Down a river in a big rubber tube

August 19th

The pink ladies.

Good news, everyone!  I don’t have pink eye!!  I am, however, sporting about 10 new cuts and 2 new bruises thanks to yesterday’s tubing antics in Vang Vieng, Laos.  

When we got to Vang Vieng yesterday, we took the afternoon to get ourselves prepared for the following days tubing experience.  We found the start point for the next day, and purchased matching hot pink shirts to wear in addition to a waterproof satchel for our money and camera.  

When we woke up the next morning, the rain that I had heard pounding down all night still hadn’t let up.  Ugh.  My mind flashed back to last summer when I went tubing with a group of my softball teammates and it rained the whole time.  It hadn’t exactly been what I’d expected it to be then, and assumed that today would be similar. 

But then again, this wouldn’t be the same kind of tubing as last year... Last year was just what it sounded like - tubing. We sat in tubes as we floated down the river, accompanied by our coolers filled with food and drinks, and stopped only once to go off a rope swing on the side of the river.  The tubing in Laos is a different beast.  It really shouldn’t be called ‘tubing’ at all, because really all it ends up being is a bar crawl and you get from one bar to the next via a tube in the river.

Into the water!  Bar #1!

After I almost decided to ditch the tubing idea, my four other pink-clad ladies convinced me to come, and we set off down the road to get to the starting point.  We got there 15 minutes later, already soaked, paid our money, and got in the tuk tuk.  A few minutes later, we arrived at the river, were handed our tubes, and off we went.  

The first stop before we actually hit the water was, of course, a bar.  The word ‘bar’ should be used loosely, because really it was just a platform a story or so above the water, with stairs on one side to climb up, a water slide on the other to go down, a small bar with one bartender, and a plastic tarp above acting as a roof.  At least we’d be shielded from the rain.  

A sign telling you to drink BEFORE you jump.  Safety first!

As soon as the 5 of us ascended the stairs to Bar #1, an older Lao man walked up to us with a bottle of some unmarked Lao booze (whiskey?) and a shot glass and started to pour.  Next stop, the bar for a beer.  Everyone was just standing around, not really socializing outside of their group even though dance music was being blasted from the sound system.  Finally, people started to go down the water slide and within a few minutes, we were all in the water with our tubes headed down the river.

My first swing: note the pointed toes!

Bar #2: Slightly larger ‘bar’ with 6 large picnic tables under the ‘roof’ and a deck area with rugs where, if it were sunny out, would be a nice place to sit and chill.  Coming off of the edge of the deck was a huge crane with a trapeze swing that was being held by a guy in a huge tree next to the ‘bar.’  This time, we opted to share a ‘Lao bucket’ (no idea) and I announced that I would do the swing.  My pink ladies all commented that they wouldn’t do it as we watched guy after guy go off of it.  

10 minutes later, and half of a bucket down, I convinced one of my friends to do the swing with me.  We headed up the tree, climbing the completely unsafe and slanted stairs until we reached the top.  I gave advice that I thought sounded sage and watched Carola go before getting the swing into my hands.  I went right away, channeling my inner gymnast, pointed my feet, and jumped off of the platform.

Bar #2.

After Carola and were pulled in via an inner tube and had rejoined the group, 2 of the others decided they wanted to try it.  I went up with them and again gave my advice, this time knowing for sure it was way easier than it looked, and they both went off before I did my second swing.  

When we got back to the bar again, the crowd was pretty big and we all started mingling.  I ended up talking with 3 Green Berets who were vacationing from Okinowa for a while as backpackers who were working for working for various bars in town tied different strings and bandanas around our wrists, thus giving us entrance later.  Things got a little crazy.  A Green Beret went off the swing without clothes on, other people started getting daring by doing flips and hanging upside down, and next thing we knew, almost 3 hours had past.

Me and the Green Berets.

Bar #3: We skipped it.

Bar #4: Beer pong!  Having mastered this game before, I formed a team with a guy who had already been playing while a pink lady joined his friend.  We played a few games as one of the Green Berets stood by the side of the table yelling that I had “to represent!” while I played this American drinking game.  My team won. At some point when we were here, the rain finally let up.

