the last three weeks...

NOTE: As you will soon realize, if you have not already, I do not write this blog in ther best way for you, the reader. If I did, this entry would certainly not be this long, this detailed, and generally this hard to read. I write the blog for me, so I can order my thoughts, and remember in the future. I am very glad when you read it. But, I feel you need a forewarning— you may need a while to read this thing.

NOW
Sometimes it’s easier to begin with where you are, and then work your way backwards.

I am currently in the guest house of the Center for International Forestry Research. I have wanted to work for CIFOR for years now, starting when I began to have some semblance of an idea of what I was really wanted to do. CIFOR’s mission is to promote “a different kind of research—research that would find solutions to the challenges facing out forests and those who use or depend on them”. They work with people who use forests to understand how, why, and what can be done to support both them and conservation. I signed a three month contract with them this afternoon.

The room I am in is a mess. I had three bags with me when I showed up this afternoon, and they all need to be repacked, so I threw basically unpacked everything. It actually makes it look kind of homey.

ACEH
The last homey place, of course, was Aceh. That is where I left this blog, I realize. Kind of in a lurch for those of you who keep up on it. The last entry is something about not knowing what I will do next, right? I’m not online, so I cannot check. But there were the plans of disappearing off into mainland Southeast Asia for three weeks, on a bike. Well—that is what I did.

I left Aceh on May 1st. I still have not really been able to reflect on what the Aceh experience meant for me. So much, I know. So many things I did not like, so many lessons to point me in future directions. So much bloody time in the office, away from people I wanted to be actually working with. Some day I may get a better picture of what that whole experience. Not yet, though. I still feel like there are too many trees to see that forest. But I left some good people, trying their best to do work they believed in. Those people, I miss.

It seems funny to think about how nervous I was to go traveling. I had never really done the backpacking thing before. Its not that I did not think I could hack it—I just had no idea what hacking it involved. I had never traveled in a country where I did not speak the language fluently. I had never traveled with one person for a long time, with the exception of my mother. I had certainly never done a two week bike trip, after sitting on my arse in front of a computer for three months. One of the many articulations/ realizations of the trip was that most fear comes from things unknown. You know what you are worried about—you can figure out ways to deal with it. You don’t know what you are worried about—you are screwed. Working to fill in those blanks is a good start to dealing with any thing.

SINGAPORE
So, I got on a plane, and flew to Singapore. I had booked myself into the most backpacker-y, young, goofy place I could find. For the first time in ages I was surrounded by people my own age, people who did not care about cultural acceptance, or changing the world, or anything father than five inches away from their nose. Unless that thing was shiny. Total culture shock, but I loved it. It was great just to talk to random people about random things. Not Aceh. Not Save the Children internal politics. And not be the youngest person there. I hung out with Ben, the friend from Cornell who was studying in Singapore, and we had a great time. Props to Ben for being an intelligent person I greatly like talking to. He also took a large amount of my stuff and let me store it in his dorm room. I was left with one small backpack of stuff. Liberating and scary.

So, the nest morning, very early, I caught a plane to Hanoi. Never been to mainland Southeast Asia. Never flown Vietnam Air (sketchy plane). Don’t speak a word of Vietnamese. Hadn’t seen Craig since we had not gotten along about 9 months ago in Ithaca. Lack of knowledge breeds fear, and I was freaked out.

HANOI
But, when faced head on, fears tend to melt. And melt they did. Craig met me at the airport (albeit late). My visa on arrival worked. And the outskirts of Hanoi looked remarkably, like, say Bogor. Small stores that sell everything, street side vendors, kids. Of course, I could not understand anyone on the bus, or read the signs. Once we reached the city itself, however, the similarities diminished. Hanoi is a beautiful city. I suppose I was subconsciously judging these capital cities against Jakarta, which is a pit of traffic and smog. But Craig and I took a walk back to the hostel from where the bus let us off, and I got to see more of the downtown area. There are so many trees, and so much green space in Hanoi. Many of the roads, especially in the old part of town, are wide, with huge trees. Or maybe they only look that wide because the buildings are so small. There are very few buildings over 3 stories. My first impression was that the city was like an Asian Greenwich Village.

