Back in Laos

I left Bangkok yesterday morning, saying good bye to some excellent friends from Mae Sot, and I took a 10-hour bus trek heading east to Ubon Ratchathani. It was a dark rainy night when I got there, but it was good to see that I was the only tourist around. Ubon Ratchathani is a large town 90 km from the Thai-Laos border. I had to visit five banks until I found a place that would let me buy US dollars. After taking care of business, I took local transport to Chong Mek, the border town in Thailand. Once again, I was the only tourist on the bus. I felt like I was in Indonesia again.The Chong Mek border is supposed to be the only border where you need a Laotian visa before showing up, so it tends to be avoided by the backpacker tourists. At the border, I had to pay 100 BHT to the Laotian immigration officers for "overtime" since it was after 4pm. I tried to bargain it down, but I couldn't.Laos is beautiful. The sun was setting during my hour sawngthaew ride to Pakse from the border. Both sides of the road had rice patty fields in different shades of green with water buffalos grazing. It was so beautiful to see the mountain reflections in the still water. Quite a few stilted homes had their ground floors flooded underwater. I passed some lakes that had expanded and the elevated resting areas that you see in SE asia that once lined the shores were also underwater.The Laotians squeezed into the sawngthaew with me seemed amused with my presence. They made room for me on the benches and were constantly stealing glances at me. It's great to be a novel tourist again.Pakse is a town on highway 13 (the north-south road through Laos). There are some tourists here as it is a long day's journey from Vientiane and on the way to Si Phan Don, Four Thousand Islands. I will be headed there tomorrow, I think. The Mekong River widens there and harbors four thousand islands, apparently.

Bangkok!

I am in Bangkok now! I stayed in Mae Sot for a little longer than I expected revisiting friends and the clinic. As it turns out, a bunch of friends from Mae Sot were headed to Bangkok this weekend, so I joined the mass exodus. It's great! This is a place where I've not spent more than 12 hours on my five previous visits and never ventured beyond the airport, bus terminal, or Khao San Road area. This time I am staying at the Sukhumvit Road area, which is downtown near several air-conditioned malls, shopping areas, and go-go bars. It sure beats the backpacker ghetto of Khao San Road. I'm close to the skytrain, which connects to the subway and riverboats. The city is readily accessible! Bangkok's downtown is enormous -- a mixture of modern high-rise apartment and office buildings next to old two-story shops next to squatter's shantytowns with rusty corrugated tin walls and roofs.
We visited the weekend market, Chatachuk and Chinatown in one go. I am, it seems, a poor shopper, finding the shuffling aisles suffocating after an hour. Today we visited the Grand Palace for a peek and Wat Pho, with a massive reclining Buddha.
The weather has been warm and humid, which has made it perfect for the rooftop pool and bar, with great views at night. What a change from Mae Sot's daily deluge and neverending dampness. As a result of the rainy season, my clothes, after nine months of handwashing on the road, have acquired a funk that simply re-emerges whenever they get wet.