10 hour Bus rides are more fun when you're throwing up

Disclaimer: I have no camera anymore, so all of these pics were stolen from various people

After Koh Tao I headed back up to BKK, where my plan was to fly to myanmar, but my plans were thwarted my an imbecile in the Bainbridge post office who incorrectly mailed my credit and debit cards, resulting in their non-appearance in Bangkok the day before my flight, and lots of freaking out. So I missed the flight, waste of 100 dollars, and had to sit it out in Bangkok for a few days, which I was incapable of, so I got on a bus to Laos to meet up with all the peeps who had gone up the day before (friends from NYE). In retrospect I'm kinda glad my cards didn't come. I f they had come I would have go to Myanmar for three weeks, and probably not have gone to the Philippines at all, which would have been a travesty in my opinion.

I committed two grave mistakes en route to Laos: 1. I ate green curry, and 2. I went with only enough money to pay for the bus ticket, not enough to get me across the border and into Laos. My plan was to get off the bus in Thai at the border, get my money, cross the border myself, then meet up with the bus in Vientien and take it to Vang Vieng.

Within 30 minutes of the 10 hour bus ride I was throwing up all over the downstairs part of the bus, which luckily was vacant (I had gone down there once I could tell I was going to be sick so as to spare the feelings and olfactory senses of the rest of the passengers). I was incredibly fortunate that there were two girls from LA on the bus who took pity on me and took care of me, brought me water, bananas, etc. It became clear when we got to the border that there was no way I could get off the bus and make it there myself, I had a fever and could barely walk because I was so weak. These girls, who I had spoken 2 words too, paid my way across the border and into Laos ( I have since paid them back). Amazing what good people are capable of.

I ran into more problems when I got to Vang Vieng, but again I was saved again by benevolent (drunk) foreigners. I was so out of it, having been throwing up on buses for 15 hours at this point, that when I tried to read the room list to see which room to knock on, I read room 21 (age) instead of the actual number, so of course I couldn't find my friends. A drunk guy who was standing by playing with a puppy took pity on me, and his sister, who was with him, took me back to their room and put me to bed in one of their big comfy beds after giving me painkillers for my fever and water. So despite having the shittiest luck ever.. and getting food poisoning like three times in the past months, I had really good luck with people helping me.


Vang Vieng is beautiful, surrounded by huge limestone cliffs

Found Liam the next day and then proceded to lie in bed for four days with a fever while he tubed every day, coming back every nigh completely dead drunk and incoherently raving about how he had had the best time of his life, etc etc. Not fair. He also dislocated someones shoulder by falling on top of them off the water slide. haha, I guess thats not funny...buuut it kinda is.



Basically you just rent these tubes for five dollars and then float down the river and get wasted. The bars along the way throw ropes out to pull you in if you want to come, and then there are rope swings and zip lines, and all manner of things that you can get drunk and make bad decisions about. I never got to go, but I'm thinking about going back in march before I leave, just so I can tube, because I feel like I really missed out.

Pink Palace Reuinion

Despite the fact that I really have no love lost for Bangkok I went 3 days earlier than I need to just to see some friends from the Pink Palace. 3 nights on Koh San is not really my idea of an awesome time, but it will be worth it I guess. Without much ado we all managed to meet up, which I’m not going to lie was a little weird at first since I hadn’t seen them in 6 months and couldn’t understand a word they were saying for the first few hours since I haven’t hung out with aussies in so long and the accent is fucking thick, I think its worse that Irish. Things got back to normal after a few buckets.

We spent most of the night at a bar with a sign that read ‘Very Strong Bucket, We Don’t Check ID’… which is pointless since ID doesn’t exist in Thailand, and if it did you could simply go next door and get the guy making fake IDs and diplomas to make it for you. The night was pretty loose; the end is my first REALLY blurry night since moving to Asia.

Next night we went back to the same bucket place where the proprietor was overjoyed to see us.    

Simon lost rock paper scissors to the devil child (who I think is an institution on Koh San since I see her every time I go which is turning out to be far too often) and had to buy five roses from her, which was still only 100 baht.  

Then they decided it would be a good idea to get their eyebrows pierced, so we went back to the place where I had had mine done and I ended up getting my cartilage pierced as well– I think I need to stop with the piercings soon cause I’m accumulating them at an alarming rate.

Showing off our new piercings

Went on to get loose at a club in Koh San and then ended up not going to sleep for a long time after that back in the room even though they were leaving at 7 to go to Trat.

God Save the King

One night in Bangkok and the worlds your oyster

One night in Bangkok.... pearls ain't freee...

So in our less-than-24-hours-in-bangkok we:

1) Walked around a lot.. which was good because before I had not gotten off of Koh San = very bad traveling skills

Street food in Bangkok, view from the skytrain

name of a boat on the river

Best last name ever.. esp for being an author
View of Koh San from the roof of our hotel
View of BKK from our roof

Shrine along the road, these are everywhere in Thailand, every house has one in the front yard

BKK river

2) Saw a Nile monitor


Night of the 22nd

Tristan got a giant fish tattooed on his back

I got my eyebrow pierced again - parents are going to love that one, I bet they thought they were through that stage

We witnessed the seedy underbelly of Thailand / SE Asia at a strip club that made me so sick I had to leave. It was all fat white 50 year old men and the girls all wore numbers for easier identification and purchasing.. made me completely disgusted so I left and made new friends on Koh San instead. We were supposed to be going to the strip club just for a little while for fun and then moving on to a club, but a few of the sleezier guys from Tahoe were more serious about it and actually bought strippers...served them right later when I saw that they couldn't get into the hotel with them and had to go elsewhere.

Missed our bus at 8 am - we all went to bed so late there was no way we were waking up for our bus at 8 am - good thing we hadn't bought tickets. I think all of us knew in the back of our minds we weren't going to make it on the bus. I personally was walking still walking around Koh San at 5 am with my new brit friends trying to find a tattoo parlor that was open so they could get tattoos.

We ended up being able to catch a later bus to the border, and it was the first time I have walked across a border, correct me if I am wrong parents.

Next post: Sihanouk Ville or the most awesome place ever

getting to Thailand

So far this is everything that has gone wrong on my way out of china:

1) slept through first train

2) Last name on my plane ticket was written as Mindt, not Mundt and they almost didn't let me on the plane to kunming

3) no flights to Mandalay or Yangon s0 I bought a ticket to Bangkok instead. Thought the flight time was 8pm, at 1:30 the lady comes to find me and ask my why I'm not at the airport when my flight is leaving in an hour...rushed to the airport, and made the flight though so that was good.

I didn't spend much time in Bangkok / didn't even get off of the backpacker street since I was there for less than 24 hours, so there isn't really much to say. The one thing though that you notice as soon as you get there and is really shocking is the number of western washouts that are hanging around the street - people who maybe came for a day or a week and stayed for ten years addicted to drugs / whatever and are now begging on the street or selling bracelets.

Went out, made friends with some German dudes and we sang lots of German drinking songs, but I was still feeling mighty shitty from the epic last two weeks in Jing so I went to bed really early.. not what you are suppsed to do in BKK (haaa that was for you mado)

German guys I was hanging out with all pass out on the table at like 9 PM

Decided to go budget so I took the 12 hour bus down, which was not fun, but I met two cool Swedish girls on it who I am still traveling with, so some good came out of it. We got to Koh Phag Nan in the afternoon, and pretty much immediately started prepping for the FULL MOON PARTY! wooooo. get looose

Stupid little stickers they make you wear so they can tell if you're going to Koh Phagnan, Koh Samui, Phuket, etc.


The crowd outside on the front of the boat on the way to Koh Phagnan