The guest house we were at was down a small alley in the middle of town. I arrived in Hanoi a couple of days after the 30th commemoration of the fall of Saigon—the winning of the “American War” by the north. There were flags, both the Vietnamese and the Sickle and Hammer, everywhere. It was a shock to me to see the Sickle and Hammer, and to walk past huge statues of Lenin, and colorful propaganda posters of farmers with large guns. Aesthetically, it was beautiful. Politically, it was interesting. Craig and I were even able to catch a patriotic concert on the side of the road, with men in suits and women in traditional dress, all in front of a huge sign with Ho Chi Minh’s ghost presiding over farmers with guns.

The streets in the old part of Hanoi are divided up by purpose. There is the street where they sell motorcycle seat covers, there is the street where people are banging on metal, the street of incense, the street of maternal clothes. There are not many (any?) malls in Hanoi right now, where all these functions would be brought together. This was a matter of contention between Craig and myself in those first days, because he is thinking of working for a Vietnamese company that builds malls. Hmm. We got around town on our bicycles. Craig had found a great bicycle for me—a black and red mountain bike previously ridden by some other cyclists around Vietnam. Needed a bit of work, but a great bike none-the-less.

One of the frustrating things about writing this blog after the fact is that there is no possible way I can write down everything mattered, or cover even a small percentage of my perceptions of things. So I will have to skim: Explored Hanoi on the bikes; got caught in one of the most serious and intense storms I have ever been in, right on the banks of the lake in Lenin park; saw Vietnamese water puppets, which were lovely; got visas for Lao; had coffee in little French-like cafes on the side of the lake in the middle of town; argued with Craig over working for a company that builds malls in a country were the commercial culture was the opposite; went to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum (but could not get inside, as we got there too late); went to the Ho Chi Minh museum, which was the strangest place in the work (i.e. Guernica in sculpture form to represent the suffering of the Vietnamese people during the war); planned bike trip. In total, we were there 2 ½ days.

NIMH BINH
The plan was to start by taking the bus down to Nimh Binh, which was supposed to be beautiful—limestone spires rising out of green rice fields. Like Halong Bay, but in rice fields instead of the ocean. We biked out to the local bus station, where they threw our bikes on top of the bus, and we headed down the noisy and unpleasant Route 1.

We got to Nimh Binh in the evening, found a place to stay, and got on our bikes to explore. While on the bus, Craig and I had seen the shadows of spires of rock in the distance. On the horizon, there were spires of rock, that looked like they would be beautiful close up. And they were. We got on our bikes right at the right time, and got out in the cool of the evening. The area was just beautiful. I will post pictures. We went down small back roads until complete dark, marveling at the pinnacles of white rock, covered in little bits of vegetation. Then back to the hotel, ‘cause it was pitch black.

CUC PHUNG
The next day, we decided to take our bikes and head to Cuc Phung national park. The ride was supposed to take us through the beautiful territory we had been in before, and end us at a national park known for its amazing primates, huge trees, and butterflies. And it did. The beginning of the ride was some of the most amazing biking I have ever done—the road was completely flat, but went through high cliffs of rock. On the flat area that meandered through the rock were rice fields, which were bright bright green.

Unfortunately, this could not go on forever, and about half the ride was through flat rice fields, no incredible cliffs, during the middle of the day. In the evening, this ride would have been great. As it was, it was hot and painful. We had not yet really mastered biking in a way that respected the heat. I think Craig was more prepared for it than I was, but I was in pain. Around 1 pm, we reached the park entrance, where we got to see the shady primate rehabilitation area. There is actually a lemur that it only found in this park, and we got to see it… very cool. Once again made me realize that I could quite happily spend a great deal of my time working in rural areas of Southeast Asia with animals.

