The Wayfaring Wordhack

Which is in Laos, not anywhere in China.

On the morning of the 17th, we crossed from Thailand in Laos. It was chaos at the border as everyone jostled to get their visas or recover their passports, but everyone was goodnatured about it; we were all in the same mess, and most of us were leaving on the same boat.

After the immigration formalities, we were herded like little children--or cattle, take your pick--into a cramped minivan where music was blaring because the driver was on the other side of the street, chatting, and apparently didn't want to miss a beat. We waited for almost ten minutes, and no one else came to get in the bus, so the driver finally deigned to take us to the slow boat dock.

He pulled up to a rickety, rundown restaurant overlooking the Mekong, where a Laotian in a white suit proceeded to tell us a truckload of lies. The list goes a little something like this:

( Mr Smarmy tries to take us for a ride )
__________
* What a crock! Don't tell me that in a town that sees 100+ tourists debarking everyday doesn't have adequate accommodation options, not when everyone with a lick of business sense has converted every spare room and chicken coop to that effect in hopes of getting their share of the tourist dollar/baht/kip...Oh, speaking of currencies, yet another lie Mr Smarmy told: Change your money here because no one will accept baht or dollars on the river.  Yeah. Right.

** Some souls did trust and had their bags rifled before they arrived. The one we talked to, thankfully, didn't have anything stolen, but someone did have their backpack go missing while they slept on the beach.

Going on a two-day* trip on the catamaran with another couple and their child. We're aiming to sail completely around the island and will sleep on the boat. Tis the season for whales, so I hope we'll spot a few. And dolphins. Want to see them one last time before leaving Mayotte.

Be good while I'm while gone. 

______

*as of tomorrow, but Saturday is our going away party, so that'll make three days that I'm not online and keeping up. If you need to let me know about something that happened while I was away please comment here or send me an email.

 Yesterday, mana_trini  and I hiked Mount Benara with nine friends, 9.3 miles in all, 6 hours of walking. I'd say that was a good way to train for our world trip. Today, we are going out with pretty much the same friends (minus 2) on the catamaran. The lagoon isn't lovely and mirror-flat like I like, but the wind is up. Perfect for sailing and resting aching leg muscles. 

This flurry of sudden activity feels like the end. One never seems to take advantage of one's surrounding until it is time to move on. Er, if you want, you can remove "one" and insert "Miquela." :P

 I got home from Dubai--more about the trip later--Thursday just before noon, exhausted, sore-footed, and happy to see my husband. Our bags were unloaded in record time, and we were soon outside in the muggy Mayotte air. Hello, humidity. 

However, instead of going straight home, we stopped by Sabrina and Lionel's house to drink an apéritif, have a little catch up chat, and organize the inauguration of the catamaran--more about that later. After that, lunch out, then back to the house for a shower, quick lie-down, and then off to the apéro on the boat.

Friday wasn't very restful either, but...more about that later.

Woke up early this morning.
Went out in the boat.
Lagoon as calm as a pond.
Snorkelled.
Saw dolphins in the distance.
Got back on the boat.
Motored closer to the dolphins.
They played around our boat.
Leapt out of the water.
Did flips.
Happiness.

This Saturday was art class as usual. I took the car instead of biking so that I could get our painting. As soon as we hang it (and if the camera isn't still on the blink), I'll take a pic. My lesson consisted of transforming this
into a larger, color painting. Marcel wanted me to finish it in one day, but I'm too slow. I'm not happy with the colors yet (just a basic palette of black, white, burnt sienna, ochre, indigo, and a touch of cobalt. I think he'll have to let me use a touch of violet to get the alley floor right.)

Sunday,  mana_triniand I took the boat to Ilôt Bambo for a picnic. We stopped along the way and snorkeled between two islets. We saw an enormous crown-of-thorns starfish for the first time. Since it's the only one I've ever seen, and we haven't heard of there being a problem with them in Mayotte, we didn't try to take it (they can wipe out all the coral; and you can't cut them up and leave them in the water because they will just regenerate.) No point in further trying to "fix nature" only to mess up the natural order of things.

When we arrived on Bambo, two kayakers were already there, but they left by the time we got our fire going. After we put the fish on the grill, we drank champagne and did other French things. We had a lovely lunch of grilled fish (two kinds), tomato salad with preserved lemons, baguette, and blue cheese. Because I forgot the plates, we ate our fish on some nice flat stones that we found on the beach.  It was a great touch because the sun-warmed rocks kept the meat hot. We had fresh pineapple for desert as we strolled along the beach, looking for treasures. After taking advantage of the tide to reload the boat, we snorkeled for a little bit before heading outside of the lagoon so J could spearfish.

Monday night, we had Marcel over to stretch the painting onto the frame for us. Now J knows the technique and can do it when we move. Marcel stayed for dinner. Unfortunately, while taking my apple pie out of the oven, I burned three fingers and a thumb and had to spend the evening with my hand (the left one to boot! argh!) in a glass of ice water. It is more numb than painful today, but it still makes typing awkward.