MontanaRon

An English teacher's blog about his travels and his digital art.

Day: March 30, 2006

Laos–Vientiane

March 30, 2006 /

Nai greeted me at the train station and we had a happy reunion. He’s really a great guy, humorous, fun and playful, like most Laotian people. We stayed at his family’s home for a few days, went into Vientiane for a couple more and finally caught the bus to Vang Vieng today. Up until now, the days have been very sunny and hot, but, wouldn’t you know it, Vang Vieng has been getting clouds and rain, just like the last time I was here. It looks like it’s beginning to clear up, and if we have good weather tomorrow, we’ll probably do some river floating on inner tubes.

Vang Vieng is also experiencing a BIG boom. Construction is going on everywhere you look, with new guesthouses and restaurants in the making. It looks like tourism is finally expanding in Laos, though I doubt it will ever reach the numbers that visit Thailand. Still, I hope it proves to be beneficial to the Lao people. More later.

Bangkok–Tyra and Eugene

March 30, 2006 /

At the guesthouse, I got a note from Tyra. She said that she had stayed up as long as she could, waiting for me to get there, but finally had to get some sleep. Well, it was good to know that she had made it and I found her the next morning. We had breakfast together and then called Eugene on his cell phone. He’s working in Chanthaburi (spelling might be wrong), about 60 miles from Bangkok. Fortunately, he was able to get some time off and he was staying at a guesthouse near us. So, we hooked up for the day, visited some temples, rode around on the river boats and had dinner together, catching up on old times at Andong University and on what our plans were for the future.

As a side note, I might mention that it appears my Moroccan job is finished as of the middle/end of July. A new ruling by the State Dept. says that English Language Fellows can only renew once for an existing project. John wanted to put me in Rabat for a different project, so it looks like I’m out of a job. I’ve sent a few emails to Georgetown University (administrator for the ELF program) and to the State Dept., expressing my complaints about what seems like a mid-stream switch. I doubt it will do any good. As soon as I get back to Meknes, I’ll start sending out applications. Going back to work in Korea is a definite possibility, maybe even back to Andong. There are also numerous job opportunities in the Middle-East, and John mentioned he might also have a few contacts. I’m sure something will pop up.

I said my goodbyes to Tyra and Eugene and hopped aboard the overnight train to Nong Khai, an uneventful journey to the northeast and to Isan country, gateway to Laos.

Casablanca-Bangkok–Qatar Airlines

March 30, 2006 /

My flight left at 10:30 a.m. on the 23rd, going from Casa to Doha, Qatar. In-flight service from Qatar Airlines is excellent, but they seem to be having major problems on the ground. This wasn’t the first delay, as you’ll read. We made a stop in Tripoli, Libya to await a connecting flight. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let us off the plane, so I didn’t see anything of Khadaffy’s Kingdom. The connecting flight was also delayed by about 45 minutes.

So, we didn’t arrive in Doha until quite late, close to 10 p.m. The airlines put me up at a 5-star hotel, the name of which I cannot remember, and gave me vouchers for dinner and breakfast. The restaurant was closed when I got to the hotel, it was so late, but I had eaten well on the flight, so it wasn’t a problem. I got to bed about 12:30 a.m. and had to get up at 6:00 a.m., run downstairs for breakfast, which wasn’t being served until that time, gulp down lots of coffee and some food and leave for the airport at 7. The guy who took me in the hotel shuttle is from Nepal. I asked him if he got homesick; if he had any other Nepalese to hang around with. He told me that there are about 200,000 of his countrymen working in Qatar. It seems that most of the menial jobs in the Gulf States area are held by foreigners, doing tasks that the ordinary Arabian won’t do. Sounds a lot like the U.S.

When I got to the airport, I found out the flight to Bangkok was delayed by two hours, leaving at 10:30 instead of 8:30. It wound up not taking off until 11 a.m. So, I didn’t get to Bangkok and checked into my guesthouse until near midnight. Walking out of the Bangkok airport was almost like coming home, as my friend Eugene said when he returned to the City of Angels. I was immediately hit by a wall of very warm, humid air, and I began to sweat like crazy. The smells of charcoal fires burning, food being cooked and vehicle exhaust fumes competed with the noise of all the traffic and the mass of people, an immediate and almost overpowering assault on the senses. I don’t know exactly why I like Bangkok, but I do. You either love it or hate it. I was talking with a young Irish couple later in Vientiane, and they absolutely hate Bangkok, maybe for the same reasons I love it. Crazy.

Casablanca–FedEx

March 30, 2006 /

Ok, I’ve got some time now to fill you in on my journey so far. Once reaching Casablanca, I went over to the air cargo airport to pick up some teaching books I ordered that have been sitting there for 3 months. John in Rabat said that he thought FedEx would charge me for the storage, but they didn’t. The only problem was tracking down the customs agent to release the box to me. It took them two hours to find the guy, who was ready to call it a day at 3 in the afternoon. The FedEx guy said “The customs agents here are so bad, they want to make me kill myself.”

The other fellow there (these guys are both Moroccans) told me he was answering email from a customer in Ifrane. Because FedEx has to send out documents to anyone whose package they have to hold at the airport, frequently customers don’t get exactly what they are looking for. They also subcontract out the delivery of these documents. The company they use for the Ifrane area won’t deliver anything less than 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds). So, in order to fulfill the weight requirements, they put salt in the envelope along with the documents. The customer wrote in his email that he was expecting a computer, but all he got were some documents and a lot of salt. Why, he wondered? Quite amusing.

Vang Vieng

March 30, 2006 /

Just a short note to let everyone know that I’m in Vang Vieng right now, with Luang Prabang the next stop. Don’t have much time to write more at this time, but I’ll have a more extensive entry later.

Also, my website hosting company has informed me that certain versions of the software I use for the photo gallery have a bug in them that might allow hackers to compromise the host system. I have to update the software within the next 3 days or they will disable it. I can’t update until I get back to Morocco, so the gallery will be down for a couple of weeks. More later.

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