I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of talking about Laos. Good thing I managed to fit four other countries into 3 weeks of Asian goodness. This traveling frenzy seemed to be manly fueled by food and shopping rather than sightseeing. Cultural and spiritual enthusiasm went out the window! There will be no temples, no shrines, no nothing that could lend any sort of intellectual depth to this post. So, be prepared for pure materialistic obesity.
You know what started this whirlwind-spending spree? Our last dinner in Vientiane before setting off on a return trip round Asia. It was to be my first time out of the country since arriving in January and I wanted a grand celebration with Keiran and Noi. So, typically, we went to Fujiwara, our favourite Japanese restaurant. As always, we ordered far too much sashimi and sushi, drank too much sake and ended up at Bor Pen Nyung with Lily and co. Unfortunately, Keiran decided to come this time… and it was pretty awkward. He insisted on repeating “I’ve been coming here since before you were born.” before realising that of course he didn’t even know about BPN before I was born, having only moved to Laos in the last 4 years (I’m not a toddler by the way).
The manifestation of my father at BPN did not in anyway impede my ability to “make friends”. With these new friends I re-discovered the beauty of the hipster conversation which I had been desperately missing during my time surrounded by Thai pop music and The Black Eyed Peas (that fucking remix of “I had the time of my life” is offensive to Patrick Swayze and is the main reason I’ve since left Laos). Thanks to Molly Lewis for the below pictorial representation of my douche bag conversation.
You know what started this whirlwind-spending spree? Our last dinner in Vientiane before setting off on a return trip round Asia. It was to be my first time out of the country since arriving in January and I wanted a grand celebration with Keiran and Noi. So, typically, we went to Fujiwara, our favourite Japanese restaurant. As always, we ordered far too much sashimi and sushi, drank too much sake and ended up at Bor Pen Nyung with Lily and co. Unfortunately, Keiran decided to come this time… and it was pretty awkward. He insisted on repeating “I’ve been coming here since before you were born.” before realising that of course he didn’t even know about BPN before I was born, having only moved to Laos in the last 4 years (I’m not a toddler by the way).
The manifestation of my father at BPN did not in anyway impede my ability to “make friends”. With these new friends I re-discovered the beauty of the hipster conversation which I had been desperately missing during my time surrounded by Thai pop music and The Black Eyed Peas (that fucking remix of “I had the time of my life” is offensive to Patrick Swayze and is the main reason I’ve since left Laos). Thanks to Molly Lewis for the below pictorial representation of my douche bag conversation.
Anyway, we managed to get through a good portion of the douche-bag bible before heading to Don Chan and trying to continue over the doof doof music. At the same time I was getting texts from Keiran reminding me that I had a 6am flight to Bangkok and that it was now 3am. I stayed another hour as more and more pierced randoms began to encircle us and then reluctantly left my beautifully pretentious companion, but not before organising a date in a years time from the day we met. How rom-com of us! I really do hope it happens though!
Finally getting home at about 4:30am, I failed at sleeping due to being totally wired from a mixture of ringing ears, alcohol and lust! Luckily, Lily arrived to bunk with me and slurr “Meddy, youare my good fwrend! Youare my sister. You can assk me arnything you warnt to know abourt lary…ladyboys.” Typically all the questions I’d been hording for the last month vanished and were replaced with “AND I’M. HAVING. A GOOD. NIGHT. WITH YOU! I’m telling you, I… had the night of my li-ife, and I ne-ver felt this way before, and I swear it’s the tru-o-oth, that I owe it all to you”
So then, I got on a flight to Hong Kong via Bangkok after 20 minutes sleep and about 8 hours of drinking and hipster chatter. I think it’s the hipster chatter that did me in actually. That stuff can wear you out.
Hong Kong is pretty awesome… well what I saw of it was. And that was a road, another road, some streets, a couple of bridges and heaps of big ass buildings. It looked just like the back bit of darling harbour, near the aquarium (for all you Sydney-siders). I loved being back in a big city and fell right into the hustle bustle of urban life.
The best part was being able to check our bags in at the train station before getting to the airport. Great fucking idea that! Got a bit overexcited and drooly at the modern ease of it all. I wish I had a photo.
Next was our flight to Tokyo and according to my travel journal (though I don’t remember this flight at all) I was still pretty hung up on the guy I'd met in Vientiane. But then we got to Japan!
