Hippy heaven

It's 2:30 am and I can't sleep, so in an attempt to put myself (and not you) asleep, I'll write in my journal. Even though I haven't been doing anything and have been going to sleep at 12, I was really tired and slept until 11. When I finally dragged myself out of "bed" (my mattress on the floor), I didn't want to do anything. I had to eat, though, so I wandered out for some spicy street food for 75 cents. I've noticed Thais eat with fork in left hand and spoon in right, and push food onto their spoon with the fork. I checked my guidebook and sure enough, it says Thais find putting a fork in one's mouth to be uncouth, like we would think of putting a knife in your mouth. So when in Rome... Another little difference: when gesturing to get someone's attention Thais wave with their palms down and wiggle their fingers..

Afterwards I wanted to go to the library to read, but none of the three busses my bus map seemed to indicate go that way showed up. So much for my mastery of the Bangkok bus system. So I took a #15 bus to what's become my hang-out, the Siam Square shopping district, where I could read at Starbucks. I have to plan a general route to Laos, then through it. After deciding on the Northeast line to Vientiane, I just read that I can cross from Laos to Cambodia. This is quite ambitious, but I like the idea. But then it would make more sense to enter Laos in the north at the Golden Triangle, which entails taking the Northern line to Chaing Mai. The cool thing about this is after enter Laos, I will cruise down the Mekong. Then I can make my way to Vientiane, and either get a Cambodia visa there, or bail and go back to Thailand. The thing is if I go to both Laos and Cambodia I would have to postpone my trip to Myanmar to catch trekking season in Nepal. The other thing is the problem of going by land from here to Saigon, if I've already gone through Cambodia. I guess if I've already made it by land to Phenom Phen, I can just fly there later and cross over into Vietnam. Depends on how anal I want to be on the whole overland thing.