Then, that evening, we did 20 more kilometers, to get to the center of the park, where our guest house was. I am so glad that no one told us that the entire thing was uphill, much of it in 10% grade. I was exhausted after the first 50 km in the heat that day, and this was intense. But, with the hope of the large downhill ahead (that never came), we made it to the camp. The ride was beautiful—a small road through jungle. The camp we arrived at was built for massive communist celebrations, commemorations, or festivals. Very utilitarian, and very huge. There was a gigantic stage area, and a dining hall that could easily have fit 500. There were two other tourists there besides us. A little overwhelming. There was also an olympic sized pool, fed by streams. Sounds great, but actually filled with weird pink algae. I did go in, but not for long.

The next day we explored. One of the highlights of the park are the “ancient trees” that are there—huge, very old trees. We took a hike to see one of them. I am not sure why, but they have large, round holes in them, that you can peer through. Then we hiked out, and got back on the bikes. Now that I am looking back, it all seems incredibly rushed. It did not see as rushed then. This time, of course, the ride was down hill… it was great. So fast and exhilarating. I had not realized how much we had gone up hill the day before. We stopped on our way out at the “cave of prehistoric man”, where ancient human remains had been found. It was halfway up a cliff, and was beautiful. If I had been a cave dweller, this is where I would have wanted to live. There was also a strange stalactite (?) stalagmite (?)—the one that grows bottom-up—in the shape of the Buddha. As we biked out, there were thousands of butterflies, everywhere. We biked through clouds of them. So lovely.

NIMH BIMH- 2
To skip the hot ride in the flat farm land again, we biked only about 30 km, to the main road, and caught the bus back to Nimh Binh. When we got back to town, I was exhausted. Totally exhausted. We had agreed to take the bus to Lao that night, but that gave us an afternoon. Craig was more interested in spending more time in Lao, which was fair, as he had spent a lot of time in Vietnam, and none in Lao. I just felt like I wanted to take more time everywhere. But we went back to the hotel we had been at before, I am took a nap. It was great, as only naps that you really really need can be.

I woke up from my nap to find Craig heading out for an evening ride. I decided to join him. I am so glad I did. We headed back into the country side with the beautiful cliffs, but took a left where a right would have taken us to Cuc Phung. We biked through nice little villages for a while, and then reached the rice fields. As we biked, we noticed a large dragon figure on top of some high cliffs ahead. We reached the cliffs and saw that it was a temple, straight out of some Chinese action movie, with a dragon staircase reaching up to the top of the cliffs, with yellow, red, and orange flag in the wind. We went to it—and got tickets, which it turns out you needed—and climbed. There are few places I have seen that have been so beautiful. You could see out over the whole landscape, over the jagged mountains, over small rivers that disappeared into the mountains. At one point, we saw a small boat appear from the middle of the mountain, and weave its way through the river between the rice paddies.

CAU THEO
We did catch the bus that night, at 10pm. It was the bus to Vientiane, the express. To Vientiane, it would have taken 22 hours, but we had no intention of taking it that far. We planned to take it to Luc Xao, a small town we knew almost nothing about, except that it was the first town in on the Lao side of the boarder, and was supposed to be surrounded by beautiful scenery. The exception of a two hour stop, from 2am-4am in Vinh, in central Vietnam, the trip was fine. Horribly uncomfortable, but fine. This bus was known as the tourist bus, so I figured it would be nice. Nope. Lots of chickens, and fruit, and big bags of stuff. And it turns out it is normal in Vietnam to stretch out on the floor of the bus to sleep, once the bus is moving. I feel like that would be seen as way too dirty in Indonesia. But certainly more comfortable than those tiny seats.

At around 8am, we reached Cau Theo, the boarder crossing with Lao. It was a bit like Entikong, the boarder between Malaysia and Indonesia in Borneo. Okay, so only my mom will know what that was like, but there you go. There was nothing at all around there. The boarder was at a pass in beautiful mountains between Vietnam and Lao. The boarder crossing was no problem. We decided, okay—Craig talked me into it—to get off the bus at the boarder, and bike to Luc Xao. The people at the boarder told us it was downhill to Luc Xao, and anywhere between 25-40 kilometers. That distance wasn’t a big deal, especially downhill. So we got our bikes off the top of the bus, and strapped our bags on to the back. The people thought we were funny, but there was none of the Indonesian—“augh! you are going to die!” reaction to it.

