That Shit is Buddhicrous

We've split our time in Laos between Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng and the capital, Vientiane.  Buddhist Laos has been an odd mix of ridiculous fun and frustrating bad luck (your typical soul sucking purse and shoe thievery).  This juxtaposition leading us to our newly coined term for our Laos adventures; Buddhicrous.  For example, "There's a used latex glove sitting on the overflowing toilet on this bus, this is just Buddhicrous!".  I already have the copyright on this term so don't go making bumper stickers off our million dollar idea.  The bus ride was not all lost though, Kelly got a bonus, half eaten corn cob in her seat.  All I got was a dead moth.

With our dignity rightfully deflated due to the lack of sleep from the glamorous cross-country over night bus, we knowingly ventured to the douche bag hot spot that is Vang Vieng.  Vang Vieng resembles a perpetual MTV spring break location complete with your standard biki-clad underagers.  Every restaurant plays non-stop episodes of Friends and The Family Guy which when combined with the "happy shakes" and the pillow laden lounging tables, makes for the perfect business plan.  Keep your clientele comfy, stoned and entertained in their native tongue and you've got yourself an all-day customer.  The star attraction in Vang Viene (besides the happy shakes) revolves around a particularly lazy flowing river.  An unknowing, and now remorseful, organic Laos farm owner started the tradition of lending his workers inner tubes so that they could unwind after a hard days work by floating down the river.  The pure genius of this simple idea quickly caught on and bar after bar started popping up along the river.  Now instead of drunk driving to the next bar you can flop into your favorite floaty toy, beer in hand, and let the current gently pull you to the next watering hole.  In a previous life, Vang Vieng was known more for the significant US Air Force base that played part in the Vietnam War (to be referred to from now on as The War That Shall Not Be Named).  The river is now lined with techno-pop bars serving pot laced milkshakes (though I'm not sure if that makes it easier or harder to enjoy the tranquility of the epic cliff faces and lush Laos forest).  Each bar makes a serious attempt to outdo it's neighbor, primarily by means of the contraptions they have constructed to launch drunken 20-somethings into the river.  Some of these contraptions include water slides, zip lines, trapezes and my favorite skull fracturing contraption; The Blob.  All seemingly safe ways in which to fling your highly intoxicated body into a shallow river during the dry season.  Don't worry though, I'm fairly confident that these activities are strictly regulated by impoverished, communist Laos.  Oh wait.  My tirade of previous judgmental comments by no means dissuaded us from floating that river.  Rather than making any admittances in writing, I'll leave you to estimate the level of inebriation.  Hint; you're right.  

Our brief fling in Vang Vieng allowed us to return to Vientiane before our scheduled departure to Vietnam.  We are particularly excited to return to the capital; not for the city's lacking aesthetics or abundance of street cats, but for the group aerobics in the park.  Two instructors, a ultra fit young Laos woman and a fabulous lady boy, lead dozens of middle-age Laos women through Jane Fonda-like dance moves to, you guessed it, the very popular, previously referenced, asian techno-pop.  The music is definitely enough to get my blood pumping if not almost inducing a minor epileptic episode (hopefully my repeated bashing of this genre is properly distracting you from my forbidden techno love).  Kelly and I are at least twice the height of everyone else and about half as coordinated.  We are absolutely conspicuous and highly embarrassed that women my mom's age are out dancing me.  The bass bumping music peeks enough tourist interest as is, but the sight of the towering double mint twins bopping along is what really inspires them to photograph and film every second of me sweating my face off.  If the two gay guys filming us last night have their way, you'll probably be able to find us on YouTube within the next few hours.  So as everyone records their vacation memories, I'm secretly swearing at the instructor thinking, you want me to move my hands AND feet at the same time?  At least the Laos moms are encouraging.  They are the first to give you the post work out thumbs up and they always are complimenting me on my perfume.  My signature scent that I can't Jazzersize without?  Jungle Strength Deet 30. 

