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The thing about traveling on a volunteer's budget is that it's a sad state of affairs when I agonize over spending $10 USD. You can imagine how I nearly pooped myself when I dropped a month's stipend ($250) on a Visa and plane ticket to Saigon. But I've convinced myself that money should the least of my concerns because I'll be in Vietnam just in time for the Tet/Chinese New Year's Eve celebration and I hope to go balls out! Yippee!
There was another splurge today, when I spent $10 so that I could weave for three hours at a local women's vocational training center. It's a non-profit organization that employs women from all over Laos and trains them in the art of old-school weaving, where they can make an honest and sustainable living. I couldn't resist the idea of weaving myself and even though I was sorely sleep deprived (Rick and I were on a 10-hour overnight bus trip from Luang Prabang where I was kept up by my uncomfortable seat and a mom and son team that kept gagging and vomiting during the entire ride). I'll be posting images of my little weavey ditty later on, but I just wanted to say that it was one of the best crafty experiences ever!
Laos is exponentially more grand (and HOT!) than I had expected.
I was doing e-mail rounds this morning and got a note from my brother saying that I just received a Jury Duty Summons!
This is nuts considering that I have already sent the county of Los Angeles proof that I moved to Portland, when I first relocated almost two years ago when they summoned me then. Now I'm in China (and Laos, and later, Vietnam) and there's no way I can get to my duty, which I'm not obliged to anyway.
Oh well, not much I can do about it from Luang Prabang. Except maybe cool myself with a mango smoothie.
Last night we stayed in Mengla, still in China, to catch the bus to the border crossing into Laos. After an hour of waiting around and getting appropriate stamp-age, we were in Laos! Woohoo! I spent the first hour in Laos waiting in a shaded depot for a bus to leave the sleepy border town. As Lance and Rick got lunch, I read through our guidebook as dust blew around me.
I figured that we could catch a ride to Luang Namtha, the capitol of the province with the same name. We hopped onto the back of a truck hauling an older woman, boxes of fruits and sacks of rice. On the way, we picked up a man whose cargo was a pig in a bag (FIY: it's disconcerting to hear a sack squeal).
Now I'm at a small internet cafe, where I'm the only patron, in the province's capitol that looks more countryside-ish than my Huarong Home.
Here's one to file under: Amy Ain't Never American Enough folder. While at the border crossing, we had to check out of China into Laos. The Chinese customs guy had my passport in his hand, but still found the need to ask, “Are you American?”
There's so much to write about from the past two weeks of travel. When I get home, I'll type out each day's bulleted entry, but I'm much too exhausted to get into it now.
I've been writing in my paper journal about each day, but haven't the time to transcribe it all now. This is just a short note to let ya'll know that I'm alive and within the past week I've gone from being snowed-in a town (Lijiang) to having the privilege of just wearing my hoodie riding a rented bike through farmland flanked with palm trees (Xishuang Banna).
We've also changed our mind about Cambodia, so we're going to Laos instead (then to Vietnam).
Wish us luckies!
(I really really wish all my friends could be with me right now. I miss ya'll so muchies.)