We really were in the middle of no where. The road had not been finished, and we headed off downhill to Luc Xao. We had not really slept on the bus, and we had not eaten since the day before. Not a good plan. We did, however, have some vanilla biscuits and water. We ate those on the side of the road.

The differences between Lao and Vietnam were visible immediately. There were so few people. Lao has a total population of somewhere around 4 million people—its capital city only has a 150,000 or so. So, there were huge stretches of land without anyone at all. The land where we were was also very dry—there were landings—slash and burn farms—everywhere. The houses were made of wood, with rattan matting for walls. Houses like this were not even accepted by Achenese IDPs as temporary shelters after the tsunami. It was clearly very poor. We stopped in a small village and mimed our way into getting a bowl of noodle soup. The girls who were there were very nice and friendly, although it was clear no foreigners ever dropped by this town. The ride was not long, but with the lack of sleep and food, it was hard. The road was every sort of surface imaginable—there was a partnership between the Japanese and Lao to build the road, and you could tell they were trying, but they were not done.

LUC XAO
We finally reached Luc Xao around 1pm. It was nothing special of a town—at all. But that did not matter, ‘cause there was a hotel, and we got a room, and slept for the rest of the afternoon. That evening, we looked at our maps, and once again, re-arranged our plans. We had planned to bike from Luc Xao, through the mountains, down to the main road that paralleled the Mekong. Looking at the map, however, we figured it was about 100km, up and down some serious mountains. Maybe Craig could have done it. I couldn’t.

Luc Xao gave me a bad vibe. It was dead little town, seemingly totally in the hands of these Japanese-Lao partnership road builders. There was not much there, and we did not know a thing about the area we were in. No one really spoke English there. It was a case of being afraid because you don’t know, and we knew nothing about where we were. We didn’t even have a guidebook to Lao, besides the cycling guide, which is a piece of crap. I vetoed any possible plan of staying there another day and biking around to explore the area, and I also vetoed any plan of trying the 100km the next day. As there were no towns between Luc Xao and the Mekong, there was no chance of taking two days to do the trip, which would have otherwise been an option. We decided to catch the local bus out the next morning and get to somewhere we knew something about.

TO (and from) VIENTIANE
So, we caught the bus the next morning. We got up at around 5:45, which was normal. Craig then realized that it was Sunday, and it was possible that there were fewer buses that ran on Sunday. With the fear of being stuck in Luc Xao another day, I ran downstairs to check in with the hotel owner (through sign language and the phrasebook from the cycling guide, of course). He told me there was a bus at 6, which was in about 4 minutes. So, I ran up, and Craig and I threw everything into our bags, ran out, and we caught the bus as it went past. Perfect timing. And out of Luc Xao.

The country we drove through, the country we would have rode through, really was beautiful. It was raining for the first few hours, but through the clouds I could see huge cliffs towering above the road. Then, there was the stone forest, an alien landscape of jagged teeth of rock as far as the eye could see. Absolutely incredible. But there was nothing there. Nothing. Not only was there no where to stay, but no local villages, nothing. Some day, there will be a tourist resort there, and people will come from all over the world to see it. But that will not happen for a while.

We got to Vientiane around 2pm that afternoon. I expected Vientiane to be a place I could connect to more than Luc Xao, and I was in for a surprise. The capital city of Lao feels like a backwater provincial capital, with a couple of embassies and UN buildings thrown in for good measure. Craig and I got off the bus and on to our bikes and went to explore. This town, for it really is a town, was shockingly small. It was a Sunday, so many businesses were closed, but there was almost no one on the streets. We biked to the middle of the town, where there is the Laotian Arch de Triumph. This Arch was made to look like the French one, but was never completed. The official plaque calls it an “unattractive monster of concrete”. I have no idea why it was not either fixed or destroyed. I would guess no money, except that there is a brand new series of fountains complete with synchronized light, music, and water shows in front of the “monster of concrete”.

