Laos is a joke

Yesterday I was riding my sick dirtbike (its a honda XR250 with a baja tank) through the north of Laos. We had gone up to see what the north had to offer, and there wasn't much. The two days previous I had lost my sandals and my wallet, so I was already in a sour mood. Danny and I had stopped for some deliscous noodle soup, which we learned was better with the more random stuff in it (tomato sauce, peppers, sugar, salt, soy sauce, and some fish oil or something...it sounds wierd but it rules) and Brian pressed on. He wanted to get to the next town to pull money out (which according to the teller at the bank is impossible unless you have an account with said bank) because between the three of us we had no more than 4 dollars...which will get you much farther in Laos than in the states but it was getting kind of gnarly. So I had no money, no passport (it was in Brian's pack with my back up credit card and my travelers checks), no wallet (in Phongsali...I left it on a table at a restaraunt) and no clue when we would see Brian again...and my bike starts coughing. It was like I would give it gas to get up a hill and it would slow down, so I downshift, and it slows down more. We limped to Udom Xay, luckily found Brian and moved on to Loung Nam Tha, where (well 20 km before Loung Nam Tha) my bike completely gave a shit. We towed it the rest of the way in the cold night to town found a place to sleep for 7 dollars (all three of us), and crashed.

That was my day yesterday. And it was a good day. Laos is crazy.

Two nights in Bangkok?

So I'm in Bangkok. We took an early flight from Krabi this morning. Tuk-tuks are the coolest.

We crammed all four of us into one of these things and romped around town with Tony. Ha, we got him 10 free litres of gas just by pretending we wanted to buy some suits. It ruled. Kbye.

Thailand?

There is something strangely inspiring about blogging in the jungle, like the world is there for me to have, and I have it, but this screen is my window through which I stay sane. The jungle is crazy, even familiar objects are strange and wild. You find yourself staring at people and trees and rocks because they thrive with such green life. Even the dirt on my feet feels cleansing and pure, it is a strange place, the jungle. I am bitten all over and burnt brown and red. My hands are raw and my clothes dirty, but everything is so simple. Eat, sleep and smile. Everyone should come to Asia, right now.

¿España?

So, I am in Spain. I think the last time I wrote, was at the end of Ireland so let me fill in the details. We met up with Craig and Jose in Amsterdam for New Years, that was awesome. The hotel we stayed in was crazy. It was right in Dam square, which is where the main celebration was held. It was raining though so we ditched the party and went back to the hotel and roamed around at like 10pm on New Years eve. We found this room in the hotel where there was a ton of food out for a party or something but nobody was around, so we ate free lasagna and pasta salad and sodas and bread and tea and all kinds of great stuff...for free. As midnight came around, me Brian, Howard and Danny were all running around frantically trying to find a way onto the roof to watch the fireworks. We had to break through a fence and climb down a ladder to find the roof but we found it and it was amazing. They shot off fireworks from several different places in the city. It was great. After New Years, we started what would be a three day journey to spain.

We reached Madrid after the longest train ride of my life. First from Amsterdam to Brussels, Belgium, then from Belgium to Paris. We slept in Paris on the hard floor of the train station(even harder now since my thermarest has a hole in it), and took an early train to Madrid. We figured that we would just be able to sleep in the station again seeing as how we had tickets for the next morning, we thought wrong. Funny story really, we met up with 2 other groups of American travelers in the same pickle as we and we all romped around Madrid for a while. We found an abbandoned building, sort of like a booth that you might see at the fair. It was carpetted, so we all sat down and stayed warm playing cards and chatting till morning. The next day we caught a train from Madrid to Malaga and then from Malaga to El Chorro.

El Chorro was beautiful.


We basically woke up every day for five days and romped around finding new places to climb. People from all over the world travel here for the world class climbing. We met several people from Norway, Finland, Germany, Spain, USA, all trying to beat the winter weather and climb some beautiful rocks. The third day, we walked across the caminito del rey, which you can see in the picture about half way up the cliff. Basically, its an old walkway that was used when they were damming the river through the gorge. It is pretty old and has holes in it so walking accross it (and getting to it) was a bit nerve racking. We left there this morning and are headed out at 3pm to find our way to Greece. Right now we need to go grocery shopping.

Ireland

So tomorrow, I'll be done with stage one of my trip. I'm pretty glad to be moving on but Ireland is one of the coolest places I've been to.

Disreguard the big blue writing. Basically, we started in Tralee and walked through bogs, beaches, farms and on roads to Camp, Anascaul, Dingle, Cloghane, Castlegregory, and then bussed back to Tralee this morning. Over all it was about 60 miles. And with 50 pounds of gear each, it was pretty rough. Dingle was rad. We just happened to be there the day after christmas, which is St. Stephen's day and in Ireland that means lets get trashed on good beer and dance in the streets, so needless to say, we had a good old time. A live band played Irish folk songs all night, it was awesome. Its been pretty easy to find places to stay. There is a lot of livestock here so grassy fields are pretty easy to come buy and the people dont usually mind if you hop their fence and set up camp. The only problems we've come across were wind, and rain. Oh and we were in a field by the beach in Cloghane and a fisherman warned us that we should keep "a listening watch" for a big bull that lives there. But we never saw it so it worked out. Tomorrow we leave Ireland for Germany and Amsterdam for new years.
Cheers,
-Brian

WISHLIST

Tomorrow's christmas. I want a sleeping bag. Where are you?

10 days

Today marks ten days left in America. I have mixed feelings about leaving. On one hand, I know it is going to be unbelievable, we will be seeing things and experiencing the world in a way that the majority of people will never be able. I will come back a well versed student of world culture. But I am scared. I know we will run into problems and the aspect of being stranded or stuck in a country foreign to me is a bit frightening. Brian told me yesterday that in addition to riding motorcycles across Laos, we will be buying horses and riding to Tibet. Apparently horses are cool? I dont know how realistic this prospect is but we will see how it pans. More to come.