3 Jan 2011

.Back in Pakse. The End.

We ended up going to the stadium, where we saw the second part of the football game [or soccer, as Sascha would say]. Some local game, where we were probably the only farangs in there. It was fun, at leat for my traveling buddy, a little bit boring for me. But at least we saw a goal, even if it was a bad one. We went to the city after, but could not find anything worth seeing, so we ended up in a bar for a beer, where you could have ordered a lot of fired things, or roasted coat and similar things. We went a little further, hoping to find some club that was in his lonely planet book, and couldn’t find it. Instead, we found a fancy Christmas party, for fancy Laotian people. So we crashed it, got some vine and beer and some food for free, crashed somebody’s table, but people were pleased to have some foreigners with them. It was a nice evening with a nice person, but we had to finish it, since I had an early start. This is already the second end and I couldn’t possibly extend it anymore. No matter how much I would have loved to stay some longer.

My traveling buddy was extremely nice and woke up together with me, went for breakfast with me [and I couldn’t get my pancakes that I wanted since the day before :(], waited till my pick-up [a motorbike] came and hugged me goodbye. And so I left. Crying with my dry eyes and smiling with my heart, since, just as promised, me and Steffany had the best trip ever, so far. My pick-up was a mess. He took my important bag, with my camera and my passport and my money to put in front of the bike and then he stopped. I got off the bike, and he started running with the bike and I started running after. I was somehow sure he is not going to run away with my passport, but I just did not want to loose him of sight. We probably looked like two psychos, he running with a bike and I’m running with my backpack on my back after him. We ran to the gas station, he got some gas and we went to the station. I got my ticket and waited for my bus. The `VIP` bus wasn’t really the VIP, but it was ok and it took me to the border. The border thing presented no surprises for me, I got out of Laos with no problems and got back to Thailand with no problems as well.

Being in Thailand presented this strange, weird but pleasant feeling like coming home. It felt kind of right to go on the wrong side of the road, seeing all the prices in Baht and all of the rest of Thai details. I got to one city and had to get still to Bangkok. Someone just asked me where I was going, I said Bangkok and they put me on a bus that leaves in 30 minutes and should be in Bangkok at around 23. So there I was, in a simple local bus with only locals in it for 11 hours – plenty time to read a book, listen some songs, think over and over my fabulous trip with fabulous people.

I got back to my dormitory after midnight and, of course, the security guy did not have my key. Luckily he woke someone from the office up [how handy is it that he was actually sleeping in the same building], who gave me the key and let me go to the room to my own old bed and I could have catch up on some rest.

So this was it. Amazing 5 weeks. Visited 3 countries. Met countless of amazing people. Made around 1500 pictures. Experienced it all. Faced some dragons – did some things that scare me. Got burned and been scarred for life. Steffany already unpacked all her high-heels, but we are both still catching ourselves thinking and talking about the trip. Even if it wasn’t 100% perfect, it was at least 99% perfect. And only because 100% perfection would make it boring.

We’re back.

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