This statue was the last straw of weirdness. We had been told not to spend much time in Vientiane, and we decided that 2 hours was enough. Three hours away by bus was a town the tour guides said was beautiful, if touristy. Craig and I promptly got on our bikes (in pouring rain at this point), and biked back to the bus terminal, and caught the next bus to Vang Vieng.

VANG VIENG
We arrived in Vang Vieng around 7pm, in pitch dark night. They dropped us off at the side of the main road, where there was almost nothing. There was a food stall (of course) and a bus station. We had been told that this place was kind of touristy, so we were confused. A lady came up and asked us if we would like to stay at her guest house, and pointed us down a black road. We got on the bike and followed her directions. We turned down the road, made a right, and suddenly we were in Tourist Land!! Totally weird. I can still feel how weird that was. There was a strip, maybe 800 meters, of backpacker pizza places, cheap backpacker hotels, pancake stands, tour travel shops, and internet cafés. Bob Marley, bad techno, and Jack Johnson were blaring from various establishments. And the movies! Every other café was playing a movie, and more than one place was playing episodes of Friends on DVD. And the foreigners! This place was almost completely white. I have a picture of a café, full of white people.

Craig and I biked around this tiny, backpacker infested town. We were in shock. Remember, we had left Luc Xao that morning. We were laughing out loud as we biked around.

We found a cheap and nice hostel, and had dinner. Out of the blue, a person that Craig had roomed with in Hanoi showed up, with a gaggle of his friends. This guy, Gee, was a 30-40 something Vietnamese-American guy who had been traveling for ages. I had met him in Hanoi, the day I arrived. He had with him David, a bitter Scottish man, and Patrick, a strange German who was born American. So, instead of another night in the remote, creepy, very Laotion Luc Xao, I was in Vang Vieng with bulés galore, drinking beer and eating pizza. OK.

Since we had gotten there late that night, we decided to stay two nights. The next day, we joined David and Patrick (Gee had moved on), in tubing down the river. This was the thing to do in Vang Vieng. You could rent a tube, and they would drive you up the river, and then you floated back down. There were many little cafes on the side of the river, and would pull you in with a long piece of bamboo, and sell you beer and food. Incredibly debaucherous. It was great. We floated down with others who were in the car that dropped us off—some British and Scottish girls. Ah, backpackers. I could write a whole entry on my feelings about backpackers. I probably will, at some point. That afternoon, after we had reached the end of the float, we caught a tuk-tuk to a cave and lagoon. Now, that was incredible. This cave was one of largest caves I have ever been to—there were boulders the size of houses that littered the bottom of the cave. We explored into a far back cavern, which was almost cut off from sun light. Then, outside the cave, was the lagoon. The water came from cave, and was ice ice cold. And so blue. Something about the rock chemistry made the water an almost fluorescent blue. There was a huge tree, and you could jump off it into the water.

LUANG PRABANG
Vang Vieng was immensely pleasant, but was not a place to spend more than one (or two) days. Craig described it as a frat party—you had fun while you were there, and then the next day you felt kind of gross and wondered why you were having that much fun the night before. The next morning we caught the tourist bus to Luang Prabang. Now, this time, this really was a tourist bus. There was no one but backpackers in the bus. It was really unpleasant, actually. After having been on the local bus (which was quite nice), this bus made me feel like tourist cattle. We got into Luang Prabang around 4pm, after a 7 hour ride. We got our bikes off the bus, and I felt like a human, not like cattle, again. We biked in to town to find a place to stay.

