Heartbreak has been battling excitement and anticipation since we touched down yesterday at SFO.  Thanks to our old neighbors Jimmy and Jen, we just woke from our first good night of sleep in several days.  We flew overnight from Bangkok to Tokyo where we spent a day and then had another over night flight to San Francisco the following day (or was it yesterday or tomorrow?).  Thanks to a flight crew that seemed to have a more gripping fear of flying than Yours Truly, accentuanted by some of the worst turbulence I have ever experienced on a 747, the latter flight was a 10-hour, white-knuckled opportunity to  contemplate my mortality.  I did manage to stave off chest pains and a murder charge by closing my eyes and going to a happy place (for most of the flight I was truly still on the beaches of Cambodia).  It worked, but it wasn’t easy.  David, God bless him,  slept through interrupted only by the the occasional seat shift to ease the pain in his back.   I still look at him, and everyone else, in wonder at their level of comfort while shooting through space at 700 miles an hour, 40,000 feat above safety, in a tin can.  I lie in wait for the glorious day when rail and sea return as the primary (and only sane) means of international travel.

Our hosts here are off to work and we are laying in bed in front of their television (oh the luxury of English!) enjoying some solitude.  It will be a few days before the jet lag wears off and our bodies come back and talk to our heads like friends again.  We’re tired and dazed and our hearts are sagging a bit.  We are trying to give ourselves some time for it all to wear off before we contemplate the answer to the already-asked question, “So, how do you feel?”

Still, it’s hard not to look around at all that is no longer the same and feel rather overwhelmed.  Most of what we have swarming through our heads, at least innitially, isn’t incredibly positive.  I don’t want to be that guy that comes back from a mere 5 months in a foreign country and whines and complains about how much better it is “over there.”  But, today I am indeed that guy and there you have it.  Talk to me in a couple days after all the luxuries of of the Western world seep in and the sleepiness wears off and I may have something to different to say.  But, today…

It’s so cold here.  This morning I walked two blocks to the old coffee shop wearing long underwear, thick khakis, a tee shirt, a long sleeved tee shirt, a fleece sweater, and a track jacket and I was still shivering well after I finished my drip.  Thinking Oakland must be in the midst of a freak cold spell not seen since the 20’s I checked the temp on the weather channel and it’s a mere 54 degrees.  Evidently we accepted the tropical Laoation heat more than we had thought.

I feel somewhat disconcerted with how different Americans suddenly seem.  Everyone seems panicky and running away (or to) from something scarrier than it must actually be.  I have gone on and on for months about how so many of the people from Southeast Asia sit in the moment without complaint, content and eager to say yes and be.  I never thought that would be even more visible from the streets of Oakland.  The contrast is harsh, especially since my long underwear and fleece just aren’t doing the job.

I’m going to give this some time before dig farther and find whatever it is I will call New.  But I will say this:  I feel more appreciation for the bit of time a few of my friends gave me last night than ever before, and on hello they made me feel home again, so to speak. And I’m so friggin’ pumped to see the rest of you soon.  Just know that if I can’t find the words quite yet I am indeed searching, and I’ll be having a hell of a time even if my eyes are still a little sleepy.

I love you all and I can’t wait to see you (right after this nap).

Kevin

p.s.  We have pictures going back 3 weeks we have yet to post so we will be getting on that (right after another nap).

Me:  I’m sorry?

David:  Yea, I think the visa was good for two months but once you enter the country it’s only good for one.

Me:  Splendid

We ran off to the immigration office and looked in to it and sure enough we read the visa wrong.  We overstayed (not the first time on this journey) way too long and owed a ridiculous amount of money.  We payed up so as not to end up on Locked Up Abroad, and since then everything has changed.  No more boat trip up to the magical mountains of Phongsavali, no more wandering through Northern Laos with no care in the world other than where our next dish of Laap is coming from, no more ambition to cross the new and remote border in to Northern Vietnam.  We have been nicely asked to leave the country or pay more money.  We don’t want to pay more money. Game over.

Ok not quite.  We still have some things to see in Thailand and whatnot, but we are indeed a bit bummed out.  After the visa issue costs, and figuring out the costs of entering Vietnam by land (they want an arm and a leg!), not too mention travelling around there (way more expensive than Laos) we realized it might be best to head back to Thailand and then…

wait for it…

wait for it…

HOME! 

So….I am sad to announce Vietnam is no longer on the itinerary.  However, David has been eager to remind me that this leaves plenty of things to explore the next time we are here.  And yes, I believe we now both officially plan on coming back here as often as possible for what remains to be the rest of our lives.  So, that’s awesome….

