sweaty. This particular border crossing was right
in the middle of nowhere. After getting our visas, we were picked up by another
van and taken to our hotel for the evening. The hotel was also in the middle of
nowhere, which was fantastic. There were a couple other small hotels down the
road – but we couldn’t really see them. Also, Laos has a general curfew of
11pm, so everything shuts down at that time.
For dinner, we had delicious fried chicken and rice. And
Beer Lao, which is quite delicious. Afterwads, we relaxed and enjoyed the
quiet. And the stars. And the super cute pupies.
April 17
The morning of the 17th, we had breakfast and
then we were picked up by a van, which took us to the river. A common way to
get to Luang Prabang from the border is to take a boat along the Mekong River.
It’s supposed to be much better than driving – the scenery is nicer, and I’ve
heard the roads are pretty terrible. The slow boat is supposed to be relaxing
and relatively safe – as it should be for a 9-hour trip. There is also the
option of taking the “fast boat”... which is also surrounded by stories about
crashes and general unpleasantness.
The boat ride was beautiful as much of the riverbank is undeveloped.
Most of our views were of nature or small, rural villages. It was quite lovely.
However after a few hours I did get a bit tired of sitting on a boat. There
wasn’t much to do other than look at the view. We played some games for a
while, I read my book, listened to music, and napped.
We arrived... near Luang Prabang around sunset. The boat was
SUPPOSED to drop us off directly in the city... but apparently that port was “closed”.
So we were forced to get off the boat, and take a 30 minute tuk-tuk ride –
which we had to pay for. We were not pleased – one thing that is a bit tiring
about travelling in South East Asia is that as a foreigner, most people will
try and take advantage of you as much as possible. It’s especially annoying
when I’m NOT a rich traveller. Oh well. Here are some more pictures.
Anyway we eventually arrived in Luang Prabang, which is a
gorgeous place. We find a nice hotel for cheap near the town centre and settled
in. I’m going to save Luang Prabang for
my next post, so stay tuned!
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