Bar #5: We skipped that one too. We were running out of time.

Rocking at beer pong.

Bar #6: It was 5:45pm and our tubes were due back at 6pm... we were going to be late for sure, so there was no time for one last drink.  I didn’t need one anyway.  The last obstacle was a huge water slide that you went down with your tube, and we all climbed up the stairs to launch off.  I thought the slide would be fun, but once I flew off of the slide, the tube went flying out from under me and I smacked the water with the tube half under me and I thought my head had split into 384 pieces.  Ouch.

The 20 minute lazy tube ride down the river wasn’t as enjoyable as it should have been thanks to that last slide.  And getting out of the water wasn’t much better... It had been hard to gauge how fast the water was flowing, but as we came to the end point and put our feet down to stop ourselves, we felt the rocks slicing through our feet.  I got out of my tube, grabbing it with one arm and grabbing at the rocks with the other.  Finally, a fellow tuber who had already exited the water grabbed my hand and pulled me in.  

We all gathered together, comparing our new cuts and head off to hand in our tubes.  We lost part of our deposit because the tubes were brought it past 6pm, and we shrugged because taking our time had been worth it.

I found out today that there are people who stay in Vang Vieng and tube for multiple days in a row.  To these people I say: You must be alcoholics.  One day was enough for me, thank you.

Sad news

Hello from Hue, Vietnam.

Vietnam has several websites blocked, including Facebook, and apparently, parts of Blogger, this website's host.  I cannot get any photos loaded onto my written text blogs :(  In an effort to keep these posts as funny as they should be, I'm going to wait to post until I can somehow get the photos uploaded too...

So, please, hang tight.  I'm alive and am writing.

The day I gave medical advice on a bus

Hi again.  I am beginning to think that I am going to continue to be plagued by shite internet wherever I go.  I have been in Laos for 4 days now, but the internet signals have been painfully slow on the shared computers I’ve had to use because there is no wifi (that works.)  Argh!!  Ah well, we will continue with where I am now:

After 3 days in Luang Prabang, the old capital of Laos, my new Dutch friends and I are heading to Vang Vieng, small tourist city known for tubing and pink eye.  The former thing we knew about, which was why we decided to go there in the first place.  The latter we were not aware of...

The beautiful Mekong...

Two days ago, we were sitting outside our guesthouse when a woman walked out of the building and sat down next to us.  As we started chatting about the normal ‘where have you been, where are you going next’ stuff, she took off her sunglasses and we all gasped.  Both of her eyes were beyond bloodshot.  Before we could even ask what was wrong, she had obviously read the horror on our faces as she told us that she gotten pink eye in Vang Vieng, and that apparently it is an epidemic there.  She told us it was a ‘rite of passage’.  Um....

So, anyway, off we are to go tubing down a river (we hope it’s not the Mekong because after 2 days in a slow boat down that river and after seeing a dead body floating in it, I’ve had enough of the Mekong) and to apparently get pink eye.  I can’t wait.

But first, our ride of transportation to get there!  Let me tell you about it!  

We had the option to get to Vang Vieng via local bus, bus with air conditioning, VIP bus (their name, not mine) with tv, air conditioning, toilet, or minivan.  Those are listed in ascending order of cost.  After little debate, we settled on the VIP bus, because come on, we are VIPs for sure.  

A pink bus!

The next day, we rose early so we could eat breakfast before being picked up by our tuk tuk.  At 7:20am, our tuk tuk driver was 20 minutes late to pick us up and we were attempting to get our guesthouse to call for us but with no luck as they wanted us to pay the equivalent of a fresh smoothie just to make the call, and we refused.  So much for customer service!  Finally, a good samaritan took pity on us, called for us, and announced that the tuk tuk would be there in 5 minutes. 

When we got to the bus station 10 minutes later, we saw her: our beautiful hot pink VIP bus.  She had curtains with tassels and everything!  How pretty!  We climbed up to the second level to find our seats.  

