All Good Things

Well, I finally found a computer that I'm able to blog from! The flow of information in Vietnam is not quite as free as in other countries, we've found...

So for those of you who haven't already heard, the rumors are true. We're throwing in the towel, and flying home Wednesday. There are many interesting things that have happened to us over past couple of weeks, and I do intend to blog about them. In other words, just because we are coming home does not mean the highly informative travel blogging will stop. Morgan and I both have some mental debriefing to do, and thoughts we'd love to share about our year of travel as a whole. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, let me give you the scoop on how we were pushed over the edge. From Luang Prabang we headed south to Vang Vieng, a backpacker party town that we would normaly have no interest in, but for an organic farm and school we had been hoping to volunteer at. The farm was 4km from town, so we were looking forward to some isolated peace and quiet.

It was not meant to be. 50m down stream from the farm were half a dozen catering to drunk 19 year olds who were tubing down the river. The bars competed to play the loudest music, so we heard three songs at once, so loud you couldn't think, all afternoon and evening.

On top of this, enough English teachers had been procured for the week, and there was very little to make ourselves useful on the farm. Then Morgan came down with some dreadful stomach disease, and I soon followed after. This is not good when you are sleeping in a bamboo hut/furnace with unsantitary bathrooms outside.

We decided to pack up, slam to lopramide, go south to Vientiane, get a room with AC and cable, and not leave until we were better. 150km on a local bus took 5 terrible hours. Running a fever, I could not lean back because the bench seated ended at my mid-back. Despite my repeaed attempts to crush her fingers with my shoulder blades, the woman behind me seemed to think it was ok to use my seat as a headrest, her knuckles digging into my ribs.

We finally got to Vientiane, found a hotel, and collapsed at noon. Three hours later we awoke to bed bugs feasting on us. We left in a hurry, fortunately not having paid yet, and found a nicer hotel. Alas, history was doomed to repeat itself, and Morgan discoverd a second infestation at 1:30 am the next night. Clearly these bugs had been living in the bed frame for quite some time, yet the hotel had the gall to blame us. They also had no other rooms, so Morgan slept the rest of the night on the floor and I just read in a chair. The next morning we booked into the most expensive hotel of our SE Asia trip, following a thorough, headlamp-aided bug sweep.

Eventually we recovered from our stomach ailments (thank you, Ciprofloxacin), but we were at the end of our rope. Both of us had been reduced to tears, and it was clearly time to go home. The reality was, it had been time to go home for some time. When we got to a new place, we were no longer motivated to explore, see the sights, or interact with the people. That being the case, it was ridiculous to continue with the trip. We called United, paid an exhorbitant amont of money, and moved our flight up three weeks. It was the right decision.

It was the worst week of our entire trip, the only positive being that we got to watch some of the Olympics. When watching the winter Olympics from a sub-tropicalcountry is the highlight of your week, you know its bad. That was 10 days ago, and much has hapened since, but we are still ready to be home.

Like I said, I promise to blog about the good stuff too!