Making plans for Visas and Lao New Year!

This morning I took a walk down to the end of the beach I hadn’t explored yet. There only seems to be one or two resorts and a few private type house/bungalows. I believe that this is where the Dutch fellow, from a few nights back, lives. The tides was really out at 8am, so the rocks were really exposed, and there were a lot of small shells in the sand. I walked a little less than usual so that I could drop off my bed linens at the laundry. After the power was on, I headed to the main house to use the internet. I emailed a few of you, and made a few more posts to the blog. I got an email from my Lao friend Jukky. I think I have decide to try and be in Laos by the time my Thai Visa expires on March 23rd. This could change of course, but I plan to be there for Lao New Year, which is on April 13th, but may start cranking up by the 11th. Thailand also celebrates Songkran about this time, and it can be virtually impossible to go anywhere as everyone is going back to the home cities/villages to celebrate the holiday with family and friends. I found this out last year when I stayed in Ranong a little to long before trying to make my way to Laos. I hired a minibus to drive me to Chumpon, where I had planned to take the train to BKK. When I got there, I found the train had sold out, and the buses pre-booked. My visa was about to expire in 2 days, so I had to double back to Ranong in order to see immigration and do a Visa run to Burma. Of course this made Lek, the woman I had be seeing, very happy and she always assumed that I couldn’t bring myself to leave her quite yet. Haha… oh well. Anyway, so I missed getting to Laos for New Years, and don’t plan to have that happen again. I will give myself plenty of time to get there, and possibly a visit with Steve Kain, who will be in Sukhothai, or Ayuthaya around that time. There’s a group of people I used to work with, coming to BKK for a big HIV/AIDS conference, so I am hoping that I can connect with at least a few of them while they are in Thailand and Vietnam. I confirmed to Jukky, that I would be with them for the holiday, but wasn’t certain of the exact date. I will keep her posted. After updating everyone, I headed back to the house and bumped into Chris on the road. He gave me a brief lesson in the flora and fauna of the property, lots of interesting stuff I can now put names to after examining it all for 3 wks now. Made a stir fry for lunch and dinner, listened to some music and basically had a really mellow time at my little edge of the jungle for the rest of my day/night.