And... it is fucking amazing. I want to live there and breathe the city. I said already we didn’t do anything cultural, but in Japan fashion is key. It is a necessity to look turned out and dressed to the nines at all time, like eating pies is the essence of life when you’re in Long Reef (another Sydney-sider reference) ...
and how going to Woodford between Christmas and New Years is the bain of every groovy Queenslander’s existence (Brisvegas ref.).
In Tokyo everyone wears hats: bowlers, boaters and fedoras! The women wear short skirts or dresses or shorts with floral blouses and bows, matched with dark stockings and high woolen socks that cover their matchstick legs which are clip clopped in boots and boots a plenty. These outfits are then covered with huge bulky jackets so that those same skinny legs pop out the bottom, suggesting they’re wearing nothing underneath. The men, oh the men... they’re indie to the max. Apart from the hats, they wear winter scarves and skinny tweedy suits with a surprise piece… like chunky army boots or leather bikey gloves or, or… feathers! Anything different is good. Anything extraordinary is praised and not belittled or disregarded as weird like it is in many parts of the western world. For a while I was super jealous but then, I got to go shopping… in Harajuku. Yeah, that’s right, the place where Gwen Stefani finds her sex slaves.
We also tried Electronic city in Akihibara,
the 109 building and specialty shops in Shabuya...
and the department stores in Shinjuku.
And then we ate; crepes turned into sweet donna-kebab like monstrosities with mounds of cream and berries;
...scallop sashimi, the tastiest raw food in the world; lightly tempured enoki mushrooms; raspberry and basil sorbet and textured fresh wasabi. All this was accompanied by copious amounts of sake in cute little restaurants that would make Melbourne proud.
But then, Mongolia demanded our presence and we were whisked away to the instrumental version of Robbie William's "Feel" which is bizarrely played in all Cathay Pacific planes. We arrived, in -25°C freezingness, to snow covered roads, cars and personalities... and it was a warm day in Ulaanbaatar (UB - the soviet styled capital). I'd been to UB previously in the summer when I was about twelve but it was a completely different world in winter that I didn't recognise. I felt as though the White Witch had cast her wintery spell over an entire North Asian country...
...and then skipped off to Hawaii having found the sub-zero temperatures too chilly for even her.
So, alone in my hotel room, I spiraled into a forced hibernation. Dressing was the highlight of my day as it took nearly 30minutes to make sure I was properly attired for the cold outside. I wore tights, then socks, then another pair of tights and another pair of socks, then a long sleeved shirt tucked into jeans that went over the double tights combo, then a t-shirt over the long sleeved shirt, then a flannel shirt and a massive wool jumper AND THEN finally my massive coat plus gloves, scarf, beanie AND wool lined snow boots.
(Proof I'm not exaggerating...)
It took so long to put on all my many layers that I then had to scamper across the black ice encrusted road to Keiran's office, while my stomach growled hungrily for lunch, where my Father waited impatiently outside. I would skip and jump down the street to whatever restaurant we decided to go to trying to bring the feeling back into my toes while simultaneously wooping at the crunching noise resonating from the ground each time my feet touched the snow.
Food in a Mongolian winter can be pretty depressing. At least in UB there were restaurants who had managed to import(smuggle?) fresh(ish) veggies and other meats apart from mutton. But in Murun, our next stop on the road to hypothermia, sheep was on the menu! We stayed in a geophysical gurr camp 5 hours drive from the town for 3 nights of extreme temperatures.
Outside it reached -31°C at lunch time! We would spend this part of the day in 35°C heat, crowded around the wood stove inside the combined kitchen/dinning gurr eating mutton dumpling soup and borscht and stewed capiscum and goats milk tea and chocolate biscuits.
This may sound like haute cuisine Gobi desert style, but after 3 days of literally chewing the fat I was very much ready to get back to civiliastion and housing made of bricks and not skin. However, I soon discovered that the hot running water and internet we'd had at the camp were major luxuries in northern Mongolia.
Half an hour into our drive back to Murun the driver decided to plow through a 2 meter deep snow drift in a land cruiser.
Keiran turned into the incredible Hulk in an attempt to free us from our frozen prison...
...while I sat in the car and grumbled about how fucking freezing my feet were.
Finally, a horde of passing Mongolians found us frozen, hungry and busting to use the loo!
