home again

Hey yall


So as S has already stated, we had a little snag in Vang Vieng, Laos... Its all good now, but at the time we seriously thought we had met our watery deaths... and then wandered through the jungle with no clothes or shoes and subjected ourselved to thousands of mesquitte bites. My legs are so nasty!! red and swollen. But lets not dwell on the bad. We met up with our friends Sean and Jorg again in Vientiane.. the city with the most beautiful name ended up being the most shitty. Seriously, the city was without water for most of our stay and there was nothing redeeming architecturally or scenically. So we made our time there very short.

Our final stop on the journey was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. A place I have always dreamed of going to but never thought we would actually make it. The city is the beacon of modernization in the far east. It was gorgeous! Killer buildings, mad traffic, hustle and bustle, everything that makes a modern city exciting, plus all the character and ambience of southeast asia. Outdoor markets and foodstalls, colors everywhere, bright lights, a mishmosh of cultures. Malaysia was the only muslim country we visited and the difference was incredibly apparent, but not overwhelming or intimidating. We ate indian food with our hands just like all the muslim business men for lunch. We ate malay food with our hands for dinner with all the drunk kids. It was great. Also, we just happened to visit on their independence day!! The city was crazy busy with excitement and revelry. We got to see the fireworks show over the skyline of downtown KL, which was incredible. The next day we visited the Patronus Towers, the east's twin towers. They were spectacular and represented the rise of the east.. watch out America! We are not going to be the most affluent country in the world for long.. Malaysia is rising.

So after 24 hours of being on airplanes we are home again. I have killer jet lag and the beginnings of culture shock. We ate chicagos pizza as soon as we arrived. It was spectacular. I didnt know I was addicted to pizza until I began dreaming of it almost everynight since the third day of the trip. Fall is here and i am cold for the first time in 5 weeks. I am back to waiting tables as of two hours from now. The adventure is over... and I am only beginning to process what i have experienced. It is good to be home.. but the US is different to me now. I have seen the other side of the world and seen many ways to live and be. So lucky to have been able to go on this trip. Thanks to my parents for helping this happen for me. Love you all and cant wait to see you!!

i have presents..

signing out.

J

to all our new friends we met along the way, expect pictures soon. We have some crazy ones!

from best to worst

hey there all. apologies all around for not keeping the blog updated. we ran into a bit of a snag in vang vieng, laos... the main attraction in this small town is floating down the nam song river on big inner tubes. there are gigantic swings along the way, zip chords and the most spectacular mountain views. we had a fabulous time our first time down the river and decided (with our south african friend, roxy) to go 'round one more time. the scenery was so beautiful and the day so sparkling and the river so smooth that we brought along molly's camera in a dry bag. we decided that this was the most splendid day that we had had on our trip...

then our "most splendid day" turned into the worst day of our trip. as we watched the sun set we couldn't have been happier until we realized we were further from the river exit than we thought. sometime after the tubing exit, the river forks and one side gets rather "rough." because it was so dark we started to get a bit worried that we had missed the exit - there was very little electricity in the town - and had already lost a tube to the current. then we lost another tube. our friend roxy got out about 100 m upriver from us at a sort of staircase. we not-so-lucky-3 were presented with jungle as our exit! we scrambled up the bank into a thicket of plants. we recalled Sr. Louise from Cambodia telling us about these plants - the viet cong had planted them as a line of defence during the war becuase they are so unbelievably damn prickly. we had lost our clothes and shoes to the nam song so after tromping through the brambles we were covered in thorns and mosquito bites that swelled and hurt and itched worse than any bite ive ever had. (pictures to come) sometime during this hysteria we lost our dry bag with molly's camera and jeff and s's money, debit cards, credit cards and driver's licenses. our friend roxy was shouting to us from the outside "follow the light!" we walked and slid til we saw her and she kicked down the boards of a fence to get us out. we then began the 3 k walk back to town. it seemed like every tuk tuk in asia had wanted to pick us up no matter where we were. now NOBODY wanted to take us to town. the owner of the tubing place drove by on a motorbike and we eventually got home after much barefoot walking. upon return we were told we had to pay for the lost tubes even though we thought we were gonna die (maybe a bit of melodrama, but hey). then they got really ridiculous and told us we were gonna go to jail if we didn't pay the 7 dollars per tube. thankfully molly had stashed some australian money for just in case and we were able to pay them off.

next morning we got out of vang vieng as fast as possible. this experience, though much worse than any others we had, is pretty representative of loa. people depend so much on tourism for their income that we were lied to quite a bit. for example, on our 2 day slow boat from the thai border through loas to luang prabang, we had a night at a small town full of guesthouses and pushy loatians. our friends woke up to catch the boat and were told that it had already left and they would have to purchase a ticket on the speed boat. the speed boat was incredibly loud and fast, required life-jackets and helmets, and was two rows of people in a 3-foot-wide boat! our friends double-checked and, of course, found that the boat had in fact not left and they were being scammed. there's no telling how many times we were scammed and just didn't realize it. we caught a lot of the scams and made it through loas ok but it was work.

despite the dirty dealings we thought loas was the most beautiful country we travelled to. but we won't be going back to vang vieng any time soon...

there are many more stories to be shared but that's the big one for now.
hope all is well and i know i speak for all of us when i say we can't wait to see you!!!
peace to you,
s