So, feeling a bit deflated with the loss of our battle at the immigration office, we got a total of 5 massages in one day and then found a bar.  There we devised a bit of plan so we could still have some fun before heading back home. It was a pretty typical conversation between the optimist and the pessimist:

Kevin:  Screw this, screw Laos, they just took our money and now we got crap.

David:  Ok, well, it’s ok, this just leaves more to explore before we come back, right?

Kevin: This drink tastes like ass, they never put enough ice in these drinks.  They call this a cocktail?

David:  Would you like another drink?

Kevin:  What I would like would be to continue on my journey and go to Vietnam just like I wanted!

David:  Right, but that isn’t really possible right now so maybe we should think about some fun things we can do in Thailand before we go to the airport.

Kevin:  I’ve already been to Thailand and it’s stupid.

David:  I’m going for a walk. 

Eventually I relaxed, David returned, and he was kind enough to not reprimand me for (again) acting like a two year old.  At any rate, I got over my Vietnam-less Pity Party and am fully ready (and even excited) to depart Laos – we came back to Vientiane to say goodbye to the family –  and enter Thailand on Saturday.  We have some plans to grab a motorbike and do a little cross-country before hitting Bangkok International.  Plus, since Thailand is by far the most inexpensive place we have visited we won’t have to worry as much about time and money.  There are a few places we want to return to and say hi to those who so warmly welcomed us when we first arrived.  Plus there are a few places we have yet to see in Thailand and this gives us the opportunity to do just that.

So, here it is folks.  The moment you have been waiting for:  We will be home (likely) in March. 

Speaking of coming home, we are just beginning to start to form our next ‘plan.’  David has declared he is going to school, and has his application in to a couple of places throughout the states (I’ll let him tell you where and what for).  He plans on spending a bit of time with his various family members before hitting the books. 

As for me, I have a thousand different ideas of what I want to do next and am just beginning to narrow them down.  There are some killer non-profits in the States that are doing amazing work for Laoation and Cambodian children, particularly around education and health.  I am looking in to those and have even started thinking about, dare I say, grad school.  Terrifying indeed.  We’ll see.  Either way it appears I will be heading back through Oakland to see all my beautiful friends, and then out to Ohio to visit the good ol’ fam (man do I miss them!) and all my other beautiful friends.  Whether I end up in Ohio or California more permanently is still up in the air – it of course depends on work and (possibly) school. 

For both of us, the end goal is to come back here.  We don’t want to live here forever, yet we understand how much we have fallen in love with it to know we must come back here sooner or later.  Hopefully these next steps will shape this in to a very attainable goal.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Oh – and….we got the camera battery charger back!  Woohoo!  More pictures soon.  The next post you will see will be from Thailand.  Good bye, for now, Laos.  You have treated us well, and we are forever grateful.

Welcome back.  Here’s just a little update on what we have been up to and where we are heading…

We took a 7 hour bus trip from Vientiane to Vang Vieng in Northern Laos.  We new it was going to be a bit touristy, which isn’t our thing so much, but you pretty much have to pass through there via Rt. 13 if you plan on travelling North at all.  Anyway, we had a killer time, but it was pretty much an amusement park for young adults.  There wasn’t much culture left and it didn’t even feel like a Laos town at all.  Hotels, guesthouses, pizza places, beer gardens, clubs, and more white people than Ohio.  Weird.  The big thing to do there is rent a tube and float down he Mekong, so we did that.  But, it was a circus.  Literally bars ON the river as far as the eye can see with thousands of Falang getting wasted, swinging off a zip line in to the water, and nearly drowning.  The entire village has turned in to a typical college town the weekend after finals.  We had some fun, checked out some of the clubs, and enjoyed the river, but overall it wasn’t our cup of tea so we moved on.

We grabbed another bus farther North to Luang Prabang, also another major stop on the tourist trail in Northern Laos.  We knew there were going to be a lot of Falang here too, but again we weren’t expecting the intensity.  It’s a beautiful village up here in the mountains, but the local culture has given way to rich Ausies, Brits, and Americans:  Guesthouse after guesthouse and french bistro after french bistro.  Everything is pretty expensive, and it’s not too easy to find a real old school Lao meal at a reasonable price.  Again, not much our cup of tea so we are going to take off.  First though we are waiting to receive our land visas for Vietnam.  There is a consulate here but nothing farther North, so if we don’t get our visas now we won’t be going to Vietnam.

