So I've been out of touch for a while, wasn't up to much for a while, just floated around northern thailand for 10 days or so, got sick though and wasn't able to do all the stuff I wanted though, didn't get to take a cooking class, which would have been fun. I moved on though, on to Lao, which is lovely. took a two day boat down the Mekong, which was oustanding. If you ever get a chance to take a boat down a river, do it. trust me.

I'm in Vang Vieng now, which is really strange. really nice river that you can float down in a tube, mountains, caves, cool stuff, but then there's just an insane party scene, tons of strung-out hippies. all the people working at the bars are just working for free drugs, and look like it. It's partly a really cool place that I could see spending a week in, and partly it just scares me and I want to get out of here. I haven't actually been tubing, but from what I hear, it's basically devolved into a few insane bars on the river that you go to and get trashed, swim between
them and injure yourself on ropeswings. the two scots and englishman who I'm staying with are into actually getting tubes and going 10 km down the river with a couple of beers though, so hopefully we'll do that today. maybe go back to some caves tomorrow, went to some yesterday with some american folks I found, we went about a quarter mile into a cave before we decided to turn back, I'd love to go back prepared with water and food and just go as far as possible in the cave. Like I said, cool place, but absolutely terrifying, some of these people here. not because I think I could ever become like them. just looking at them is scary. I think my waiter yesterday was gary busey's son, you know, the one in starship troopers.

in any case, I'll probably be out of laos in a few days, and either on to cambodia, or straight down to malaysia, with a couple day stop in bangkok either way (you can't really get to cambodia without going through bangkok. you can't get anywhere without going through bangkok). I'd kind of like to go back to koh tao for a bit, know a few people who will be there, but I've decided I'm not going to be that
kind of traveler, I need to move on. so malaysia for a bit, maybe cambodia for a bit (I'd really like to see angkor wat, the rest, I'll see how much time I end up with) , definitely 3-4 weeks in indonesia though.

I've been traveling with people and splitting rooms with people in Laos the thing about laos is there's only like 4 places that people travel to, so you just see the same people over and over again, so pretty soon you know everyone, but I'm getting pretty tired of it. I'm gonna need to break free and be on my own again for a while. I like being able to do exactly what I want when I want to. it's nice, for a while.