so, it's christmas here today and it's about 9 in the morning and i am about to go hiking with michelle and charlie. i guess it's been a long time since i've written so i'll try to catch you up. i guess i haven't written since i've entered into laos.
right now, i'm in vang vieng; which is a kinda smaller city on the nam song, which is song river in lao. the landscape here is beautiful and there are a bunch of outdoor activities that you can do; which is basically all i've been doing. that and finishing the day playing darts with charlie at gary's irish bar. yeah, darts. it's been a super duper good time here. i've gone rock climbing twice and am thinking i'll go a third, hiking (through a cave to a waterfall, that i swam in, over a mountian, ending at the tubing bars (which i'll get to)), kayaking, tubing through a cave, and then taking charlie and michelle on the hike i went on to the waterfall today. not a bad christmas. anyway, i'm loving it and feeling great; which is super nice because i had a bit of a hard time through central laos and then in vientiene.
i'm thinking i got over my first wave of homesickness and just anxiety in general. it was about 2 and a half months into my trip. which is the longest i've ever been away from home, not a big deal but i was feeling it a little, a little mental hurdle if you will. i was driving through laos and i got rid of all my cold weather clothes and it was COLD. not super cold but cold enough. i was all alone, don't get me wrong, i had fun, going to the lao disco and hanging out with lao people but i just couldn't get over this anxiety, this feeling of what am i doing here and what am i going to do when i get home. how i'm going to make money to go back to school and working and doing more yoga school. just a feeling that i needed to get moving on my life. but this is my life and i had this planned out and i specifically made it a long time so i would have to get over some waves of homesickness and self doubt. so i got over it.
so back to vang vieng and what is going on here. in 1998 the owner of this organic farm a little north of town got some tubes for his employees to float down the river. he didn't know what he started. at first it was just people tubing but now there are bars lining the river and kids float down the river stopping at different bars and getting hammered. they all blare SUPER loud music. they do have platforms to jump off of and zip lines and rope swings and waterslides which are all badass. but some aren't really safe and kids get pretty injured here. apparently like 17 have died this year, i don't know if that a lao year or our year but that's a fucking lot. i haven't tubed but we have stopped off at some of the bars and done the swings, ziplines, and waterslides. i had a blast on those. but it's kinda turned this town into a mess. but you get the good with the bad. some lao people like it and make lots of money, but the lao kinda frown upon super drunk whities and you get a lot of those. every night when i go out to dinner, i see kids passed out on the side of the road, walking wasted down the middle of the road, carrying other passed out kids. i feel it brings people to laos and that they might come here for that and then branch out. plus it's just kids and kids will be kids. it does look pretty fun too, just don't get too drunk. you can youtube it and see tons of videos of the tubing.
anyway, vang vieng is also beautiful and the landscape around here is amazing. like i said, on the nam song, and set in some mountians that really remind me of halong bay and nim dinh, limestone mountians; which create lots of caves and rock climbing areas. it's beautiful. there are restaurants lining the river in town and you can watch the sunset over these mountians, it's pretty scenic. i like it a lot, and it really reminds me of buzios in brazil.
i don't really know what else to write, i'm ready to do some christmas hiking, swim in a waterfall and have a great christmas day. so on that note, merry christmas to you all from charlie, michelle, and i.
take care, pics coming.
nick
Yeah Shrade, I hear you on the homesick thing. When I was in Costa with Chuck that was the hardest thing for me to deal with. Mostly I missed Plumas like you wouldn't believe. It would come in waves. I had a few sad mornings when I would wake up without Plumie at my foot and then realize that despite my great adventure, all I wanted was to be with my dog... Then, regarding the duration of the trip, like a month into it I felt like I had figured out a lot, proven all of my expectations to be wrong, and generally felt like I had things figured out and should get back home with this new insight. Of course, in the end, I realized that everything I "learned" that first month was futile and I was glad I stuck it out. That's the diference betwen a vacation and a travel. A vacation helps you to step aside and get some rest and a fresh perspective to help you deal with your daily life back home. A travel does this too, except the travel becomes your daily life and will be the foundation for your perspectives when you return to wherever you decide is home. When you go on vacation you come back to your job. When you go on a travel you have no job, your job is to "travel" and figure out what your place is in the world; the place you will eventually take vacations from. As for you being concerned about finding work after your travel, you shuld be, but no need to rush it; you've made great sacrifice to do what you're doing, make great use of it. Worse case: I got lots of work at the shop for you to bring your account up from "0" when you return. Peace.
ReplyDeleteNick...aren't you glad you have great friends?
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