The awesome aerobics instructors (the lady boy instructor was more than excited to pose for the picture)

Temples be Damned

In an effort to rearrange our plans due to a minor wrench, we breezed through northern Thailand and caught a boat to Laos.  I use the word "plans" in the loosest terms and "wrench" even looser.  Our idea of planning these last couple months consists of us running into hemp wearing backpackers who insist that [insert exotic location here] is THE ultimate place to go.  Kelly and I consider this over a complicated planning session where each of us shrugs our shoulders, nods approvingly and are back to our banana shakes before a drop of condensation hits the table.  So when my sister decided to meet us in Thailand next month (the plan busting wrench that I mentioned), Kelly, in a moment of genius, suggested we do Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam first, ending our SE Asia stint in Thailand.  Twist my arm, ok.

We took the two day slow boat from Northern Thailand, down the Mekong River and into Luang Prabang, Laos.  Everyone vehemently warns you that the fast boat is a death trap.  Again, lazily floating the scenic Mekong River with a bottle of booze, and a deck of cards, twist my arm, we'll take the slow boat.  Invariably we meet several other ridiculous backpackers on the boat, such as ourselves, who are more than happy to share our whiskey and compare notes on cheap traveling tips, cultural blunders and, most commonly, food poisoning (luckily/unluckily, due to recent events that you are all too aware of, I had a lot of input to provide regarding the latter).  

We've been learning that everyone has their own style of travel.  Often we meet people who have seen every god damn temple (pun intended) ever mentioned in Lonely Planet's See This or You're a Tool guide book and they are quick to quiz you on the majestic wonders you have surely missed.  Don't get me wrong, I love shiny objects and even took a class in college regarding the architecture of Asian temples and mosques (clearly a class for any business major).  I still just don't care.  Does that mean I don't want to delve into the culture?  Not even close.  The monotony, however, of the DOZENS of temples in every single town is exhausting and I reject spending all of my time trying to see each and everyone of these "must see marvels".  We have surely dabbled in the temple tourism, but I think we can safely say that we've been there, done that. At the risk of sounding like a totally uneducated ass-hat, they all just start to look the same and frankly, I'm bored.  Plus, Kelly and I have already developed our own full proof traveling style that 1) guarantees a culturally rich experience and 2) forces you to interact with and learn more about the local people.  I am of course talking about eating.  A common theme in this blog, surely it reinforces the importance.  

I am still trying to develop a way to make eating tourism sound more productive and as educational as it surely is.  We have taken some amazing cooking classes since we've been here which in theory sound very interactive and enriching.  If you break it down, however, it is still a means to eat our way through a day, the difference being we are in a larger group of white tourists that don't actually have to move locations to indulge in breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner and dessert.  We at least have to extensively explore any given city to unearth all of it's culinary gems in a single day.  It is not to say I haven't thoroughly loved every cooking class we've taken, I love to cook after all (please note that this is not an offer to cook for you when I get back home).  We often run into the professional temple ogling tourists who always want to know what we've done with our day while they were off taking Pulitzer Prize worthy photographs of the Never Heard of It Temple.  If only we were getting paid to do it, then I could make it sound not only justifiable but down right sexy.  How the hell did Anthony Bourdain get that job anyway?  Screw that guy, I love food and am at least marginally more attractive.  I just want to put it out there, if he ever has the misfortune of choking on a delicately spiced pig intestine during filming, I could generously rearrange my "plans" to take over that position.  

Dirty backpackers always traveling in style

Kelly pounding it out at cooking class

Bang-wha?

In all of our travel preparing and researching for his trip, we consistently hear about the three month slump.  The point in the trip when you'd rather get stuck with a pushy salesmen in a timeshare pitch than have to spend another minute looking at your travel companion's face.   You begin to swear the hostels are only stocking the seventh century bunk-beds  in attempts to intentionally give you scoliosis.  On top of it all, that homesick feeling has finally crept from your subconscious to compel you to waste hours a day weeping over your friends' FaceBook pages.  Let me tell you, three and a half months into this trip, I am not there yet.