We are going to put in a bit extra effort to get off the tourist trail in the coming days.  We are chartering a boat (yes yes yes!) to take is up the Nam Ou towards Phongsali, which is a village perched way up on this mountain called Phou Fa.  It’s really close to both China and Vietnam and it’s really remote so supposedly it has an interesting blend of cultures.  It should take a few days to get there up there by the river so we are going to stop at some villages along the way.  That said, once we are up in the Northern Province it might not be so easy to stay connected via the interwebs, so we might be MIA for a little while until we leave Phongsali and head over to the Vietnam border.   We’ll try to keep you posted, and we will be here in Luang Prabang for another few days so we will try to contact you before we leave

Camera Disaster House Part 6:  We left our camera battery charger in Vientiane (along with David’s jeans and Kevin’s only decent shirt) so we haven’t been able to take pictures.  We did find one store in the village here that sells a charger that will work, but the woman who owns it is trekking to Thailand to get supplies for her store.  She should be back in a couple of days, we are told, and so we should be up and running again before we take off on the BOAT TRIP.

Much Love,
Kevin and David

For all that is to be said about Phnom Penh, the beautiful and the desperate, it’s certainly no place for two home-sick Americans to spend the holidays. We had planned oo cn running away to Saigon but I got too caught up in researching work and volunteer opportunities to leave the city straight away. By the time we decided to move on it was too late to get our visas and still make it across the border to Vietnam before Christmas. Thankfully, David had the smarts to head south to the beaches of Sihanoukville, Cambodia. While I was still in Phnom Penh meeting with a few teaching opportunities he was wandering the sands looking for the perfect Christmas getaway. It paid off. When I arrived I found him relaxing in front of a thatched-roof bungalow set behind a few palms, all a mere 15 feet from the water’s edge. The sun had just set, the moon was rising, the air was salty and the next day would bring with it Christmas Eve. There wasn’t a sound around save for the waves because he found the farthest bungalow on the farthest beach away from the city center. It was called Otres Beach, and it was a 30 minute motor bike ride outside of Sihanoukville on a road no wider than a foot path just to get there. It was perfect.

We spent Christmas Eve wandering around the markets of Sihanoukville in search of presents and treats. It was a beautiful day. Just as hot as Phnom Penh but with the added benefit of the sea breeze. We stocked up on chocolates and peanut butter and eggs and coffee and all things Western that would give us some semblance of Christmas. Back at the bungalow we put up the little Christmas Tree and lights on the wide porch and settled in to a full day of serious relaxation. We met a few lone travellers who were strolling down our beach and invited them up for a beer. Though it was 100 degrees and the sights consisted of stray cows, sand, and palm trees, it was finally beginning to feel a bit like Christmas.

For lunch we strolled down the beach and found a little bungalow kitchen serving up some of the best curries I have ever had (and you know how much I like curry). After our meal we sipped on the too-sweet limeaide the Cambodians love so much and waited for the sun to set over the Gulf of Thailand.

When the stars started to shine a bit stronger we headed back to the bungalow to start putting out the luminaries. For those of you who don’t know, on Christmas Eve families in the Midwest line their streets with candles in paper bags or milk jugs called luminaries. I grew up doing this with my dad and brother. It was always freezing and windy and we would be out there with other families on our street lining everything with these candles until it seemed like the whole neighborhood was glowing and everyone’s hands were numb from cold. For me it was always the moment the last candle was lit that it was finally, truly, Christmastime. David had never heard of this, so I’m not sure if it was just an Ohio thing or just a Bellevue thing or what. Either way, there we were sticking all these candles in the sand as the tide was moving in. Our method wasn’t nearly as good as my fathers so the wind kept blowing them out, but it still made it feel a bit more like Christmas.

After the candles were lit, the tree was up, and the Christmas lights were wrapped around the one little window we had, I started feeling a bit funny – something wasn’t quite right. I needed to lay down and did, but for some reason that felt even more uncomfortable. Then the sweats came, an intense thirst followed, and for the rest of the night I laid in the bed under the mosquito net rolling back and forth trying to get the strange pain in my stomach to ease. By 3:00 am there were no doubts about what was happening: I was throwing up that curry I had for lunch as it clearly had given me food poisoning. Christmas day wasn’t much better. I laid in the sand and moaned and could hardly eat or drink a thing. Nurse David did what he could, but I mostly just slept in the sea breeze waiting for the nausea to pass. Merry Christmas.

