Kuming to Vientiane

After arriving in Kunming at 7:00am via the over night train from Dali it was time for more sleep. Except, it was too early to check into the room. So, Kelly and I ordered breakfast from the hostel cafe and hung out until about 9:00am when the very friendly front desk girl told us the room was ready. The rest of the day was spent napping and walking to Walmart for water and tissue. Kelly was sick and I was exhausted after not sleeping all that well on the mini-bed they call a hard sleeper.

That day set the tone for our time in Kunming. A whole lot of relaxing and sleeping in. The one day we did venture out (yesterday) was to the stone forest (literally, a 'forest' of karst rocks). The trip to the stone forest took about 2 hours in a mini-bus that smoked gasoline the whole time. The Stone Forest was close to $20.00 CAD to get in and was, for the most part, a big disappointment. The "highlight" of the day was getting lost among karst and caverns in the middle of a thunder and lightning storm.

Today, the flight to Laos was quite possibly the worst flight I've flown in the past 18 months. Maybe 5 minutes after take off the plane dipped and dove for a good 5-7 minutes. For the first time in my flying history I ripped open the air sickness bag and popped 2 gravol. After passing out somewhere between in flight drinks and the seat belt sign going off, I woke up rather dazed and confused in Vientiane. Going through customs was rather difficult because the gravol still hadn't worn off and I felt like I could curl up in the corner and sleep for a few days.

After arriving in the city from the airport, Kelly and I dumped our stuff at our hostel and made for food and Beerlao at the first delicious cafe we found. There were so many Western vegetarian items on the menu (over 3 pages!!!) I felt like I had died and gone to food heaven. After a half of a Beerlao (combined the gravol), I stumbled around the city in a daze.

Now, Beerlao and gravol both worn off, I'm in a sketchy internet cafe paying 100 kip/minute. To make the currency make sense I have to convert it to American dollar, then convert back to Chinese renminbi, and then double check with Kelly to make sure I did the math right. I'll either go broke by the end of the week or have a small fortune upon my return home.