Me: What the hell is that smell? (Except I didn’t say ‘hell’ but I’m trying to keep this blog as clean as possible.)

Carola and Rozan: Ewwww.

And so it begins. 

I sat down in my seat, fearing I might catch something in addition to pink eye on here, and realized that I was alone in my row.  Perhaps I would have the 2 seats to myself?  Now THAT’S VIP, baby!  People filed on, and I continued to keep the 2 seats.  7:50am: still alone.  7:55am: still alone!! 7:59am: SHIT!  A Lao man sits next to me.  8:00am: bus pulls out of the station.

We all remember my blog entry about riding on the World’s Deadliest Road.  Why didn’t anybody tell me I was going to be riding the World’s Second Deadliest Road today?  Seriously, the fact that I am even typing on my laptop right now is amazing.  This road is a series of amazingly barf-inducing twists and turns and I am fairly sure that if our bus fell off of this road, we would be just as dead if we had fallen off the road in Bolivia.  

Within 45 minutes, one of my Dutch compadres is laying on the floor of the bus, afraid that she may throw up, and my Lao seatmate is pretty much sleeping on me.  VIP my ass.  Half of the bus is asleep and I am wondering how it is possible for anyone to sleep when the bus is constantly breaking and going around 45 degree turns.  

Bus: has a tv, but it doesn't work.

But then something happens to distract me from my wondering.  I could hear shallow breathing, like someone was hyperventilating.  I turn around and a girl is bent forward in her seat, sweating, and looking miserable.  Within a minute, the person sitting next to her is yelling that we need to stop the bus.  The bus attendant comes up from the lower level to survey the situation and now there are 4 people yelling to stop the bus and, as always with my nervous laughter, it comes out at the perfect time.  *Sigh*

I pull myself together.  I start to put the thinking cap that I haven’t used in a long time back on.  Alright, she’s sweating, she’s freaking out, she’s not breathing well.  I heard her say something about not being able to breathe or move her tongue. Is she having an allergic reaction? If so, I have 6 epipens on me, so we’re all set.  

Just then, the bus stops and she, along with my nauseous friend, exit the bus.  As she’s walking out, I ask the girls who were sitting next to her what she was saying and they tell me that she said that at first she was just car sick and then she couldn’t get various muscles to relax and that she felt like it was hard to talk.

I went out to her and as she was sitting down, I told her to relax, that I’d dealt with this sort of thing before... Who cares if it was when I took an EMT-like course at GW in 2001?  Who wants to hear “I’m a personal trainer and I vaguely remember the things that are about to come out of my mouth?”  The poor girl was traveling alone and was freaking out.  It’s not like I was claiming to be a doctor.  I felt bad for her because I knew that at some point on my trip, that girl could be with me and that girl could need someone to get an epipen out of her bag to stick in her ass.

So I continued to sit with her and instructed her.  “Focus on your breathing -- you’re hyperventilating.  Your body is struggling to keep enough oxygen to your brain so you don’t pass out.  You’re going to be fine, you just need to relax.”  Once she was back on the bus: “Alright, now when the bus starts moving, look at the road while we’re driving along.  Don’t stare at the same point or you’ll start to get nauseous again.”

Getting back on the bus, about to lay on the floor again.

Things cleared up pretty quickly.  Within a few minutes, she was breathing regularly and her face wasn’t beet red anymore.  She thanked me for helping her out and I went to sit back down, first having to step over my friend who had once again resumed her position on the floor.

Luckily, 10 minutes later, the bus stopped at a planned stop point so we could all stretch our legs, use the bathroom, etc.  The girl came over and thanked me again, saying that she really had needed someone to talk her through it.  She thought that because she had been fighting off the need to throw up and was stressing and clenching her hands, that things just escalated from there.  I told her it was no problem to help and that we’ve all been in those situations before (like when I barfed the whole bus ride from Arica, Chile to La Paz, Bolivia.)  

We got back on the road and now things are as they should be: We are sitting on the side of the road with a bus that will not restart, my friend has resumed her position on the floor of this filthy bus, and a Lao dude is using my shoulder as a pillow.  Somehow I feel like I am back in South America again... Let the long, fun bus rides begin (again!)

