| HELLO AGAIN, we are now in ban nong lam phu. i had to write that before i forgot...so now i can go on with the latest news.we are almost at the border with laos. we have done 800km so far and feelreally good. today is our second official 'relax day', meaning no bikingexcept to get around the town we're in.biking has become a lot easier for me. the other day we rode 60 km, butwhen we got to our destination we really weren't tired so we kept ridingto the next town. we did ~100km that day and still didn't feel too wreckedin the end. big difference to the way i used to feel in the beginning.i can relax and enjoy the scenery a lot more now that the physical effortis secondary. i also find that after i have been riding for an hour or so,i settle into a rythm that is very conducive to thinking and contemplationand just general enjoyment of what is around. i become unaware of time,and just feel very relaxed and in good spirits. i still keep an eye outfor the mile markers though.... sometimes when we're coming to the end ofa day of riding i get almost sad. my butt is happy though.... we should be in laos soon, we figured that we have about 2 days of ridingleft before getting to the border. we will probably spend some time nearthe border since the mekong river region there is supposed to be reallynice. as far as our plans go, so far we are right on schedule, ie we don't needto get any visa extensions or anything like that. as for our budget, sofar we have been spending about half what we had planned. we figure thatwe have been spending about 100$ per person per week, including everything(hotels, meals and miscellaneous). that is very cheap i think, it'sactually less than i was spending living in connecticut, if you take intoaccount rent and everything... i found out today that budhist monks do not wear underware under theirsaffron robes.how do i know that?well, ed and i were standing in front of this internet cafe having somejuice out of a bag, when we saw another westerner. this beeing such a raresight, of course we had to talk. she was an exchange student fromswitzerland, spending 1 yr in thailand. 17 years old, she doensn't reallyspeak more thai than we do, but she's learning. she said school is reallyeasy here and she doesn't really need to speak thai since she's learningthai dancing, playing sports and the like. she also told us about themonks! what an experience for her. i don't think she'll regret it.we were also commenting together on how happy and relaxed the people seemhere. she said that she thinks people here are happy like children, eventhe grown-ups. they don't need much either. they watch tv, sleep, watever,they are usually in a good mood (except very early in the morning, whenthey seem kind of groggy. i think most are night people). they lovekaraoke and anything american. we are staying in a really nice and cheap place right now. it's a resortand it deserves the name, very clean and nice, and we're paying ~8$ forthe room per night. i think we may stay here tomorrow too, since we readabout some caves in the area with pre-historic paintings on the wallswhich sound pretty cool to visit. for those who are interested, i am reading a good book right now. it'scalled 'the snow leopard' and it's written by peter mathieson. it's abouthis travels through the tibetan/nepalese himalayas, and in parallel tothat he recounts his spiritual journey. i didn't really like it at first, since i thought that he was beingderogatory towards the sherpas and porters, but it got much better, andnow i really like it. he also talks about budhism and zen and otherreligions a lot, and he makes references to many other authors, which ifind really interesting.ed and i are also reading gandhi's autobiography, which i mentioned in apast email, and which i recommend to anyone. it's very interesting, notdry at all.i am running out of books to read, and i am looking forward to finding anenglish or french bookstore somewhere. our best bet right now isvientianne, the capital of laos. if i don't find anything there, i'm donesince by then i will be finished with the books i'm reading now. i am soaddicted to reading! well, that's it for now. i am taking lots of pictures, which i can't waitto share with everyone, but that won't be for a while...until next email, i hope the sun shines bright in connecticut and inmontreal, and i hope you all enjoy it and feel happy. cu drag,raluca |
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