Fast Forward

So I haven't been doing a good job of keeping up with this lately. I'm going to have to make this brief and skip a lot of things to catch up.

Communist Block
After leaving Luang Prabang, I went down to Vientienne. The bus ride was incredibly beautiful, and extremely dangerous. Misty mountaintops blurred past at high speeds around windey, bumpy roads. Not much infrastructure there.

Vientienne was largely uneventful. I only spent two days and one night there and felt I could have skipped it. I suppose it's interesting to see a "communist" area of SE Asia, but about the only evidence I saw of communism were the old hammer and sickle flags hanging everywhere and the drab "utilitarian" architecture.

Vientienne was followed by a trip across the border back into Thailand. I took a bus to Kong Kaen with Ruby and Rumi where they intended to meet up with a friend and I intended to decompress. They'd overbooked the bus on the way there, and I ended up having to sit in a one foot tall plastic chair at the rear of the bus while eating warm waffles out of a plastic bag. I could only have felt more foolish if I'd been wearing a propeller hat.

Wild, Wild-Life
After leaving Kong Kaen, the gang split up and I traveled with Rumi down to the Kao Yai natural park while Ruby went on to Bangkok to visit another friend. Rumi and I did a one and a half day trek/wildlife watching tour. It was really amazing. We got to see gibbon monkeys, elephants, machack(sp?) monkeys, and lots of rare birds. Our guide had a telescope that gave us great, close up views of the birds and monkeys. It was just the right size for me to hold my digital camera up to the lens so I could take pictures. I suppose there are some good things about not having brought an SLR.

On the second day of the trek we got to see wrinkle nosed bats inside a cave, hanging about four feet above us. Later we watched as they flew out of the cave at night, right above our heads. The sound was amazing, and I was so mad I didn't have Kamran's Mini-Disc recorder in my day bag. I got some great photos and shot a little video with my digital camera. Really, this was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

The next day we went hiking and camping in the national park. The trails were a little hard to follow, and it we made it out of the woods just before dark. We didn't see many animals directly, but we did hear a lot of things stalking around us in the woods. On one path we took there was evidence of an elephant having been by recently (we could tell by the dropping - they're hard to miss).

There was a very large deer at our campground that night, and a lot of local kids drinking and singing songs in Thai. (Don't these kids have school in the morning?)

1.21 Giga-Wats
The next day we got up early and took a train to Ayuthayya. Ruby had been there a few days before and recomended guesthouses and restaraunts to us. After a quick nap and lunch, we found that all of the sights to see in town were... closed.

We spent all the next looking at temples and taking about 150 pictures. I wish I'd gone here before going to the Temples of Angkor, because it pales in comparison, however it was still very impressive. I can see why folks call this city the Rome of the east, because all of the ruins are literally right in the middle of the city (like the Collesium in Rome). Seriously, 7-11... department store... ancient temple! Many of the buildings closely match the 14th and 15th century Khmer style of architecture (similar to Angkor Wat), but are not as well intact. The city has been sacked many times in the past, and the damage is obvious.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...
So I need to take a moment to interrupt this blog with an important message. I will not, be going to Vietnam on this trip. There's still too much to see in Thailand, and I don't want to rush myself. After going to Ayuthayya I went back to Bangkok and switched my ticket so I would be flying out of Bangkok instead of Ho Chi Minh City. This was a tough decision, but I really didn't want to deal with arranging a visa, arranging transportation into the country, and all the other things that come along with changing locales as drastically as I would be doing. It's time to slow down a little. I have to go back to work soon (much too soon), and anyways - there's always next year, right?

When The Rain Comes...
I've now headed down to Koh Tao, a beautiful beach island where it's currently been raining heavily since my arrival. My clothes are all soaked, and it takes forever to dry anything out due to the humidity. My bungalow is right on a hillside overlooking the water. It's so close, and yet due to the rain, so far. Everyone around here says that the weather should clear up after the full moon tomorrow night, but the CNN Weather Forecast seems to imply differently. In fact the whole south of Thailand seems to be being pelted by rain right now. And like my Unlce says, "You can't go swimming in the rain - you might get wet!"