Happy Birthday to me!

On my sister's good suggestion, I am no longer going to worry about blogging things in the order that they've occurred.  When I focus on writing in chronological order, I get stressed out when I'm already 2 days post whenever something has happened, and instead of just writing about it then, I ignore the blog altogether.  And here we are, almost a week after my last post and I still haven't written about riding my scooter in Goa or any of my time in Bangkok.

So, until I write about those things, and hopefully I will, sit back and read all about yesterday -- my 29th birthday!

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The Grand Palace in Bangkok. Something I'll blog about later.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

Those of you who talked to me about my plans for this trip last year when I started scheming probably remember me talking about wanting to do one thing in particular in SE Asia: volunteering to work with elephants.

After wasting 5 days in Bangkok, I booked myself out of there on a night train and scheduled to volunteer on Saturday and Sunday so I could be back in Chiang Mai for my birthday on Monday.  I got into my new guest house on Friday morning after the surprisingly comfortable train ride, spent a nice day wandering around and exploring, and got to bed early so I could be awake and ready to be picked up at 8am Saturday morning.

That morning, I woke up so excited --  it was like the first day of school.  I had laid out my outfit, packed my bag, and pre-ordered my breakfast the night before.  At 7:45am, I went down to the lobby to eat my breakfast and met up with some of the other people who were also going to the park that day.  I was so psyched that I couldn't even finish my breakfast...

Saw this when exploring on Saturday.  Cool.

At 8:20am, a man walked up to our guest house and called off everyones name but mine.  I asked if I was on the list and he said I wasn't and that because I was a night guest, there must be another van coming for me.  A little bummed that I wouldn't be sharing a ride to the park with 2 lovely Dutch ladies that I'd already met, I sat back down and waited for my van to show.

At 8:45am, still no van.  I asked the guesthouse owner if she could call and check for me to make sure they were coming.  After being on the phone for a minute or two, the owner looked at me and said, "They have you down for August 14th and 15th."

My response: "Well, they're wrong.  I am supposed to go there today.  I scheduled it online the other day."

She said something in Thai again and then hung up the phone.  She told me that even if I was right, it was now too late to go for the day because all of the vans had already left for the park.  I'd have to go from Sunday to Monday, which meant I'd be there for my birthday.  I almost started crying, because as excited as I was to be going there, I didn't exactly want to be picking up elephant poop on my birthday.  I went into my email and checked to look at my reservation.  Yup, they were right: I had scheduled myself for the following weekend.  All 4 confirmation emails had those days on them and still I had missed it.

That day, in lieu of my elephant trip, I went to see a Buddhist monk who almost gave me a sacred Sak Yant tattoo, but ultimately I chickened out when I realized that there was no real translation of any of the tattoos there.  I really didn't want to find out in 2 years that my really awesome Thai tattoo actually meant "I'm a stupid farang" (Thai word for Westerner.)  I continued to get more and more frustrated throughout the day as I saw things like that pictured above and I tried to occupy the time that I hadn't prepared to have.  I really hoped the elephants would be worth all of this trouble and frustration.

Jokia: blind in both eyes.

Take 2: Sunday morning, I got up and did the same thing as the morning before.  Again, at 8:45am, still no van.  I again asked the guesthouse owner to call for me...

Turns out, this time they forgot about me, so they had to send a new van to come get me.  I had the van take me up there late and I was alone.  Shaking my head, now I REALLY hoped this would be worth it.  About 10 minutes into the ride, the driver turned on a video for me to watch.  It was an episode of a nature tv show that had focused on Asian elephants and had specifically focused on the park I was headed to.  I learned about Jokia, a elephant who had been blinded by her owners when she refused to work anymore after she'd miscarried her baby.  She had been forced to work when she was almost at term.  I also learned about Hope, an orphaned baby elephant who had come to the park 10 years ago and now was a healthy 11 year old teenager.

When I arrived at the camp, I quickly joined my group and within 20 minutes, I was feeding Jokia!  I have to tell you, it was one of the coolest experiences I've ever experienced.  This poor elephant who was once blinded with arrows for refusing to work was now roaming free at this park and eating watermelon and corn from my hand!

