Itchy Feet.....

Not itchy feet as in the athletes foot kinda sense but itchy feet in that i havent been to a different continent in about a year and im getting increasingly restless. What I wouldnt give to feel that stifling heat on my face, to feel the stares of the locals by being the only honky in the village, to feel that sense of adrenaline in not knowing what's going to happen to you in the next five minutes.........sigh.

This time last year I was dusting off my backpack and getting ready to head East. Trying to pack economically and fit in a bumper pack of hand sanitiser and a supply of toiletries that would keep Boots stocked for a month was not easy, but it was joyful.

It was the heading off into the unknown, the excitement of not knowing what exactly would happen, the opportunity to discover different cultures and the chance to discover things about oneself along the way. Oh Lord how I yearn for such an opportunity again. I mean Im not asking for much, a month would do. Peru maybe, or Chile. Austrailia or Africa.....some place that involves a long haul flight and atleast five in flight movie opportunities.

Every trip changes your perception of life a bit. People who have come back from travelling always bore their friends about the ah.mhaz.ing time that they've had, be it the time they were in Brazil or Argentina or Paraguay or Cuba or Thailand or Vietnam or Laos or Abu Dhabi or the Bahamas or the United States.....Im glad Im not one of those people.....but you do feel the need to share the experience with folks who make the mistake of giving you a chance to tell your tales.

My current passport expires in 2013 and I want to fill it's pages with as much stamps as possible before it expires.....realistically that's not going to happen this year but perhaps in the next two years....anything could happen.

I need a holiday. I need an adventure. I need the smell of another culture invading my nostrils. I can feel myself getting increasingly flighty and I need to dust off my left over bottles of suncream and to smell like coconuts. I need to leave behind any responsiblity and evade anybody depending on me to conform to normality. I want to paddle in water that is actually tepid. I want to play "guess the meat". I want to get intoxicated on rum and pass out on a hammock......These things just arent achievable in Ireland.

I guess I really am a traveller at heart.

l.l.l.l.l.l.l.laos

Having noted to my blog partner that the blog has become less about daly and more about our own lives,i feel now after reading her latest blog entry that she deserves even less discussion time for not having included her bf's on her list of favourite things......other than a brief mention.....

"It goes without saying that some family and all friends are among the things I love but detailing this would definitely be overwhelmingly dull. They’re great, good for them. (Oh dear, it appears that even when contemplating lovely things, my sarcasm is inherent.)"...............

Dull?!!!!!!!Dull?!!!!!!i was just in asia.......dull my hole.

Ahem.......anyhew,this brings me nicely back to the main focus of the blog, Laos.

After the craziness that was vietnam,laos definitely had a more chilled out pace.we could have taken the 30 hour bus journey from hanoi,but as my travelling companion HATES buses we flew into the capital,Vientiane instead,which took an hour.........

though there was some hysteria/uncontrollable laughter when we saw the plane......it was one of those teeny ones that fits about 20 people,and we were sitting near the propellers......u could almost spot the guy on the bike powering said propellers.........fun times!
but when compared to the hellish 30hr bus journey that we would have experienced,it was possibly the safest option!

so the day after arriving we decided to be all cultural and the like and go check out some of the temples,whilst bearing in mind some of the cultural etiquette that one is supposed to keep whilst in laos.............
-dont point your feet at anyone or turn your foot up at anyone,this is the equivalent of flipping the finger and always take your shoes off when entering a building
-dont touch anyone on the head(*tap,tap*)
-dont touch a monk if you are a women,this would lead to unpleasantness for the monk i'd imagine
-no bikini's or hot pants in the temples(rather upsetting)
-no public display of affection(does licking your travelling companion's face count as
affection?)
These are the main ones i can remember,and i think we managed not to insult anyone!

The capital itself has some really cool architecture,and even has its own arc de triomphe!but when you've seen one temple,you've kinda seen them all!cultured,i know!

Our next stop was vang vieng,backpacker central!a place where episodes of friends and family guy are shown in every pub......which may seem tacky and western.......but i like family guy!
also the main reason we were here was to go TUBING!an activity which consists of floating down the river on said tube and being pulled in to the bars along the way.one was a little bit apprehensive at first considering i cant swim and refused to wear a life-jacket caus i would look uncool.
I immediately began to regret not wearing a life-jacket when i drifted towards some reeds,almost fell out of my tube and banged my ass off a rock....................
but after being pulled into the first pub,my worries melted away and several pubs later after getting lost from my travelling companion and our new bf's,tom and jane,i was nonplussed and merely pulled in on the other side of the river,found a foot bridge and rejoined my amigos!after a long day of drinking and trying not to drown,we returned back to the town where we watched family guy and ate pizza!well after submerging oneself in culture all day u need some non-cultured stuff!
all in all,we loved laos,and met some pretty cool peeps along the way,and didnt drown whilst tubing!success!

next stop......full moon party!

Daly's challenged..........

whilst musing over dalys last blog and indeed our own blog on her blog-blog.......blog........one was inspired to take on a challange of one's own........

so recently i "acquired" two mills and boon books,"a south texas christmas" and "a colby christmas".......as well as a maeve binchy book,"the return journey"..........and a free copy of another book in cosmo called "operation sunshine".......

i also found a book i started 5 months ago(but cant get past chapter 2)"the girl with the dragon tattoo".......aswel as a diary of my travels that i kept from my first really big adventure,which im beginning to think might be more entertaining than the others........though it will probably read like a mills and boon novel anyway..........BOOM!

so can i read these books before daly has read hers?!she has reflected that the edinburgh fringe festival may interfere with the timely reading of these before the winner of the booker prize has been announced..........i'm not going to the fringe but i am going to asia....which is on the proverbial fringe of the world,if u may.......

also none of the books in my challenge are on the list of the booker prize.......though i feel that my own travel diary could make it on to the list some day.........

so there we go!
i probably should start with the book i have already started......but those mills and boon books are drawing me in,especially with a storyline about brad,who is locked in a skyscraper with a doe-eyed receptionist called elaine and FOUR MASKED MEN........*dramatic music*......

off i go on daly's challenge.......

laters.......