Luang Prabang is beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. It is a little town, around 16,000 people. It is a UNESCO world heritage site, with over 30 Buddhist temples in the small town. It is on the banks of the Mekong. It meant a lot to me to finally see the Mekong, after reading about it, and knowing how incredibly important it is. The architecture is French, and the roads are cobblestoned with bricks. There are small cafes on the Mekong. But it is still a normal small town, with the markets on the banks of the river, people fishing with scoop nets, and lots of dogs and kids. After we found a hotel, I went out on my bike to explore. It is not a dramatic place, I suppose, except for the temples, which are everywhere. But the small roads are surrounded by trees, and everywhere you turn, there are rivers. The Buddhist monks in their orange robes are everywhere in the city. And the people give you big smiles when they see you riding a bike.

There is nothing for getting people to smile at you like riding a bicycle. That is just one of the many wonderful things about riding a bicycle.

There is also a night market, which was there for the tourists, but which was wonderful none-the-less. Luang Prabang is a center of weaving, particularly silk, and of embroidery. Every night, women come in from the surrounding villages to set up on the street and sell their scarves and purses. The market is lit by small electric lamps, and it really beautiful, with the bright colors and the soft light. At the end of the road, is a small alley with food. Laotian food is incredibly good. It is based around sticky rice instead of normal rice, as in Indonesia. The basic dish is sticky rice with grilled meat. It is the perfect thing to pick up on the side of the road for a bus trip, but also, fresh from the stalls. Other stalls have many kinds of vegetables.

The next day, we met with Gee and David (from Vang Vieng) to go to Pac Ou, a cave up the Mekong. We got a boat, the driver of which then asked us to go to another boat, and then to switch to another boat, to go up the river. In the final boat we joined a family from America, parents with their 7-year-old daughter Sadie. The cave was interesting—it had been a center of worship when Luang Prabang was the capital of Lao, which it was for many hundreds (thousands?) of years. The cave was filled with thousands of Buddha statues. It was made more fun by having Sadie, the 7-year-old, around. I remembered what it was like to be that age (I was nine, but same difference), and to be dragged around to see cultural stuff. We hung out for the three hours of the boat ride. She and her parents—who had gone to grad school at UW-Madison and knew one of my high school English teachers—were lovely.

The next day we also spent in Luang Prabang. I was getting so tired of moving around at this point, that I decided to stay back as Craig went to bike to a near-by waterfall. I biked around the town, and just enjoyed being in a beautiful place. One of the most lovely, and unusual, things about Luang Prabang is that there is a small lending library and tea shop. The upstairs is all pillows and all the walls are covered with old National Geographics, and it feels like a coffee shop at home in America. I hung out there and read.

VIENTIANE (again)
The nest day, we had to do the seriously long bus ride back to Vientiane. Craig had to catch a plane the next day back to Hanoi to meet his family, and the plane only left from Vientiane. So, at noon, we caught the bus, and spent the rest of the day watching scenery go by. I guess I had been asleep on the tourist bus up to Vientiane because the scenery was incredible, and brand new to me. There was a mountain that looked out of fairy-land-- huge, jagged, and alone.

We got to Vientiane around 9pm, and got on the bikes to find some place to stay. It was a lot easier to find our way around, even after only having been there two hours. We found a mediocre hotel and slept. We got up at 5:30, so Craig could get to the airport around 6ish. For the first time, we got on the bikes, Craig with all his gear, and me without any of mine. That was a strange feeling. The airport was not even a ½ hour ride from the center of town—Vientiane is just that small. So, we got there, I gave Craig a hug, and that was the end of that chapter of the trip. Although there is no doubt that it takes work, and can be a strain to travel with one person for three weeks, I think we did it remarkably well. And Craig, if you are reading this, you are an awesome travel buddy.

So, for the first time, I was on my own. I had thought this would be particularly worrisome or nerve wracking. Not so, it actually felt good to know that I was perfectly capable of doing everything I needed to do. That unsure-ness I felt at the beginning of the trip was gone.

(To) NONG KHAI
I had originally thought that I would spend the rest of the day in Vientiane and catch a bus to Nong Khai, Thailand, where I would catch the train to Bangkok. But I was having some problems finding a place that would let me put my bike on their bus. Also, there was not much I wanted to see in Vientiane. So, I decided to ride to the boarder. So, for the last time (almost), I bungeed my pack on the back on my bike, and set off. It was some 20 km to the bridge across the Mekong that separates Thailand and Lao. It was the middle of the day, however, and on a hot piece of road. Still, it felt good to ride my bike for those last kilometers.

