Run To The Future

I'm still sick. I've done to Chang Mai what I did to Kunming - hang around and be sick. Will spend the rest of the day in bed reading, sleeping, and watching Thai tv. Thinking maybe I should even see a doctor...it's been one week now and I'm really struggling to breathe, and I have no energy at all. I remembered Sam told me I could claim sick leave if I'm sick while on holidays. Then I remembered, I took leave without pay :D Bangkok tomorrow. Will check out the book stores and see if I can join a riot. I never heard how all that go resolved...did the prime minister step down? Which reminds, the bus I was on from Chang Rai to Chang Mai was stopped for a police check...and also, the minivan I was on to Houayxai in Laos was stopped in the middle of nowhere by men who didn't look like police, but certainly acted like them. The actually searched through the van as well as checking out if the passengers looked suspicious. Unlike the Thais, they didn't actually look at people's IDs (do Lao people have these?) or my passport. Which also reminds me...on the tuk tuk/taxi from the Chinese border, as we went over the hills, we went through lots of little, very poor, villages by the road. I took a few photos but I missed out on the best two sights. The first was a huge pile of fruit - they might have been coconuts still in their complete husk. Each fruit was wrapped in one of those foam things they wrap bottles of alcohol in at duty free. There were a dozen guys standing and sitting around, and more than half of them had put the foam thing totally over their heads. They were just sitting there totally indifferent to how silly they looked. There were a lot of kids in these villages. The second highlight was a skinny brown kid, riding a bike too big for him so he had to stand up on the pedals, and across his eyes he was wearing a scuba diving mask! Special effort. I think he thought it was like a bike helmet. He was probably the coolest kid in the village because he had the scuba mask! Good luck to him.