Laos-in the beginning

Maybe it's because I was in a bad mood already yesterday. Maybe it's because I had a nightmare last night. Maybe its because I have a potential life altering decision to make in the next few days. Maybe its because I am very inflexible.

Whatever the reasons, so far I am not enjoying myself.

We woke up around 7am, took showers, got a tuk-tuk(taxi ish thing) and headed for the border. We got a really good price on the tuk tuk, usually they try to scam farangs.

The border is about a 5 minute drive and everything went smoothly. Then we took a bus over the bridge and got our Laos visas. They were $36 USD. Oh yeah, everything is in Kip, the local currency, and USD, they accept either. 10, 000Kip=$1USD. Unfortunately, I just had Baht, and not that much of it. Then we took a tuk-tuk to Vietenne. The people here speak alot more English then in Thailand, which is nice. They also go out of their way to help you get places. Mostly because they want your money.

We went straight to the Vietnam embassy. My visa will be ready on Wednesday, which is good, because then we can go back on Wednesday and hang out with everyone again, before I leave on Friday.

After the embassy, we took another tuk-tuk, that tried to charge us 100 Baht to go to the bus station, we wound up paying 40Baht. It's ridiculous that they think we will pay that much.

So instead of bringing us to the bus station we requested, he brought us to the local bus station, so after realizing we were in the wrong place, we had to take another tuk-tuk to the right place. Yet instead of bringing us to the station, he just brought us to a travel agent. Which was a little more, but nothing too extreme. They also accept credit card almost everywhere which is great.

We leave for Vang Vieng at 130, where we will stay on a farm for two days and go kayaking/caving tomorrow, probably.

So we had some time before the bus left, so we went to the bank, where I got 960, 000 kip. I'm almost a millionare!!! Then we went for some lunch. We had egg sandwiches on a bagette for 7, 000kip(so 70cents basically). Its amazing to see all the French influnces here, as Laos was once a French colony. Alot of the food is French, and alot of the writing is in Laos, English and then French. I might try my hand at some French, see if I can do better then in English.

Then Anke had to make a phone call, so here we are.

Its just really frustrating to be somewhere that I have no clue about. I have no way to really communicate except for pidgeon English(although, like I said I might try the French). I feel ike I am getting ripped off right and left, and I dont' feel settled. Maybe it's my suburban upbringing, but I like to feel settled all the time. While I am definately settled in Nongkhai, coming here was a very extreme culture shock. There is western infrastructure. There are a lot of people in the same boat as me. Here its only anke and I and she speaks German. It's already starting to get better, so I'm hoping its just my inflexible nature rearing its ugly head, and my need to feel in control of what I'm doing.

Well at least I have a 3 hour airconditioned bus trip to get used to Laos, before Anke throws me out the window...haha.