When All That is Lost May or May Not be Found

I haven’t posted in a couple days because of some crazy mishaps. These mishaps resulted in the road trip from hell, but at least it makes for a great story! For now I’ll leave you suspense to post the entry I wrote a couple days ago:
It’s been a couple of relaxing days in Luang Pratang, which were needed. The town itself is a bit touristy for our taste, but still insanely far from anything you would see in the Western part of the world.


We strolled the markets and streets, visited a spectacular waterfall, took advantage of cheap massages ($4 per hour) and I even took my motorbike offroading by myself. (Though I must confess that it was more of an attempt. After the second close call getting stuck all by my lonesome in uncharted territory in the middle of the jungle, I realized that my power-packed bike could get me into some jams that I would be hard pressed to get myself out of, and no one would have the first clue where to find me if something went wrong. Yes, mom, let this prove that occasionally I do have some common sense.)

This evening we took a boat ride up the Mekong river and had some dinner and watched the sunset. The dinner involved crowding around little barbecue style things and cooking our own bits of meat, rice noodles, and vegetables- a kind of Asian fondue. Once again, the scenery was spectacular. We were the only ones on the boat, so we got our iPods and speakers, bought a couple Beerlao (the local beer here) and had our own private party.
We’re heading back south tomorrow, back to where we started. It’s a long story why, and took us hours of debating or researching to come to this conclusion, but we feel this is the best decision given the information and time we have. Travelling sounds exotic and romantic, and it certainly is most of the time, but one fellow Canadian we met on our journeys summed it up best: Travelling is full of highs and lows. We’ve had a few minor disappointments in the form of not being able to see and do all that we hoped due to misinformation (or conflicting information) and fully booked tours, but we remind ourselves that we already have seen and done so much. At least this way we get to relive the glorious motorcycle ride through the mountains, which I just found out today is “arguably the best motorcycle ride in Southeast Asia”, according to one website.

The group dynamic has been great. One would assume that travelling with 5 people could be challenging at times, but we’ve all gotten along so well and have had so much fun together. We’re totally roughing it, and appalled at how our hygiene has just been thrown out the windows. Sketchy shower facilities, limited laundry resources, razor sharp sun resulting in sweat baths...it’s like camping without the ability to go swimming! I swear I’ve forgotten how to put on makeup, my hair resembles a bag of uncooked rice noodles, and I haven’t looked in a mirror for 3 days. I’m very afraid to do so. Ok, so we’re not that bad. I mean, we do shower, and have managed to find ways to clean our clothes, but we’re definitely slumming it out here.

The funniest part of the group dynamic is that we can all be quite scatterbrained. I must say that Meaghan, Dana, and I can be absent-minded on the best of days, but put us together and it’s gotten ridiculous. Ben and Kevin even claim that we’re rubbing off on them.

There's the Oakleys Kevin left on the back of his bike and drove away (he did recover them), Dana’s loss of her her motorcycle keys TWICE, Meaghan and I both lost a pair of sunglasses, the shoes I left by the river, Ben's close call of a missing iPod, Dana's misplacement of her motorcycle helmet...ok, ok, I’ll stop boring you, but these sorts of things happen on a daily basis. It’s amazing we all manage to function in remote parts of the world like these.

Anyway, stay tuned for the tale of our crazy day yesterday....
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