Bangkok was supposed to be the breaking point.  The travel books warned us about the commotion.  Our Thailand savvy friends said it would be a huge system shock after we'd spent the last month beach bumming.  They were right.  It is a vast city, larger than I'd initially imagined.  The smog levels are high, the population has got to be approximately 1 billion and you would be hard pressed to fine serenity amongst all of the shopping malls and strip clubs.  Trouble is, we love it.  True, there are a lot of cars, motorcycles and festively decorated tuk-tuks flooding the un-patrolled expressways, but Bangkok's public transportation system is more efficient and certainly cleaner than even your dentist's office.  More importantly though, the overpopulation simply means there are an infinite number of quaint markets and aromatic food carts.  

Because I like you, I'm going to share our secret to success.  We simply avoid eating anyplace where the patrons are cargo short wearing, white tourists.  The cargo shorts bit was an embellishment, but it somehow seemed less racist than just saying that we are avoiding white people (?).  This method however does require a lot of sign language and big toothy grins, but has yet to fail us.  The food is always the best meal I've ever had and no feast has ever been more than $2 (and if I want to be a dick about it, I'd mention that we've had most of our delectable meals for less than a dollar).  Pad Thai for breakfast... why not?  Now I know what you're all thinking after my last post.  Call me a masochist, call me a fat kid, just don't take away my delicious Thai street food.  In return, I promise not to share so many details the next time a parasite finds it's way into my digestive tract.    

There is indeed more to Bangkok than the food (though I am not insinuating that the following are more important) such as the amazing flower and produce markets, the crazy night bazars and the famous Lumphini Park.  Lumphini Park is where the Thai congregate for daily aerobics right alongside the waterways that are home to many huge, amphibious Water Monitors.  You would think these Water Monitors are completely harmless with the locals' lackadaisical attitude toward them.  Usually the banks are lined with napping park goers and frolicking children who are undisturbed by the presence of the large lizards.  Kelly and I would like to think we're that cool, but in reality they make us jump with awkward surprise.  Taking pictures of these things was an adrenaline rush itself.  Growing to over 10 feet long and weighing up to 195 pounds, we assumed that these monstrosities must be harmless if they were taken so lightly.  After a brief Google search to ease our minds, we found that they are not in fact the cuddly cousins of the Komodo Dragon.  The saliva of a water monitor carries enough toxin-producing bacteria to send you into certain sepsis.  Wikipedia described them as defensive carnivores that use their tails, claws and jaws when fighting.  Despite this highly alarming tidbit the locals will bring bags of meat with them for the miniature dinosaurs as if they were simply feeding pigeons bread crumbs (which is still a dirty and dangerous activity if you ask me).  If we've learned anything from the depths of Bangkok it is that you cannot intimidate the Thai, even with large, poisonous reptiles.  Something we'll be sure to remember at customs. 

Leaving a Piece of Me in Bali

I seriously debated on whether or not to share this story.  Since, however, I've spent a considerable amount of time dealing with this particular situation since last posting, I don't have much else to share.  Plus, I won't let my own humiliation deprive you of these little gems.  You're welcome.  I warn you that it is unpleasant, unladylike and will undoubtedly conjure mental images that will haunt you for years to come...

I pooped myself.

Don't worry, I did not post a photograph to compliment this story.  

Since being in Bali for a month now, we've run into several other people complaining of the infamous "Bali Belly" that many travelers inevitably get from contaminated food or water in these parts.  Armed with a fancy schmancy water purification system, Kelly and I have skirted through Bali without the slightest trace of the dreaded Bali Belly (not counting the self-induced hangovers).  I perhaps was even feeling a little cocky about the whole situation since Kelly and I have been uninhibited in our dining decisions; street vended banana chips are delicious.  As our island adventure was winding down, Bali caught me just in time to send me off with a nice case of food poisoning.  I resent this for many reasons, most of which is because the cute, little name Bali Belly is blindingly misleading, as you will see.

