Back in Bangkok

I came back to this massive city to acquire my Burmese visa. After a 20 hour bus journey from Southern Laos I spent about three hours in the Embassy just dropping off my paperwork (and sweating). But it worked and I'll pick up my visa tomorrow!

Laos was pretty great. I had expectations that I would love it infinitely, which I actually didn't, but I think my experience there was slightly tainted. In Luang Prabang I spent a couple days in the hospital with a friend who had gotten severely ill. The other days we went to a beautiful waterfall with cascading green pools of warm and welcoming water. And when Tess flew off to Singapore to seek proper medical care I hopped on the first bus to Vang Vieng, a beautiful small town where Westerner's go to party and tube. And buy buckets of alcohol that are very cheap. I had one really fun day of proper drinking then took off to the 4,000 islands in Southern Laos where the Mekong river splits up into (surprise) 4,000 islands. It was supposedly a place to go and relax, and that is exactly what we did. In fact there isn't anything to do there except relax. One day we rented bikes and biked to another island to see the second largest waterfall (by volume) in SE Asia. The other days we watched movies at Adams bar literally all day. It was fun though, the first time so far where I've done nothing with my day and it was pretty enjoyable. The food on the island was overpriced and extremely bland. And their currency - Kip - was so annoying it was unbelievable. 7,500 kip to 1 USD. Meals costed anywhere from 15,000 to 30,000 kip, and the bus ride costed 260,000 kip. So you feel like you're spending a bunch of money, taking out 700,000 kip from the ATM, but in reality its only about $90.

Now I'm back in Bangkok at the wonderful hostel WE Bangkok. Its clean, nice and has working AC. The showers are deluxe. Bangkok is HOT. The food is good though and there is a ton of diversity. The sky train is my favorite way to get around, its a metro system in the air so when its moving you feel like you're floating. The city is so big I will never conquer it all but I have to say this time around its growing on me.

But I am excited to get out of Thailand and go to Myanmar (Burma). After that, Cambodia!!