Bath time!

Half an hour later, I was feeding another few elephants, trying to get them to let me shake their trunks as if we were shaking hands, but they were too interested in the food.  I decided I'd try it later on some of the others.

After that, it was bath time, and all of the elephants went to the river to cool off and bathe.  Some of them rolled around in the water alone while other acted like they had a fear of water.  All of the volunteers threw buckets of water on them to help clean and cool them off.  I lost a flip-flop and frowned as it floated away, but I wasn't about to go swim between two massive elephants to get it.

Getting a kiss!

For the rest of the day, we rotated between feeding and bathing the elephants, watching them interact with eachother, and watched a documentary.  I won't detail the hour long film for you all, but to make a long story short, the atrocities that have been committed against elephants is depressing and terrible, and I urge you all to go to the park's website to learn a little bit more.

At the end of the afternoon, the day visitors were bused home and I stayed at the park with a few other night volunteers.  By 8pm, everyone was headed to their huts, and I decided to go to bed by 8:30pm for my first full nights sleep in weeks.

I woke up on my 29th birthday to elephants trumpeting.  Not bad.

The second day was much like the first, but with a few added bonuses.  In the morning, our guide took us for a 2 hour walk around the grounds to visit each of the elephants.  We learned all of their names, where they were from, their ages, and which family they belonged to.  We met Malai Tong, a 24 year old elephant who stepped on a land mind when logging in Burma and now has a bum back leg.  However, she is pregnant now and apparently happy, and we saw the baby moving when we met her!  She's due any month now (FYI an elephant is pregnant anywhere from 18 - 22 months!)

Love the quotation marks around my name! :)

The other awesome thing that happened on the second day was my surprise birthday cake!  During lunch, I heard 'Happy Birthday' being sung by lots of people with thick Thai accents and I didn't have to look around to know it was for me.  They delivered the cake to my table and took photos of me.  It was a really special moment because I knew that the park works on donations and the fact that they spent money to get me a cake was really really unnecessary but well appreciated.

That afternoon at 4pm, we had one last elephant feeding and I got some alone time with one of the babies.  The 1 year old eagerly ate the bananas I gave her and what do you know -- let me shake her trunk a bunch of times!

As we drove away from the park that night, I hoped I'd find someone back in Chiang Mai to go get some birthday dinner with, but if I didn't, I had spent an incredible birthday doing something that I'd dreamt of doing for a long time, and it had totally surpassed my expectations.

Shaking with one of the babies!

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Go here to learn more about the park and the elephants I spent 2 days with!

Goin' to Goa.

Hampi had been great, but after the car ride home that made my companion throw up (seriously) due to the twisty mountainous terrain we were riding through, I was ready for some R & R.  Enter Goa.

Goa is known as a touristy, beachy area on the western coast of India that has had a heavy European influence due to the past colonization by the Portuguese and the British. I planned my trip knowing that it was the off season and that I would most likely have to deal with some rain.  But no biggie, right?  I had already been facing the rain for 5 days in India!

On Saturday morning at 5am, I answered my wake up call and got myself ready for the 7 hour train ride to Goa that I was about to take. I had already opted out of having the driver take me in the car there, which to some of you readers may sound stupid, but after not meeting anyone in Hampi, I thought it was the best option if I wanted to be social.  The first class train tickets had been sold out, so I had to get a regular class ticket, and I was scared.

My view from the train.  

When I got on the train at 6am, I realized I'd had good reason to be scared.  This train was
d-i-r-t-y.  I was paranoid -- what if I cockaroach (yes I misspelled that on purpose... thank you Tony Montana for ruining that word for me) landed on me?  Or if someone stole one of my bags if I managed to fall asleep?  Was everyone going to keep starring at me the WHOLE RIDE THERE???