It all began with a horrible nights sleep.  Kelly and I woke up the next morning complaining of having what we thought was an obnoxious, but slight case of food poisoning consisting of a mild fever that kept us up for most of the night.  Remarkably, however, we did not feel too terrible when we got up that morning and even braved yoga.  Things then got progressively worse for me throughout the day.  Most notably that I was not even slightly hungry.  In my years of being on this earth, it is rare that I am ever not hungry.  This snackasaurus is always hungry.  After stuffing myself at Thanksgiving, yep, I'll go for some pie.  Even when I'm sick I have that "feed a cold" mentality.  When I'm feeling down, those are emotions I can easily eat away with call to Dominos and homemade batch of cookies.  On this scorching day though, I was anti-hungry.  Uh oh.  And then the fever came knocking.

I figure the best thing to do is sleep it off.  Kelly leaves me to then nap it out for the rest of the day, knowing we have to get on a boat tomorrow morning for the mainland.  With the help of my friend Xanax and two room fans directly pointed at my naked body, I fitfully sleep the whole day away.  By the time Kelly returns that evening I still feel like hot garbage juice, but do seem hopeful about my chances of recovery for tomorrow's boat ride.  After a long day of sleeping, I am ready to hit the sack for the night.  And then it happened.  I pooped the bed.  Pooped it real good.  The actual words that came out of my mouth when I woke up to the sensation of hot lava exploding out of me were, "oh shit".  How appropriate that turned out to be.

Unfortunately I have to turn on the lights and deal with this situation.  I briefly considered just throwing the sheets out the window and letting housekeeping deal with it the next day, it was our last night after all.  Then I figured I was going to have to take a shower anyway, so I might as well rinse the be-fowled sheets off at the same time like a decent human being.  My decency does not take into consideration the fact that we are staying in a hostel and these are communal showers.  I am the precise reason you should always wear shower sandals at hostels.  

In the commotion of feverishly ( literally) trying to clean up this "situation", I have woken Kelly up (thank god this is one of the times we've actually had separate beds).  I try to tell her to go back to sleep, it's nothing, but she is way to good of a friend and insists on coming down from her loft to see what's wrong.  Sweaty and ashamed I fess up to the soiling (plus it's not like she won't notice the lack of sheets on my bed).  So like any good friend would do for their adult friend who has just shit the bed, she reads Harry Potter out loud to me until I fall asleep on the now bare hostel mattress.  Loss of Dignity x Fever = Proportional Lowered Standards of Cleanliness.

Unfortunately this is not a Cinderella story and the morning brings more fever and nausea.  And a boat ride.  Let's be real, we probably could have played musical chairs with all of our arrangements to stay another night, but we still would have run the risk of me getting sicker and then needing a doctor.  All meaning that we would still need to get off that tiny island and I wanted to do it while I could still kind of walk.  So for breakfast I had a buffet of pills that were designed to keep your insides on the inside; Immodium: anti-diarrheal, Promethizine: anti-vomitting and Dramamine: for motion sickness.  Right, did I mention I get super sea sick too?  The dread of being stuck on a boat with a bunch of strangers with the very real possibility of an emergency bowel movement, made me covet Depends in a way I never thought imaginable.  So, I conjured up the next best thing and lined the entire inside of my underwear with maxi-pads (somebody tell me why I'm still single!).  Armed with the best artillery we had, we loaded the boat for the hour long boat ride.  I maintained the bulletproof and comforting fetal position, while the other passengers "oohed" and "aahhed" at the dolphin sitings.  Dolphins; fuck 'em.  Miraculously I composed my sphincter long enough to make it to the mainland where I promptly decided to sleep away another day of my life.  

Through this whole event, Kelly gets a special award for her patience, bravery and ingenuity, for in the end she had the best advice for the next time one of us gets a mean case of the bad bottom, "Next time, remember that we packed ponchos".  

