Tuesday

Day 384
If I had to be stuck I wanted to use my time wisly. I had a huge amount of journal writing to do, photos to organize and blog entries to create. I spent the majority of the next several days doing this. I also did some shopping and spent time planning India.

None of these chores make for very interesting blog entrires. I thought that I would write down some of my imppresions about travel in Asia. These will of course be witty and laugh out loud funny. Today I thought I would write about the other people who travel in this area and how annoying they can be.

The most annoying would be those who walk around barefoot. Now, you have to take your shoes off at various temples, this isn't a problem. For some reason some dumbass westerners walk around barefoot all the time. I've seen people in bars and even outside in Bangkok barefoot! (yuck) This can't be good for you or safe. The only reason I can come up with is that people want to do this to be like the locals. The thing is the only locals who don't have shoes are the poorest of the poor or children. I remember running around barefoot by choice as a kid, so perhaps that is why they don't have shoes in some cases. All flip flopless westerners should buy some asap and put them on, you look beyond stupid.

Also, time and again I've run into people who seem to think that they are god's gift to travel. These people are often reconized by their baggy pants, unshaven faces (they tend to be men), dirty shirts, and severe penny pinching ways. If you can't reconize one of these people by sight then it should only take a minute or two of talking to them to root them out. They will try to talk to you in the language of the boardering country instead of in English. If your nice about it they will then launch into how during their two weeks they really connected with the Thai people, much more so than you could have, no arguments will be listened two. This will be then be followed with a description of how they found God during their week doing opium in Vang Vien. Advoid these people at all costs. They should all be sent to live in a country together so they can only annoy each other.

For all my complaints most people I've met have been quite nice and normal. Many of them are also a bit closer to my age and better traveled than the average person traveling in Europe. It's been a nice change of pace. People here also to tend to be more patient, a requirement for travel here.

While I was in the internet cafe typing it started to rain. After about 2 hours of it the raint was letting up and I wanted to go back to my room. The walk back was flooded up to my mid calf. It was really gross too with garbage and dead roaches floating in it. On the way back to my hotel I picked up some food at the 7-11 and decided to stay inside and dry for the evening.