Vientiane

As an added bonus, I happened to bump into Reese (Penny's brother) in Vang Vieng and exchange contact information.  I was a bit regretful that I hadn't made this effort when I had the chance in Luang Prabang, so it made me happy to be able to send a note along to Penny and thank her for making a thirty hour bus ride into an enjoyable use of time.

But that chance meeting was almost unnecessary as we all ended up in the same hostel in Vientiane regardless.  Laos is a small country and it seems to send the tourists down the same path.  I give Penny a big hug and we commence with the festivities.

Sihome Garden Backpackers Hostel is staffed almost exclusively by other foreign travelers who just happened to stick around for a while.  The walls are plastered with murals and famous quotations as well as what looks like an apology wall for owning up to drunken mishaps.  As we enter our room we meet the overnight front desk attendant, Andrei.  Originally from Belarus, this young guy has hit the road to improve his English and meet other people.  He shows us the copy of Harry Potter that he's reading, and you can see the level of effort he puts into learning just by his translations in between lines.  And what's especially remarkable to see is how the annotations and footnotes get thinner and thinner as you flip pages, presumably as Andrei picks up the language.  He is inquisitive and not afraid to make mistakes, making for a good attitude toward learning.  He doesn't fuss with grammar and syntax, but rather is more concerned about semantics and relating new words with ones he already knows.  Conversing with him is a delight, and we spend one evening playing guitar together.  What a sweetheart!

We check out a few of the sights with Penny while getting caught in some dramatic downpours, but most of my days in Vientiane are dedicated to figuring out the New Zealand immigration stuff I've already mentioned.  Having a mountain bike to get around was loads of fun; I didn't realize how much I missed biking until I had some mobility again.  A crazy idea popped into my brain to do some long distance cycling trips in New Zealand...

We ate lunch at the same place every day.  Yes, we happened to find a Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant here.  That food didn't stand a chance!  Nicole and I wonder why we've never encountered these sorts of restaurants back home, and I hope it's not for lack of their existence in the states.  Maybe we need to explore our old home a little bit more.

I wonder what my mentality will be like when I get home.  Will I still have lingering wanderlust, seeking out novelty in previously overlooked places?  Or will I just go back to business as usual?  I suppose the key is to find the balance of novelty and comfort.  I have to remember that I was never really bored when I lived in Monterey.  Some things grew stale, but that just translated into letting go of them to make way for new interests.  But I wonder if I'll be more inclined to dive into new activities if I have the option of comfort sitting in the corner of my mind.  When traveling abroad you don't necessarily have those fallbacks, so the choice is obvious: press onwards into new territory.

In short, I hope to maintain this momentum.  A lot of the fun of travel is handling logistics and working through obstacles and seeing what sort of whacky shit emerges as a result.  It's about keeping your expectations in check and accepting that any given moment might not deliver that coveted euphoria.  The pleasure usually comes in retrospect.  "I can't believe our luck!"

I want to keep those channels to chance open.  Open sesame!

After Vientiane we make our way back to Bangkok by overnight train.  Nicole and I stay up all night gabbing and I make a mental note of how well we've been doing as travel partners.  We haven't lived together in so long, and the last time that happened we had a sort of quiet falling out.  I try to remember what was going through my head at the time, or all of the circumstances that might lead to our alienation, but the only feeling that emerges is a sort of shame.  Trying to figure out what past Paul was thinking only makes me cringe in embarrassment.  Was I really so heartless, so thoughtless?  I may not have actively driven the wedge between us, but I certainly let toxic thoughts chip away at me until I was complicit in the death of a friendship.

Fortunately the Phoenix that is Nipple (Nicole + Paul = Nipple) was rekindled with very little effort, and I have some fond memories of rediscovering the friendship over long sessions of Geometry Wars and gory horror films.  But this leaves me perplexed in other ways, namely how it even happened in the first place.  Nonetheless, it's a relief to say, "What was I thinking?" and move on from it.

But I still don't really know my motives.  And what's keeping it from happening again.  I can think of a few other moments that sting with a similar remorse.  I don't yet know how to face those demons, or even if I can do anything to banish them.  I use them as life lessons at best, but is that just a copout?  I've spent countless hours attending to these matters but the mental stalemate just appears more and more enigmatic as time goes on.

I imagine most people can relate.  We've all been there, right?

Anywho, traveling and such.  Vientiane is quaint enough but I've already mentioned that I used this city to handle some more administrative tasks with New Zealand immigration.  Occasionally I have to put travel mode on hiatus to figure out where the pieces will fall for the next... few years of my life.  That's just eerie.  It scares me a little but I think these are the sorts of challenges I need: making meaningful commitments and seeing them through.  Maybe I need it as a way to redeem myself, or at least prove to myself that I'm not all the bad things those inner demons tell me I am.

Vientiane sees a significant step up in hip aesthetic.  Designer doggie on a designer scooter.

Tuberculosis free!  I'll reward myself with a croissant after riding out to the Australian Embassy.  Because the x-ray film was too large to take with me, I left it Andrei's care with a note: "You take my breath away."

Sihome Backpacker's Hostel: Andrei's guitar with Marceline shredding in the background.

Central monument.  I think I've reached over-saturation with Laotian architecture.