Death Rolls

One more story about Chiang Mai. As we were walking through the night market, for the 3rd time, trying to find anything new, we found a tarrot card reader. We thought it would be hillarious and fun to get our fortunes read. But, be warned, it is not as fun when they do not speak the same language as you....

This lady was absolutly crazy. She would laugh hysterically at everything she said, and then ask you if her predictions for the future were true.....hmmmm...

For Meag she started off by saying that she gives her heard to people 100%- true, good start. She also said that Meag used to have longer hair and was skinnier. Hmmm. True, but not exactly what you want to hear. She also said that she would get involved in Psychology. Seemingly not true, as she is currently applying to teachers college.

For me, she started off by saying "You look like a man...". I got kind of thrown off by this comment and turned around to see what Meag thought, but then she finished it off with "...in your heart". Ahh, much better. She said I am always trying to control things and that I don't let people into my heart enough. Yes, ol' rock heart as my mom used to call me. She also said that I won't have to work but I will have a lot of money. YESSSSS. Now thats what I'm talking about. And she ended my long term forturne by telling me that my father is bored of me and when people ask about me he just shrugs and says "don't talk to me, I am bored of her". Dad...true?

But when it came to reading our short term forture I think WE freaked HER out. We both had to pick 10 cards from a big stack and we ended up picking something like 7 out of the 10 same cards. (come to thik of it, maybe there weren't many cards to choose from, but she just doesn't normally read two peoples fortunes at once....). Anyways, she told us that we were perfect for each other and if one of us was a man we should get married. We told her that we can get married in Canada and she said to do it. Apparently we really are a match made in heaven. "Together for ever, and ever as one. Together forever with youuuuuu"- The lovely 80's song that was on my Mini Pops tape that I quite often end up singing to Meag. Man, I used to love Minipops.

So. Leaving Chiang Mai. We did not know that it would be as difficult as it turned out to be. We just wanted to get to Luang Probang in Laos. Easier said than done. We had to take a 7 hour bus ride one day and then stay over in a town on the side of the Mekong River, right along the Thai border. The next morning we were up early to go through immigration on both sides. We then had to wait around for hours for our boat to leave- good thing we paid extra to have our visas done quickly and "beat the line" Little did we know, we'd be waiting for them anyways.

We had been told to buy cushions for this boat ride, but really, how bad could it be?!? Yes, it could be that bad. First, they crammed the boat fuuulll of people. Based on Meags forture and the lady telling her to do more for herself, we decided that WE should be able to have our own seats, for once. We are always giving away our seats to old couples, ladies with babies, people with pets, etc. So we decided it was time for us to have some space and stretch our legs. We didn't realize that this was going to be so difficult and painful though. We had to avoid eye contact with everyone getting on the boat, turn our heads when the elderly were cramming their battered joints into a tiny shared seat, and pretend we were sleeping when the boat staff were coming around putting random people together in seats. We are horrible people and felt awful the whole time. I think we lasted all of 10 minutes, after the boat took off, before we picked out an old couple and offered to give them our 2 seats for their one. Damn you heart and feeling sympathy for other people.

We then had to sit behind this rattailed woman who kept shoving her seat back so we had absolutly no leg room. The benches on this boat were the most uncomfortable things that have ever existed. I think they were made by scrap 2X4's left in a junk yard. The angles of the seats must have also been less than 90degrees, so not only our bums but backs were killing us by the end. And the ride was 7 hours long.

My guide book says that "floating down the Mekong in a slow boat" is one of the highlights of Laos. It's a dirty rotten lie. And, we had a whole other day- another 7 hours- of doing the same thing, we were dreading it. Luckily we got seats at the front of the boat, on the ground- thats probably the first and only time I will say we luckily sat on the ground. But at least we got to stretch our legs. The second day didn't go by any faster than the first but at least we knew we wouldnt have to do it again, ever.

When we arrived in Luang Probang, it was immediately evident what everyone has been saying about Laos, that it is beautiful. The city is a mix of French colonial architecture and Buddhist temples. It was also very small and intimate. It was right along the Mekong with layers of mountains in the background.

We spent days just lounging around this sleepy town and wandering around taking pictures. Since there was a curfew of 11pm at our hostel we didn't get much partying in. Probably the best thing for us, and our plans of detox.

We are now in the even smaller town of Vang Vieng where people spend their days renting tubes and floating down the river stoping at all of the bars along the way.It really is a recipe for disaster. Tubes + beers + rope swings = probable death. We were good though and didn't partake in any of the drinking, thanks to Meags teachers college applications.

But we are freaking out as we have less than 3 weeks left in our travels. We are heading to Vientianne next, which my friend Paige says only warrents a day- and this is to meet the ex-pat bowler who is the best in Laoation history. From there we are flying to Hanoi and heading down Vietnam to fly out of Ho Chi Minh City on the 16th of December.

The only thing I am slightly concerned about for the next little while is the flooding that has been happening in Vietnam. But the reason for my worry is probably not what you would have guessed. There is a crocodile farm that raised the animals for food and ?? but it got flooded and all of them escaped. According to the news paper article "dozens have been found and killed but they are still looking for hundreds". I freaking hate crocodiles. Possibly the only animal out of the whole kingdom that I hate. Those death rolls really freak me out....