I crossed out of Lao and into Thailand illegally. There are special routes for cars, for trucks, even for motorbikes. But none for bicycles. So, I just biked through, looking for where I should go. In both cases I biked straight through the boarder without anyone so much as calling out to me. Of course, I turned back, and very much confused some immigration officials as to how I had already gotten past all their check points. I took a rest after leaving Lao and before getting into Thailand at the Lao check point, and read “All Things Wise and Wonderful” by James Herriot (the great English Vet of the 30s-40s). That was incredibly surreal. Biking the actual bridge between the countries was great. I stopped on top of the bridge and looked at Lao on my left, with no buildings visible, and Thailand on my right, with cement 5 story buildings on the river bank. It was a great way to transition countries.

Once I got through immigration, I biked to the train station, and got a sleeper ticket to Bangkok. I biked around Nong Khai for a while, but in the end I opted for hanging out at the train station and reading.

BANGKOK
The sleeper train was wonderful. I had never been on a sleeper train in recent memory and it was comfortable and great. The place where the cars connected was open and you could sit on the steps as the train rushed at full speed past the dark countryside.

I was intrigued, and a bit nervous, about Bangkok. It is one of those places you hear about all the time. I had a couple days planned there to get my correct visa for working in Indonesia. I got there around 7:30 in the morning, which is a great time to arrive anywhere. A person I had been traveling with told me how to get to Banglampoo, and Khao San road, the infamous backpacker area of town. She was catching a river ferry there, and I joined her. When the ferry actually came, however, they not only yelled that there were no bikes allowed (in Thai, but it was easy to get his meaning), but immediately left, leaving no time for arguing. The person I was with jumped on the boat, leaving me stranded and rather lost in Bangkok at 8am.

Through some incredible act of fore-planning I had photocopied maps of Bangkok out of a (rather old) Lonely Planet. So, I got these out of my bag, and set out through Chinatown on my bike. Are all Chinatowns in the world full of complicated little streets that are designed to get you lost? Is China a mass of confusing streets where you are always lost? I got lost. In the end I just biked for a long time in what I thought was the right direction, asked a few police officers, and finally found myself exactly where I needed to be, on the door step of the New Siam Guesthouse, Bangkok. I felt so cool, having navigated my way through the city.

Bangkok was three and a half days of everything. David, who had been in Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang, was now in Bangkok, and we hung out. I got my visa. I explored the town one end to another on my bike. It was rather like Jakarta, but more livable. I made it out alive past the maniac buses. I went to see the huge reclining Buddha, the Emerald Buddha (tiny!, and made of jade!), and the grand palace. Was plunged into civilization at Jim Thompson’s house. Ate good food. Went out and played pool. Sold my bike to a rather interesting British man who seemed to believe that Marxism is well reflected in British conservatism. He teaches PE in Bangkok, and will hopefully use the bike to get to work. I think the bike will be a good urban bike. Its touring days were numbered. And did much else.

SINGAPORE (again)
So, two days ago, I caught a plane out of Bangkok to Singapore to pick up my belongings from Ben, and relax. And relax I did. I spent a day watching videos and talking to backpackers. It was supposed to be my last day to act like a college kid, but in fact, this Saturday of writing feels more like college than anything. Ah well.

NOW
And so, yesterday, I caught a plane to Bogor. I was met at the airport, and taken to the guesthouse. Since I started writing this, I have cleaned my room, and everything is spick and span. After all, I will be here at least until Tuesday, which is longer than I have been anywhere for the last three weeks.

And in case you actually just skimmed this whole thing, and are now actually reading the end: I had a great trip. I learned a lot. I look forward to backpacking again, but not to making it my whole life. The plan, as it stands, is to work here for three months, and then backpack in Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal for a few months. From first impressions, CIFOR looks great, and all is well in my world.