Nameless said:
come visit me.
-- i'm lazy.
Mardio, is probably havin' a blast in his country. i'm jealous. I want to travel again. I wonder where Pee is, I miss Pee and her BLAHs.
[post="126331"][/post]
Admit it my fellow South Parkian. You miss me! Anyway, this update is for Thookie and all those who care
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I'm currently in Luang Prabang, Laos. I haven't really seen the city so much since I've been mostly out in the countryside, but I think I'll be coming back in August before heading home to look at this city again. The last time I updated, I was in Vientiane. Since then, I went to Vang Vieng and had breakfast in the morning next to the cliffs while writing in my journal. It was truely a beautiful view. Also, I realized that I write better when I type than when I write it out. In Vang Vieng, I stayed at the place that's owned by the parents of Aluna, the Lao singer. I didn't even know her family owned the place, but I made friends with her mom, dad, and brother and they were telling me. I don't really know her music, but her family is awesome and so nice. Unfortunately, she was not around as she was in Vientiane at the time.
I went out to a couple of bars and clubs, but it wasn't really until I went out with a local friend I met that I had fun. It's probably just because I'm a "foreigner," but Lao girls are so sweet here. Haha, it's just more stuff to boost my already inflated ego.
The past couple of days, I've been in Luang Prabang, the old royal capital of Laos. I've been on a boat out to the Pak Ou caves, which was not very impressive. It was just tiring. However, the boat ride was nice. The coolest thing I've done though was probably going out to the Kuangsi Waterfall. I fed and pet a tiger there and then I climbed the cliff going up to the source of the waterfall. It was so high and in the pouring rain, it was slippery as hell. However, I was proud of the fact that I did it when many of the people who came didn't because of the steepness of it. Today, I went elephant riding and then I treked out to see Henri Mouhot's tomb, the guy who "discovered" Ankor Wat, but died here in Laos of Malaria in the mid 1800s. I found out that it was only as recently as 1990 that they found his tomb again.
Aside from the stuff I've done, I am truely amazed by the people I've seen and talk to. Today, I met a hmong guy name Jerd who's very smart and was telling me how he used to walk 8 hours just to get to school for the week and come home on the weekends. He explained to me the difference between the White Hmong and the Green Hmong and then we went to check out a village. There were all these little hmong girls (about 5 years old) asking me to buy bracelets in broken english ("buy one from me please"). They were so cute and even though I didn't want any, I bought like 10 bracelets. Being out here has been very reflective so far and I've been thinking pretty hard about how I can help this country in the future, especially in terms of development. I'm sure I'll be thinking about this more as the summer goes on.
Tomorrow, I'll be flying back to Vientiane and then I'm heading to Bangkok. I hope you all are enjoying your summer. And Muddie, where the hell are you?
