Hepatitis!

just kidding. that's a bad title. sorry.

well, the antibiotics kicked the hell out of my strep throat. I feel perfectly fine now. hooray.

yesterday I hopped a flight to vientiane, laos' capital city. (fyi, laos is pronounced "lao", like "cow", but with an "l". please stop saying the "s". you're making us all look bad. americans.) the flight was seemingly uneventful. I was sitting next to this japanese guy, and we got to chatting. when he told me he was from sapporo and asked did I know of it, I said I know the beer very, very well. well, one lame joke made a big impression on this guy, and he was smitten with me the rest of the trip. I was not aware of this until I shared a taxi with him to the center of town. let's just say that the cab ride got incredibly awkward, so much so that I had to make an early exit. and that is why I blame this guy for what happened next. I call it "the worst hotel experience ever." because of the pressure to get away from sapporo, I threw down my $20 to the first hotel I saw on the way from the airport. the phoxay hotel. the armpit of vientiane. having already paid for the room, I had no choice but to accept what was shown to me...a, no lie, 6 x 7 foot cell. no windows. a buzzing flourescent light. oh, and a bathroom sporting mildew, rot, a toilet that would make strange noises then spurt water out from the bowl, and a friendly ant farm near the shower head. needless to say, I didn't shower. or pee. the guy who showed me the room said, "here...30 seconds of hot water," then left. do you know what scabies are? well, I'm not sure I do either, but I had a feeling I would see them, or catch them, or have them crawl into my mouth from laying in the bed. so, I slept in a long sleeve shirt and pants and socks,covered the pillow with my jacket, and made a serious effort to breath through my nose the whole night.

I guess I'm going on about the hotel for two reasons: that experience scarred me deeply, and, there's nothing much to write about vientiane. except for a couple of second rate wats, it's a dead freaking town. the highlight was a great local market selling all of these exotic foods under the warm glow of hundreds of tiny light bulbs strung from one end of the street to the other. that was beautiful. unfortunately, I have a tragic sense of direction, so I passed through this market about six times trying to find my way back to the hotel. took a bit of the romance out of it, you know?

today I took a bus north to a town called vang vieng. the scenery is spectacular: enormous limestone cliffs, lush forests, and a river which I can't remember the name of. tomorrow I'm going to do some hiking, explore some caves and them tube down the aforementioned river. I'm staying in this comfy bungalow that sits right on the river. it's so peaceful here.

oh yeah, vientiane was good for one thing: getting a visa to vietnam. $60 and five minutes at the vietnamese embassy gets you one. the man who processed the visa called me a lazy american because I could only speak one language fluently. when he wasn't looking I practiced some sign language on him.