But off we went, and as the sun came up and I delved deeper into The Girl Who Played with Fire and I stopped thinking about the nastiness of the train. I snapped a photo of my view but didn't want to offend anyone by taking photos of the inside of the train with my "OMG isn't this gross!" face on.  I put my 3 bags on top of each other against the window, and I put one of my arms over it to prevent theft.  I even managed to pass out of the bags for almost 2 hours!

Finally I'd made it to Goa.  The train station was gianormous.  Thank god someone from the guesthouse was coming to pick me up!  I took a deep breath as I exited my train and put on me best "I know what I'm doing and where I'm going" face and walked confidently in a direction.  Turns out I picked the right direction -- yessss.  I got to the exit and saw people holding up signs with names on them.

I practically skipped out of the station.  Do do do do do, where's my cab driver??  Where's my name on a sign?  He's got to be here somewhere... Oh wait, I'm 10 minutes early, I'll just wait over here!

.....

20 minutes later, no person with a sign with my name written on it, and I was not a happy camper.  I was sweating through my new dress, there were flies everywhere, and the taxi, rickshaw, and motorcycle drivers would not leave me alone.  "No, I'm waiting for someone, thank you" I said to them as they continued to pester me.

Except after 45 minutes, I realized nobody was coming to get me.  Where was I going?  I had no idea.  I had the name of the guesthouse in my head, but stupidly had not copied down an address or a phone number.  I got out my laptop.  Shit, no wifi anywhere.  I went back into the train station, got on a computer in the internet shop, and left again with the info in hand.

One rickshaw sans driver.

I motioned to a driver that I needed a ride and five of them surrounded me.  What transpired was a rushed deal where I talked down the cost of my ride to what turned out to be one of the furthest areas of Goa from the train station.  I got in the rickshaw, and we took off.  About 2 minutes after leaving, the driver stopped the rickshaw, turned to me and said, "I'm sorry. 5 minutes."  Then he got out.

I was left in the back of the rickshaw confused.  What the hell is going on???  I used the time to get out my India guide book to see where I was going and to see if there were any warnings about rickshaws that pull to the side of the road.  Then the driver got back in.  He turned to me,

"Ok, 5 minutes."

"No, it's already been 10 minutes!"

"Ok ok, 10 minutes."

"NO!  I don't want to wait 10 minutes.  You said 5 minutes and I've already waited 10!"

"Ok ok, 10 minutes."

"You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?"

"(dumb smile)"

He got out again, and I decided I'd give him 5 minutes.  At the 5 minute mark, I took all of my stuff, got out, and started walking back to the train station.  The driver saw me and didn't even try to stop me.  I still have no idea what was going on.

Back at the station 5 minutes later, my old buddies, the harassing drivers of various types of vehicles were there to surround me again.  I took the no-bullshit approach:

"I need to use your phone now."

"You're coming with me?"

"Maybe. Give me your phone."

View from the guesthouse porch.

I called the guesthouse and the owner apologized when I told her who I saw and that I'd been there for almost an hour waiting for the ride she's promised me.  She told me that she'd tried to get the driver to pick me up, but that he hadn't answered his phone when she called him.  (Hellllooo?  Could you have figured it out the night before lady?  Or emailed me once you knew nobody was coming for me??)  She got on the phone with a new rickshaw driver and gave him directions.  I asked if he was going to stop on the side of the road and he promised that he wouldn't.

An hour an a half later, the novelty of riding in a rickshaw had worn off and I was ready to reach this guesthouse that had received such stellar reviews on HostelWorld.com.  The rickshaw pulled into the driveway and I let out a deep sigh -- this place was no heaven like the website that said.

Massive Goan monsoon rains.

I went in, trying to hide my disappointment, met the lady who had screwed me on the ride and was shown to my room.  It was a small room that I was going to be sharing with Leanna, a Canadian who'd been there for 1 day.  I was shown the bathroom so I could take a shower -- it was basically an outdoor shower with a million spiders.  I almost vomited.

At that point, what do you do?  I'll tell you what you do -- you suck it up and hope and pray that the people you meet help make up for the fact that you're living in your own personal hell right now.  I took my shower, got out my book, and waited for the other guests to arrive back home from their day out in Goa.  As I sat on the porch, it started to downpour.