Cocks ready in their baskets for the fights, a favorite pastime of the Balinese

No shoes, no bra, no problem

We sadly left our dear compatriot, Jade, this week and, like James Bond (a seasick James Bond), caught a speed boat for the smallest of the trio of Gili Islands off Lombok, Gili Air.  Upon arriving, we quickly found out that our booked accommodation does not actually exist on Gili Air or any of the Gili Islands for that matter.  A discrepancy in the hotel listings on a booking website that shall remain unnamed (www.hotelbookers.com).  I will admit that it made me feel better knowing it was not our error, an important distinction since at this point I am seasick, hungry and generally grumpy from having to leave Jade that morning.  We were then faced with either finding last minute accommodation New Years week (the Gilis being an Australian vacation hot spot) or paying for yet another turbulent boat ride to the location of the pre-booked hotel.  After we pouted and stewed (mostly me) over the blunder, we took the first important step to remedying the situation and fed ourselves.  Then, with (admitted) minimal effort, we secured a place to stay.  Afterward, it was funny to step back and get some perspective on the "big ordeal" of the week.  Here are the top three Reasons Why Life is Not That Hard and to Get Over Ourselves:

1.  Ending up on the wrong tropical island.  Really?!   I think most of my employed friends would respectfully tell me to fuck off.

2.  Whiskey.  It'll make you feel better.

3.  Shoes and bras are completely optional on beautiful islands such as this.  Clothing I have completely opted out of at this point.

Gili Air's vibe is even so relaxed that we saw a foreign guy wearing only his t-shirt and bikini-cut man panties.  I am not quite dense enough to think that we are not also foreigners while outside of the United State's boundaries, but he himself was not Indonesian nor was he a native english speaker.  Therefore, very foreign.  His chosen butt attire was not just your standard European  speedos that men of all seeming shapes and sizes like to flaunt at the beach.  These were 100% cotton, non-seaworthy, slightly saggy manties.  At dinner, our favorite pantless man shows up, thankfully in his dinner attire this time; the same t-shirt and a fresh pair of drawers.  The only distinction being that these skivvies were a different color and, might I say at the risk of sounding like I was over observing, a slightly different cut.  My refusal to wear underwire in this heat really just seems formal at this point.     

Before you go thinking this island is just a game of Strip Poker, Gili Air is a darling, quaint island; even smaller than Nusa Lembongan where we spent Christmas.  There are only sand roads and absolutely no motor vehicles.  They say you can circumnavigate the whole thing in 90 minutes.  Not that anyone is counting, but Kelly and I, the physical specimens that we are, did it in 75 minutes.  Barefoot.  A challenging hike indeed.  The only other mode of transport are the pony drawn carts.  Too small of island even for full size horses I guess.  The carts are festooned with baubles, flare and cute little jingle bells.  Turns out the bells are less for decoration and more for pedestrian safety since we couldn't hear the ponies coming due to the silence of their tiny hooves on the sand roads.  It's simply adorable here.  

The only exception I've seen to the incredibly laid back atmosphere here is the Indonesians' enthusiasm for New Years.  All the restaurants and bars heavily competed for our attention, touting the best party on the island.  There are huge bonfires on the beach, so much bass thumping music on the island that our hostel was loosing power every few minutes and a proffered drug smorgasbord that would make Pablo Escobar blush.  Being such a small island, there are no police here and despite the harsh drug laws here, including the death penalty, locals are more than happy to tell you all about the psychedelic cocktails they're drinking to celebrate bringing in the New Year.  Restaurants are incredibly open about selling magic mushrooms at their establishments, going so far as to put it on the Daily Special Board.  I must be getting old, but my curiosity for foreign prisons is extremely low these days, so we decided not to test the Indonesian drug laws and settled for a quiet evening with a bottle of whiskey and a beach rave.  Not a good combination to support our new year's resolution to begin our training as yoga masters, however, perfect if our goal was to bring in 2012 with a raging hangover.