Three Days In the Decompression Chamber

Vientiane is the perfect place to decompress from Vang Vieng. Rolling in here, I was expecting this place to be like any other third world capital: a dingy shithole. So far Vientiane has impressed. The food here is incredible, none of us had a bad meal the whole time. The noise is minimal, the traffic isn't too bad, most of the city seems pretty well kept and free of stray dogs. There's a good selection of bars and restaurants, as well as a multitude of street food stalls along the riverfront. Sitting here I realized I never really took any pictures of the city, which disappoints me since I'm leaving tomorrow. Next time, I guess.

The last few days have been incredibly chilled. I'm finally feeling normal again, guts and all. I've been using the free wifi in my guest house liberally, catching up on a little picture uploading. Bob and Terry left a couple days ago to check out the Konglor cave, the biggest in the world, where Isaac and I are headed tomorrow. I managed to get a lot of stuff done too. I picked up my passport with my new Vietnamese tourist visa, which starts on the 9th. I also managed to get a package shipped home too!

On the bad note, it's an ongoing saga with bedbugs still. On the second night I discovered that this room has them, so now I've chosen to sleep on the floor rather than continue to be bit by those little bastards. It's made me a little more paranoid now, I'm really hoping I won't be carrying them around. I'm sure it's fine, since they sprayed out my bag and cleaned my clothes in Vang Vieng, but I'm a little nervous. Everyone who reads this should cross their fingers for me. A bit of collateral damage from this saga is that when the staff at the last hotel cleaned my day pack out, they took all the beer bottle caps I had been collecting as well as some Nepali and Indian coins I had in there. The bottle caps aren't too big of a deal, I've already managed to replace two of the three of them, but I'm pissed off about the coins. Hopefully karma keeps those beg bugs infesting that hotel for a long time.