Bangkok Bound

Well, after spending 7.5 weeks specifically avoiding the City of Angels, and trying to purposely avoid a trip into Thailand, the streak will end either tonight or tmw morning, when I arrive in Bangkok.

AJ and I had a bit of a falling out--a problem that was probably inevitable given our respective personalities. She's very upfront, honest, bluntly candid, and semi-impulsive, and I am very sarcastic, somewhat stubborn, never one to back down from an opinion, and often suffer from foot in mouth disease (meaning I don't always think before I speak) . What this means is that when behavior or words are misinterpreted, there is often a jump to conclusions, which is fine when they are right, but can be disastrous when wrong. That's basically what happened, without going into too much individual detail over the specifics, which are so petty and insignificant that I'm pretty sure both of us will be laughing at it a week from now.

The general problem was that both of us were used to traveling on our own, and certain features and attributes of the other that we liked a week ago started to rub us the wrong way. Traveling with your best friend or your family for a 10 day period can be tough enough as it is, let alone when you do it with someone you just met. The good news is that we could be open and honest with each other--the bad news is that at times we were too open and too honest with each other.

So we are going our own separate ways tonight, either after the plane lands in bangkok, or she boards the plane in Udon Thani, and I take the night train/bus to Bangkok. Fortunately, I tried to smooth things over at breakfast, which initially didn't go so well, but ended up being successful, so we are going to leave on good terms (unless something drastic happens within the next 12 hours)--the way it should be, because I honestly had a lot of fun traveling with her, and I know that I definitely wouldn't have had as much fun without her company--and she feels the same way about me.

I'm thinking about extending my trip one more time--to allow me to go to Vietnam. First, I need to check my bank balance, which is impossible to do in Laos. Then I'll need to talk to the ticket office in bangkok, as well as to arrange a vietnamese visa in advance. I'll also try to squeeze in a side trip/overnighter to Kanchanaburi--three hours away and the site of the bridge made famous by the book and movie "Bridge over the River Kwai." If I'm unable to extend/change my ticket without going to singapore, then I'll just do a side trip to Kanchanaburi and then fly home as scheduled two weeks ago.