inner tubes and "Friends"

Hey all-
We return to China tomorrow, so we don't know what our access will be like to the blog website. I know I know, so many of you will be disappointed. But maybe I'll try to rope one of you in to making the posts.

So here is the latest. Adapted from an email I sent my brother.

People are so wonderful in Thailand (and now we're in Laos, where even some of the oldest, most scoul-ful faces errupt into a smile when we say "Saba-dii !"). And even though it is so freakin'hot, we're still hapy and having a good time. Yesterday and today we were based in Viang Vien, which is smack in the middle of Northern Laos. A CRAZY tourist town, but you're not there for the town. You're there for the 6 km bikeride to a lagoon with rope swings and deep clear pools, behind which is a 200m scramble to a deep deep cave, where there is a golden reproduction of the Buddha reclining. And you're biking along rice paddies, and there are these crazy limestone mountains jumping up to the sky. The air was quite hazy from brush fires, but the breeze made by biking made the heat tolerable.

We spent the afternoon (this is yesterday) floating in inner tubes down the river. Quite a bizarre experience- there are all these stops along the way where the locals have made towers out of bamboo that you can jump off, and zip lines over the river, and huge swings- they hoist you about 50-60 feet in the air and let you swing! Its nuts. And all along the way people are offering you all kinds of beverages and totally gnarly chips (like teryaki salmon potato chips?!?!) and Beerlao (the local bud light), which is only available in huge glass bottles. Not worth it. So we joined all these white-turning-pink tourists floating in inner tubes, making fools out of ourselves, and the locals just sit back in the shade and giggle at our antics. Tourists say things like "You can't jump before you buy a beer. Its against the *lao*." Har har har.

If that scene is not bizarre enough, at night, the town is full of restuarants that all sell the same thing, and all have the TV blaring, and they're all playing re-runs of "Friends". Really. Or the Simpsons. "Friends" is more popular. We got snared on our first night- too exhausted to fight it, and whatched FOUR episodes in a row. We were pretty dern depressed after that. Big mistake. No do again.

Today we joined a small group to kayak down the Nam Lik river. Much better way to return to Vientiane. Nice big rapid that ate us on our first run, but then we hauled our kayaks (actually they were kind of like small rafts- inflated rubber) back around and ran it again. Textbook, really. we were quite proud. [Luv and Addie might remember a less skillful event on the Connecticut river trip when Eric and I capsized three times just trying to get *in* to our canoe above a rapid]. Further down the river we pulled over to jump of some pretty high cliffs- Eric jumped off one that was defintely 35 feet high. What a man. You should have heard the sound of his butt when it hit the water- maybe you heard it in the States? Will post a photo if I can.

Now we're back in Vientiane, home of yet more bizarre marriages between cultures- only this time it is French and Lao-tian (??). So you can get really tasty cookies and delicious bagette, and you can also get some totally suspect soup that smells like rotting compost. We leave for Yunnan Province in China tomorrow. I will miss this mix of southeast asia culture. Its quite bizarre but wonderful too. We may need to come back.

The yoga workshop has done wonders. We've done yoga each morning, except one when we wanted to get an early start. Its been just wonderful. And we do some breathing too- alternate nostril and also another kind- where you just exhale forcefully from your abdomen? You yogies must know it. I know you do. I feel like this could really be key for me in the life-changing that I want to do. Seriously.

Ok, off to bed. I'm re-reading Barbara Kingsolver's "Prodigal Summer" which is just heavenly.

send news. or even just dopey comments. We miss you all.

xo
betsy