Last Days in Laos and Moving Down to Koh Pangan

So it's been awhile, I know. Our last days in Laos were amazing. We went down to Champasak and Si Pha Don (aka 4000 Islands). Since we overslept, we spent about a day getting to Champasak and stayed the night in a guest house by the river. At 5 am we woke up and went to Wat Phu Champasak just after sunrise. It was breath taking. On the drive up we saw the locals give food offerings to the monks as the sun peaked it's glowing eye over the palm trees. We arrived to the castle/wat which looked a lot like a cross between the Secret Garden and Hogwarts. It was great. We climbed up the old, steep and uneven steps about 1km away from the entrance to get a view of the whole land. After about 100 pictures later, we went back to the hotel, grabbed our packs and hopped in a minibus down to Don Det island. On the ferry there we met up with Matt, one of the boys we met tubing in Vang Vieng. He was with a German guy named Til. We stayed together in the same guest house. I think it was called Thonden, but not sure.

We met some other Germans at the guest house and took a canoe boat over to a small piece of island in the middle of the Mekong. We hung out on the beach there and played some cards. Basically the whole time we were there we just chilled and enjoyed the sunsets. Not to mention watching one German get wasted and start singing Bob Marley's "Jamming" but replacing "jamming" with "German." A rendition that when something like: "We're German and I hope you like Germans too... We're German in the name of the Lord."

Unfortunately for us, we had no money and the nearest ATM was a 2 hour drive away. We cashed one of Alison's travelers checks. Then went up to Pakse, got sick from some bad noodle soup and spent a grueling day getting to the border then to the train and all night to Bangkok.

We stayed at the D&D, met up with Taz. Checked out the Grand Palace and disappeared on the bus the next night to Koh Pangan. We arrived at Chumpon at 5am and had to wait 2 hours for the bumpiest ferry ever. Half the boat was puking. We met a Mick Jagger type character named Ian. He was taking swigs from a bottle of Cointreau and shouting to me, "It's like a mad dance floor, but you don't have to move to feel the party." He was friggin ridiculous. Funny guy though, some sort of DJ. He played me some of his music from his ipod and took mine. He was so stoked on all my music. "Angelic Upstarts, mate, that's from when I was a kid oi!" I guess he's some sort of DJ. Kind of reminded me of a movie I saw with Wes called Everything's Gone Pete Tong or something like that. Anyway, it'd be pretty hilarious to run into him again. Strange old dude from South London who looked like Mick and started drinking at 7am on the rockin' ferry... pun totally intended.Do

On the river to Laos

These last few weeks have been interesting, to say the least. I'm getting more comfortable here and we are meeting lots of people. The cities are small and we keep running into everyone we meet. On Monday, we went to Doi Inthanon just outside of Chiang Mai... I posted pics on facebook a few days ago. It's the national park. It was mellow and a lot of driving around, at least in comparison to the trekking tour. The forest and waterfalls were beautiful and we took all too many pictures. Also Markus, whom we met trekking joined us.

Later we met for dinner and got 30 min foot massages for $1.50. We ran into a Finnish guy who was on the park tour too. Then we all went to a bar yay! Some Welsh girl got all together too drunk and fell down a flight of stairs landing straight on her head. So we all spent some time helping her out and convincing her friends to take her to a hospital. Hopefully she's ok. After the drama, we went to 7 11 and got some Chiang beers and hung out by the river.

The next few days we slept in and took advantage of the free wireless at the hotel. We saw more wats on Thursday, our last day in Chiang Mai and booked a border crossing to Laos. I t was a little dodgey, but since we had great times on the other tours we figured it would be alright. Unfortunately, the guy had lied to us and we got ripped off. We were supposed to get to Laos in 2 days by bus and slow boat with night accommodation included. We left Thursday night in a taxi, not a minibus as promised, for 6 hours to the border crossing in Chiang Khong. We selpt in a spider infested, dirt encrusted, smelly room by the border. When we woke up the guy told us 2 more days to Luang Prabang accommodation not included and a stop in Pak Beng. Oh well, nothing we could do. All in all we lost about $20, but since we are thinking in baht it seems like a heck of a lot. So we got breakfast, hassled with the exchange guy who wanted to over charge us for US dollars (they only take $ for Laos visas).

We were told we could pay by credit card so we had no baht to exchange. Alison and I hopped on the back of his son's motorbike 2.5 km without helmets to an ATM. Then we changed money, got visas and onto a rickety boat for 6 hrs to Pak Beng. We met some cool people on the boat and hopefully will have some more friends to travel with in Laos. Also on our boat was the New Zealand girl that I met on the bus from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Southeast Asia is a small world.

Leaving Bangkok

So these last few days have actually been a rocky start. We've been stuck in touristville, jet lagged and confused. The princess (king's sister) had died of cancer several months ago and this weekend was her funeral. All of Bangkok tourist things were closed so we couldn't do any sightseeing. Every Thai person was dressed in black and swarmed the Grand Palace.

Sunday we just meandered around and didn't really do anything. Still tired and with everything closed, we were kind of stuck. One saving grace was our new friend Dave. Alison's friend John meet him a few years ago and so we linked up with him. He's been really awesome and helpful. Last night we went out and partied, partaking in the ever-so-indulgent buckets of booze. I'll post some pictures later here and on facebook. Yesterday we took a tuk tuk cab to a few random places and booked a bus ticket to Chiang Mai, which is in northern Thailand, for tonight. That's pretty much it for now.

Airport Drama

So Alison and I were all packed up and ready to go. We arrived at SFO airport at 9am for our 11:08 am flight. After checking our bags, getting boarding passes and making sure we could get into Thailand, we proceeded to security check point. We took off our sweaters and shoes and put our bags through the machine. Lo and behold a miracle happened. Once we passed through security we were cleared instantly. It was 10:10 am and we still had just under an hour to get on the plane.

Alison was ahead of me and she went to get her purse and shoes, but in the 10 seconds of walking through the metal detector and picking up her things, her passport and boarding pass disappeared. I was putting my laptop back in my backpack when she said, "Uh my passport just disappeared." So of course it had to be somewhere around, maybe misplaced or on the floor or something. No panic. We informed security who searched through the bins for the missing documents, but searched to no avail.

As timed inched near our departure, the security guards told us to wait while they looked through video surveilance tapes. I went to the gate to see if they would let Alison board without a passport. She had a photocopy of her passport, birth certificate, social security and she had her driver's license. None of that mattered. She needed a passport.

One security guard said that the airport would refund her money or reschedule her flight free of charge. I asked about me and they said no. I had no excuse, they deamed as valid for missing my flight. Pricks. Alison tried to contact Customs to see if she could get a temporary passport. No luck there. Not to mention that today is Veteran's Day, which basically means all government offices are closed. While she was asking around for passport info, our bags were pulled from the plane and it left without us. We were not going to Asia today... or tomorrow.

I had gone back through to the United desk to see if we could change our flight. Luckily, they said that they would change it free of charge for both of us! Next step was to get our backpacks from baggage claim. In the meantime, Alison was checking up on how much it would cost to get an expedited passport. A whopping $450 otherwise known as a three weeks of living expenses in Thailand. Bust. She'd get the passport by 4pm tomorrow and our new flight was for 1pm. So it was back to the desk to change it for 11am on Thursday arriving in Bangkok Friday at 11:45pm.

Jeff (Alison's Dad) picked us up at around 1:30 and we've been researching visas and passport stuff for the last two hours. Let's just hope this is the only ridiculous mess we get into. So keep your fingers crossed and maybe we'll get to Thailand after all.