Round Three

From Bangkok

We're back in Bangkok now. This place has become our home away from home. Every travel move we've decided has been out of here. It is the central hub of SE Asia. This time around we are still on the same street, but not at the Wild Orchid. We're mixing it up by staying across the street at the Erawan House. We actually did try the Orchid, but the rooms priced in our budget were full. The Erawan House is about $6 more, but there's free wireless and free breakfast. And after the night we had on the train, we needed a place stat. The rooms turned out to be way better. Really clean, tv and hot water. Amazing how much more six bucks will get you.

Each of us having booked out flights out, we were more or less just killing time in Bangkok. Tired of the Thai cuisine, we managed to sniff out two great little restaurants. One Mexican, owned by a Canadian and an Italian, owned by a Russian (I think. He was a robust man that looked more Eastern European than Italian) Both places were outstanding! (considering their location) We hit up each place several times over the course of our stay.

Other highlights included, seeing the movie Wanted. I got DQ on the way in and out! Going to the Zen art gallery down town. They had two exhibitions. One was the Asian Photo Journalism finalists and the other, Views from Above the Earth. All aerial views of different countries/cities/agriculture/natural phenomena. And last but not least, I bought a pair of eco-friendly, all rubber sandals. Which meant I could chuck my old ones that had developed a smell reminiscent of stagnant Bangkok river water.

The best part of our stay in Bangkok came at the end. The American/Japanese couple (Dale & Noriko) that we met at the waterfall in Laos had mentioned to us that if we wanted to get out of the city that we could stay outside of town with them. Running into them again on the train back to Bangkok they reiterated their offer. Saying they had traveled quite a bit in the past and received generous treatment (even from strangers) where ever they found themselves. I guess their invite was a way to "pay it forward" if you will. Two days before my departure back to Bali, we gave them a call.

Dale and Noriko with their two sons, Kai and Tobi live north east of Bangkok, about 45 minutes out of the city, in the Pukkrat district. Dale teaches at the International School Bangkok and Noriko is a Nai (Thai Chi/Dance/Yoga mix) instructor. They were amazing hosts and treated us like family. For the next two days we swam, played games with the kids, watched movies and ate like kings. Noriko is an incredible cook and didn't let us leave leftovers either night. The absolute best we've eaten the entire trip!

Early on the morning of July 3rd, I said goodbye to my extended Thai family and my darling Sus. Hopped in a taxi bound for the airport, en route to my final destination, Bali. A month of no surfing is the longest I've ever gone. I'm looking forward to catching some waves again as well as getting back to meet up with my parents in Cali (about July 20th). This will be the last entry for the tag team of Tyler & Susanna. I'm rolling solo for the duration while Susanna heads to Vietnam on July 4th. She then plans to meet up with friends in Turkey around the 12th. Spending two weeks there and then two more weeks in Greece. I'll be eagerly waiting to hear of her new adventures.

Vientiane

From Train to Bangkok

Amidst our trek north, further into Laos, I turned to Susanna after being on the VIP bus for maybe 10 minutes and said, "There is no way in hell I'm getting back on this bus for the return trip." And we didn't. Thankfully, she shared my view of avoiding at all costs, a total of 9 hours on buses back tracking to the Thailand border. So we booked flights on Laos Air for eighty bucks. A price I gladly paid. The flight back to Vientiane was 45 minutes. The folks from the tubing group that made it all the way to Luang Prabang, all (except one) went their separate ways from there. I guess they had similar opinions of more busing. The one that remained was Reese. He was headed back to Bangkok to sort out his visa and buy some more tattoo equipment for his shop in Koh Tao.

Back in Vientiane, we posted up for a night to catch another train south into Bangkok the following day. That night Reese and I ventured out for a late dinner and saw a new part of town. Up until this point, we've managed to avoid the seedy parts of many towns, but this changed in Vientiane. On a mission for noodle soup, Reese and I walked up and down block after block, including the ones with she-male hookers and locals asking us if we were interested in some opium. A fruitless search ended at a posh bar that willing to make us french fries as long as we ordered drinks. Nothing like beer and fried potatoes for a balanced meal.

The next day was basically filled with time killers. Breakfast was a bust - A Scandinavian bakery with no bacon and stale donuts. We bowled and Sus beat me. Unfortunately the tech savvy Loa Bowling Center wasn't able to print the score card so there is no official record of that ever happening. Sus got a massage and broken from my defeat, I turned to the bottle and snooker tables. Those tables are enormous!

Getting to the train in Nung Khai went smoothly. We even ran into the American/Japanese family from the waterfall again. Like I said before, when you're on a popular tour route, chances are, so is everyone else. The Train ride was OK, but the sleeping arrangements were miserable. I was prepared for fan class, but I slept on the bottom on the way up to Laos. Sus requested we swap and I found out why as soon as I turned in for the night. The lights never go out on the train and the top bunk is directly next to the florescent lighting. All night it was light and of course the bed a foot and a half too short for me. All calculated, turned into the worst night of sleep on the entire trip.

Oh, how could I forget, the suspicious techie. When we got on the train there's a guy set up diagonally from us with a laptop connected to four cell phones and a GPS, all being powered by two car batteries, that were tied down with bungee chords. Terrorist, bombs free radical, who knows? I was a little wary at first because guy didn't sleep all night. But he did seem to know the stewards. And after glancing at his screen, I think he was physically tracking the course/progress of the train. Possibly for future mapping/routes. Those eccentric techies!