Not So Crazy

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November 3, 2010


Jean and I found a guesthouse in a village a couple of kilometers from the Tad Yuang waterfall. The only other guests are a Belgian couple we ran into and I took a picture for at the waterfall this afternoon.

Around six, Jean and I walked over to the guest house's little restaurant next door. It was a simple affair: a long wooden table and two benches on a covered concrete slab. The Belgian couple passed by and said they were going to look around for other venues. We had just been served dinner of fried rice and vegetables when they reappeared. Apparently, the village had a dearth of dining establishments.

View of the restaurant from the balcony of our guesthouse

The Belgians joined us and over glasses of Lao-Lao (homemade Lao spirit) we commenced with the travel talk: where we'd been, where we were bound, how long we'd been out, what we like and what we didn't. We talked budgets, prices, haggling, scams, rip offs, packing lists, wind-stop fabrics, sleeping bag liners, the whole gambit. We debated umbrella versus rain coat and trainers versus sandals.



The Belgian couple were a few months into an eight month around the world trip*. She'd been a teacher for the past two years and he'd been working as a consultant. I never found out what kind but from the 12 hour work days he described it sounded pretty miserable. In January they started plotting to escape their jobs and travel a bit. I asked them what there plans were when they got back to Belgium. She said she'd go back to teaching. He didn't know but definitely not what he was doing before.

It's good to know we're not the only crazy ones.

* An around the world package usually gets you a fixed number of flights in an either east or west direction.

Comments

Unknown said…
Did the Belgian couple give you any good travel tips or are you the experts now?
22 December 2010 at 05:35
TomY. said…
I think this period in time is causing others to pause in how this current economic downturn is affecting their lives in all parts of the world. I don't know what drove you to take on this world tour, but you could not have picked a better time to be out of this economic mess that the US is going through.
22 December 2010 at 07:27
sly said…
I think you are all crazy like a fox!
22 December 2010 at 07:35
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