December 15, 2014
Bowling in bonus time!: Thanks China, I owe you one
After Dea left I wanted to find a cheaper guesthouse where I could sit and feel sorry for myself for a while, and so I got on my bike and cycled around looking for one. It felt so sad to be riding alone again, not to have anyone ahead of me to try and keep up with, or to stop and consult with, knowing that Dea would have provided sensible advice about where to find cheap guesthouses. Left to the advice of my own solitary brain I simply cycled around in a big circle and ended up back in the centre, and so I gave up and went to a hostel instead, and took a bed there. I booked in for two nights and lay on my bed in the large dormitory and very much began to achieve my aim of feeling sorry for myself.
A few hours later I decided that Facebook might be a useful vehicle for cheering me up - usually a terribly mistaken belief, this time it wasn't. There was a message from Dea. I clicked on it, imagining that it was going to be a message saying she was at the airport waiting for her flight. But it wasn't. I read it, paused for a moment, read it again, and then gathered up my things and ran out of the hostel as quick as I could.
China visa rules f*cked up my plan, I had to change my flight and I'll be leaving tomorrow at noon. Can I sleep next to you one more night and wake up to see your bright blue eyes and wonderful smile? I'll be waiting here at our guesthouse eating cookies and croissants until I hear from you
Oh boy! Oh boy! oh boy! I was going to see Dea again! Wahooo!!! SO AMAZING!!! And dear old China! How ridiculous you are and yet how generously you provided me with the chance to see that beautiful face again! Simply put, the absurd situation that had stopped Dea in her tracks was that you can fly in and out of Beijing and stay for up to 72 hours without a visa, something that Dea planned to do on her way back to Denmark, but in other parts of the country you can stay for only 24 hours without a visa. Although Dea was flying to Beijing and leaving it less than 72 hours later, her first flight was going to connect through Kunming and because she wasn't going to leave China within 24 hours of arriving in Kunming she was told she could not board her flight without a visa, a clever little loophole China had for pissing people off, and something nobody had bothered to mention to Dea until she arrived at the airport.
But China's idiocy was to my advantage for once. I raced quickly across town as fast as I could and back up the street to our guesthouse, and there she was, waiting for me just like she promised. It felt incredibly weird to see Dea sitting there, on the very bench where I had been sobbing just a few hours earlier. After our dramatic goodbye, and the feeling that we wouldn't see one another for a very long time, it gave me a very strange feeling to look into those eyes again so soon, but of course it was also a wonderful feeling. It felt like we had been given a gift. We had already said our goodbyes and this was just free extra time, it was bonus time, it was time that could simply be enjoyed and cherished. It was so good!
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Physically I felt much better than the day before and so we agreed that we absolutely had to make the most of our bonus time, and do all of the things that we were supposed to have done the evening before. But first we had to find a new guesthouse, because the one we were sitting outside was now fully booked. But there was no time to waste looking for a very cheap one, and so we settled for a fairly cheap one in the centre. It turned out to be a good choice because of the very humorous young man that was working on reception. When I asked to see the room he skipped up the stairs two at a time, rushing in this energetic manner all the way to the fourth floor, encouraging me to keep up with him. I was out of breath when I saw it, but the room looked fine, and so we ran all the way back down.
Back at reception I paid for the room and asked if I needed a receipt and the skinny young man said with great joy and humour "Yes!! You need receipt! Otherwise maybe then we don't know you paid, you have to pay twice, then you have no money, you have no money, you can't eat, have to go fish in the Mekong to eat, better you have receipt!" This guy was very funny. He told us about being from a village and how when he first came to Vientiane he had to sleep on the street, until he got this job. I asked him his name. "My name is Porn," he said, "you know, like the movies!" "Porn joy!" said another worker next to him. "Yes, Porn Joy! My name is Porn Joy!"
Dea and I moved our things into the room, taking the stairs at a more sedentary pace I might add, and then went out to make the most of our bonus time. First we went to see some of the sights - Wat Sisiket, the Presidential Palace, and the Victory Monument. By the time we got to the last of these it was already dark, but it was a nice place to sit by the fountain. It was so special to have this evening together, we were both so happy.
Next we found a great restaurant to eat. It was on a back street away from the centre but it had a lot of western food on the menu - an unfortunate combination of catering to tourists but being nowhere near them that meant the place was almost empty. I loved it here though. Dea wasn't so happy with her burger but the fries were delicious, and my pizza was perfect even though it didn't come with any tomato. To be honest it was just cheese bread, but it had a lot of cheese, so I was very happy. The garlic bread was the most intriguing, being as it was more garlic than bread, but I was frankly delighted. And as for dessert! Well, you can see for yourself:
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Probably the only thing that could make this final precious night better now would be to go ten-pin bowling, and so that was just exactly what we did. The bowling alley in Vientiane proved to be an interesting place indeed, but a very cool one, where the majority of customers were locals, mostly kids out from school. The equipment appeared to be very retro and cool, looking like it was straight out of the 1970's, but on closer inspection we realised that was actually just most likely because that was when it was installed. The really great thing about this was that the tired old machine would sometimes randomly knock down a pin for you when it was resetting them, so there were extra points galore.
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It was a very close game and I needed at least a spare on my final turn in order to win. On the first go I only knocked down a disappointing three pins. I turned around in disgust. Dea was starting to look a little confident now. I picked up my last ball from the rack, said motivational mantras to myself, and turned to face the remaining seven pins, one of which the machine had kindly knocked down for me so that it lay horizontally across the lane. I saw my chance and with all the focus and determination of Will Smith's prodigal son I threw that ball right down the centre. It clattered into the prone pin and sent it flying, scattering all of the remaining pins left and right. Dea protested. I ignored. I was the inevitable champion.
But this night it felt like we were both winners.
Today's ride: 7 km (4 miles)
Total: 34,931 km (21,692 miles)
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