Five hours later we arrived in "Fucking Murun" (as we affectionately called) at the 50°100° Hotel.
Before checking into the hotel we made sure that there was definitely going to be hot water for us to shower with. After being assured that the water was indeed hot I ran up to my room to pee and shower. I entered the huge chilly hotel room, turned on the TV as background noise and found that every channel was in Russian or Mongolian except (sigh) Fashion TV. Grumbling, my spirits rose at the thought of the hot water I'd been promised. I stripped off and jumped in the shower with the hot tap on full bore. I waited and waited and waited for the water temperature to increase past 12°C. Turns out in Mongolia "hot" means "not frozen" or "running" water. I did the opposite of enjoyed my "hot" shower and returned to my still cold room to watch stick thin models strut around in front of my two-weeks-of-eating-chocolate-and-two-minute-noodles body. Things did not improve when my "President's Enjoyed Chicken" dinner tasted like microwaved bacon or when I discovered that there was absolutely no internet in the hotel. Not even dial up! Yes, things were pretty desperate. So, on our return to Ulaanbaatar it was party time. I spent my time skiing, drinking, shopping and eating almost solely Indian food.
Keiran and his right hand man, Stuart, even realised their dreams of forming a band!
See what I mean about completely bypassing the awesome wonders that Mongolia definitely has to offer? I saw them. The snowy plains, the rustic long-haired cows, the flocks of tiny birds that swoop together over those same snowy plains...
... but when you're that fridged, it's hard to not become completely absorbed with how cold your toes are.
I left Mongolia happy with the knowledge that I was returning to the parties of South East Asia after a couple of days in Tokyo. However, I'll always regret not enjoying this wintery visit more.
"Beautiful Tapan Hin" was next on our Asian trek. Flying back from Mongolia through Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand I arrived in Laos where I slept for 36 hours after my day of airports and train stations. I was woken the next day by my mobile having an epileptic fit. After reading the 20 or so worried texts I'd received, I turned on the Australian Channel to hear that a huge earthquake had decimated Japan and tsunamis and shock waves continued to threaten the country. I was distraught. This post in no way describes the awesome way I feel about Japan's capital. I barely had time to acknowledge how close Keiran and I had come to being caught up in the disaster before I was called away again to central Thailand where my lonely father waited impatiently for me and my step mother.
The drive from Vientiane to the Phichit province of Thailand was pretty brutal. We began at a 7/11 on the Thai side of the Friendship Bridge.
Noi and I stocked up on chips, jelly, lollies, chocolates, cakes and nuts for the 4 hour journey. Most of these delicacies were gone within the first hour. We then slumped down in the car, with salt covered mouths and sticky fingers, to wait out the trip. The weather gradually declined the further we traveled from sunny Vientiane, meaning we arrived in the type of rain that slowly drenches an already depressed soul and surrounds you in watery melancholia.
We were greeted by Keiran and his expectation that I would cook him a proper English feast... shepherd's pie to be precise. It was on! A challenge. Tesco Thailand gave us almost everything we needed... except worcestershire sauce.
Potatoes, tinned tomatoes, minced meat, carrots, onions, (orange) cheese, red wine and tomato sauce I substituted for tomato paste. It all came together pretty easily actually... the potatoes were mashed to perfection, the meaty red innards bubbling away like something out of Macbeth and the wine going down nicely. Then facebook beckoned and I spent the next 20 minutes nattering away to Australia while the smell of burning grew stronger and stronger. I salvaged the meat by adding the rest of the bottle of tomato sauce and claiming the smokey flavour was a fancy twist. Keiran ate it anyway, clearly desperate for something western after solidly eating sickly sweet Thai stir fries for the last 6 nights.
Noi and I, keen to escape the Tapan Hin funk and the smell of burnt casserole, made sure we left the next day for Bangkok.
We spent the next 2 days shopping furiously,
Leaving the night club district at 3am we rushed back to out hotel to pick up our stuff and catch the plane back to Vientiane at 5am. Finally I was home. Again, I slept for nearly 36 hours thinking I would now have an extended period of family bonding and home time to look forward to. Oh, how mistaken I was!
Next time: Backpackers, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang (again), drunken sushi days, Pii Mai (Laos New Year), London, Cornwall, music festivals, Paris and a beautiful french family who feed me cheese!
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