I can’t complain too much, though. Even with the food poisoning it was a beautiful place to spend Christmas, and the sickness didn’t last more than two days. Thankfully I recovered enough a couple days later to take a boat trip with a local family out to the coral reefs near Bamboo Island. The family was quiet and sweet and took us to wherever it was we pointed. We ate a lunch of squid and shrimp caught that very morning on that very boat and it was delicious. We visited a few islands, went fishing, and snorkeled through beautiful corals. It was gorgeous, and we felt like we got to go behind the glass at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium. Sea urchins and caverns and blow fish and yellow fish and fluorescent blue fish and strange creatures moving with the current. I’ll never forget that day, and thank God we found some champagne at a Western market to go along with it.

We were a bit sad to leave but our visas had run out and we had no choice. The place was beautiful, the people kind and generous, and we had a truly relaxing time. If you want the real life bungalow-private-beach experience without having to take out a second mortgage, run to Otres beach now. It won’t be long before it’s all gone (rumor had it the government would be seizing the land, evicting the locals, and selling everything off to developers. We would have questioned this if we hadn’t witnessed it ourselves in the capital to the North).

[We have photos for the section below, they will be uploaded tomorrow 01.05.10]

We arrived back in Laos on New Years Eve. We decided we missed David’s family in Paxse enough to put off Vietnam for another few weeks, and of course we’re happy with that choice. As always we received a warm welcome, something now expected but no less appreciative. We hadn’t realized how much we missed the kids until they were running at us, giggling and yelling “Kay-been, Day-bid!” as we pulled up on our motor bike. We always feel like the family compound is a place filled with so much love, it’s impossible to not notice and take in some of the warmth. Especially with David’s uncle Ut, his wife, and their kids Jay and John. Always smiling and laughing and making up a new game that makes no sense to us but has them in excitement overdrive. The kids are a real fresh breath compared to Phnom Penh.

The last couple days we have been on our own in away. Jay and John, the only two in all of the compound who speak any English, have returned to Vientiane to go back to school. So, we are now communicating through hand signals and the 20 or so Lao words we have picked up just from hanging around. It can be frustratingly slow, but even when no one has a clue what the other is saying we somehow still all end up in big smiles. And the Lao smile is something to be remembered…

Oh! Exciting news. Some of the family members finished building their new little house on the compound and have officially moved out of their open-air bungalow. It has walls of concrete and real glass windows and tile floors and two whole rooms and everything. A big dinner with far too much BeerLao was planned last night in celebration as Uncle Aat, his wife, their two kids Joe (9) and James (2) spent their first night in their new home. The workers on the compound were happy, too, as two of them, Ooy (20) and Phun (23) got to move in to their new room right next door. We all feasted on fresh duck (which Yours Truly helped catch by being one of the herders, along with Joe), fish, a thousand different spices, sticky rice, and watermelon (which I learned last night is called Maak Muu in Lao). Everyone seemed generally happy. The roofing business, now nearly a year old, seems to be doing well, new building are popping up around the compound, everyone is getting a bit more comfortable, and we couldn’t be happier for them. They, in turn, couldn’t be happier to share their good fortunes with us. They continue to feed us way too much and every chance they get they entertain us or teach us a new Lao word or ask us something about our home country. It will be a challenge to say goodbye.

We leave Thursday for Vientiane, where the family is originally from. The kids are there now in school and of course they still have a house there where we will be staying for a bit. We have yet to visit Northern Laos so we are very much looking forward to it, and it will be nice to have our Smily Translator (13 year old John) by our side again. Afterwords we still hope to make it over to Vietnam (because if we don’t my father will surely never speak to me again).

We are alive, we are well, we miss home desperately, we are dealing (mostly) well with being together way too much, we are amazed daily by what we witness, we are surprising ourselves by our love for children (and often times, each other), we are tired, we miss hot showers, we are terrified and excited at what comes next, we are thankful to be without regret at the decision to take on such a journey as this, together. We are Living.

We miss you, we love you, Happy New Year!

Kevin and David

Well, that’s simply not true.  I actually only write the posts themselves and because it records what post is written by who it merely appears that I’m doing all the work.  David, however, actually does quite a bit more.  He created the blog, the design, nailed down the url and came up with all the ideas for the little gadgets like the map, the itinerary page, etc.  He organizes and uploads all the photos, which takes hours on the slow connections here, and most of the photos themselves are actually taken by him (I find carrying a camera simply annoying, and he takes better shots anyway).  Plus, all the techy stuff is all him – like the ability for you to log in and leave comments on my posts, he took care of that and made it happen.  I would have no idea how to even begin to get something like that started.

The point being – without David I would have a bunch of words going out in a boring email, and without me he would have a beautiful blog with pictures but no other content.  It’s a mutual effort,  one we enjoy.

Much Love,

Kevin and David