The Flying Farang

So on my way towards Laos, I decided to stop off in a city called Nakhsin Rachisima, or something like that. It's known as Khorat, and it's the second largest city in the country, although you wouldn't know from visiting, because there is nothing to see in the city itself, and it has to be the deadest city of 2 million anywhere (kind of like Naples, FL is the deadest city in America). At least according to Lonely Planet, because Wikipedia has a very different opinion. But there are some Angkor cities and monuments nearby, supposedly the best in Thailand, so I thought I'd get a taste of that because I won't get to Angkor Wat for a while. And also, because it was sort of on the way and I'd only seen so little of Thailand despite being there for a full 2 weeks.
In order to get there, I decided to forgo public transportation and rent a motorbike instead (you know, one of those little scooters) with which to race around the countryside. I had a lot of fun doing so, except at one point I was caught in driving rain for about 90 minutes. And starting at a certain speed (not sure which, my speedometer and odometer didn't work) rain drops become really painful when they hit you, so that was not a great experience.
Because I was off the tourist trail, everyone wanted pictures with the white guy, so countless Thais now have pictures with a slightly befuddled looking, grinning German guy two heads taller than anyone else in the picture - all of which was accomplished without a common language.

Right now I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. I arrived in the border town at 4 am this morning and voila! a mere four hours later I was in a crowded minibus on the Laotian side, headed towards town. Once there, I immediately got my Vietnamese visa, a process that took no more than 15 minutes. Therefore, I'm now set for the rest of my journey, at least as far as crossing borders is concerned. From now on, I'll be sightseeing by day and busing by night - sounds fun, huh?

Here are some final thoughts about things I'll miss from Thailand: the food, standing on the back platform of the saewethang instead of riding inside it, the vast expanses of green rice paddies (especially when they flood after rain), and the commonality of English. But on the upside, I do have YouTube again (it's banned by the military government in Thailand).