A Long Day in Luang Prapang

Having a leisurely breakfast one morning, we bumped into none other than the doctor from San Fransisco we had made the acquaintance of at our old haunt in Hoi An, Vietnam. We relived our best FauxFrenchie memories and she offered her physician's expertise into why she thought FauxFrenchie was a prostitute and anorexic drug addict...
We were all enamoured with how small the region of southeast Asia had instantly become.

We rented bicycles and negotiated a ride across the river to the more isolated part of the area.

This was a unique heat: a torturous, burdensome heat. But with this sort of heat as well as this sort of physical expenditure (trail biking on a rusty, heavy coaster) came a new-found and precious gift- something many of you daily take for granted: perspiration. And I mean Like... sweat sweat.

My whole life I've lived a life of a cursed purple face. I go running in 95 degree weather and the sweat doesn't come- only a puffy purple face. I sit in a sauna and the sweat doesn't come- only a purple puffy face. A quote I stole from Kady's blog:

S:"I can't stop thinking about how much I sweat yesterday!"
K: "How much did you spend?"
S: "No, sweat. I've never sweat so much in my life. It was magical."

Ok, so I didn't completely break ties with the purple face part. But this was something brand new nonetheless.
I always knew my body hated the States (remember the rash, Ash?).


We explored as the locals mostly met our presence with amusement:

except for this guy; he didn't care

We took a ferry back to the other side. Clumsily exiting the narrow boat, I couldn't take it any more. I emptied my pockets...

checked them once more...

then went for it...

...