Where In The World Is Evan?

After reading Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception while I was in Bangkok I’d become quite intrigued by his self documented experience with mescaline. Huxley makes an interesting sociological argument about the role of alcohol in western society. The boring nature of most of our lives creates a demand for a readily available and socially acceptable inebriant to allow us to experience altered states of consciousness. Whilst he argues that in an ideal society this need would be abated we must face the reality of our present condition.

The social acceptance of alcohol, as opposed to marijuana or other inebriants, is a historical oddity, primarily of western society. He argues that so long as society requires an inebriant is behoves us in the modern era to discard the historical acceptance of alcohol in favour of a drug that has less detrimental side effects. Every year we see countless deaths and acts of violence caused by the aggressive effects of alcohol. Mescaline, he argues, whilst not being completely free of negative side effects itself is a much more spiritually and intellectually satisfying drug than alcohol, and instead of producing aggression it induces a sense of well being and respect for the beauty of nature.
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I’ve been back in Australia for a couple of weeks now and generally struggling to find my feet in a society that I no longer feel really a part of. I guess over time you romanticise the things you’ve left behind, which can only lead to disappointment when you get back. Imagine my surprise when the first thing I see in the newspaper upon my arrival are the race riots in Sydney. So my new year’s celebrations for ’06 needed to be a positive reaffirmation of all of the joy and happiness I’d experienced in the last year.

Upon my return to Melbourne I started living on the couch of a friend, in a share house near my old university. James and I get along very well, as we have many similar interests, so it’s been a lot of fun to get to know his extended group of friends. The family of one of them, Andy, has a farm property just outside of Melbourne. For the last few years he’s been holding a private rave on the top of a large hill—dozens of people, professional sound equipment, and a non-stop line of DJs playing sets all night.

Being the hight of summer the weather at night is often perfect for an outdoor party, however, on New Year’s Eve it got a little extreme. With the daytime temperature rising above 45° C, the humidity at almost zero and a strong southerly wind it was like standing in front of a giant hair dryer. By the time I arrived at the site I was already feeling sick from dehydration and not in the best of party moods. Good thing I had come prepared with a multi stage plan.
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It’s amazing how much a shower, a few hours sleep and a change of clothes can transform your view of the world. As I walked out of my hostel into the fetid air of Bangkok the horrors of the preceding day seemed a distant memory.

Before I could sit down with some breakfast and a Chang beer and make plans for the two days I had in Bangkok I needed to change some money. After having paid a small fortune for significantly overstaying my Laos visa I had a grand total of 200,000 kip (about US$20) in my wallet. Once again, however, I was to be fucked over by Lonely Planet. Nowhere in their guide book to Lao does it mention that kip cannot be changed outside of the country. Hardly a small omission when apparently this has always been the case. Realising that the only remaining money I had left was useless, I went to an ATM to withdraw some Thai baht, but this was not to be my week.

In the last year I’ve travelled through seven countries and used eight currencies but never had I been in the situation of the day before—being caught without friend or money—yet here I was facing it all over again. My withdrawal was declined.
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I arrived back in Vientiane on Saturday afternoon, en route to Bangkok, and checked into the first available hostel. Feeling pretty tired after another long cramped bus ride I rested in my room for a couple of hours before heading out to grab some dinner.

It wasn’t until after 8:00 pm that I realised that the money I’d withdrawn in Luang Prabang wasn’t going to cover my 10 hour bus ticket to Bangkok. With enough money left to indulge myself for dinner I grabbed a pizza and a couple of pints of beer at a restaurant I’d been to previously. When I’d finished I went straight back to my hostel and fell asleep almost immediately.

I woke in the early hours of the morning feeling rather nauseous. As I lay in bed contemplating getting up I farted and shat my pants. Jumping out of bed I dashed into the en suite just in time to vomit in the sink. As I sat sideways on the toilet with my head in the adjacent basin, violently erupting from both ends, I reassessed my earlier complaint that the bathroom was too small for comfort.
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After an uncomfortable bus ride through the mountains of northern Laos I finally arrived in Luang Prabang. The city itself is one of the most beautiful in South East Asia, with an intriguing mix of French and Buddhist architecture.

Having spent the whole day on the bus I managed to find a hostel before it got dark, dropped off my bag, and went for a walk to find dinner.

Due to the disaster of my last Indian meal I still had a craving for curry, so I decided to give it another go. At the Indian restaurant I ran into a few other travellers, including a Kiwi guy called Jessie.
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For those of you who’ve not spoken to me directly in the last month I have some big news… I’m finally going home!

After a two week visit to China that eventuated into 10 months, I have finally left. Presently I am in Luang Prabang, in the north of Laos, but I will be heading across the border into Thailand within a week, to fly home to Melbourne.

The last 10 months have been the happiest time of my life and I owe a great debt to all of those who helped me along the way.

For those of you who were with me from the beginning, were it not for the friendship and support that you all provided I would never have stayed in China and I would not be the person I am today. I cannot thank you all enough!
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Van Vieng is a tiny rural town, essentially comprised of two intersecting streets and an adjacent ‘highway’. Yet for those who have been there, it holds an almost mythical status. Secluded from the world, on the edge of a slow meandering river, at the foot of sheer limestone karsts, and surrounded by jungle, the setting could not be more perfect for the town’s two main attractions—tubing and drugs.

DAY 1

Arriving in town after sundown I checked into a random hotel that a guy on the bus, Scott, had recommended. He’d been staying in Van Vieng for several days, and after leaving in the morning to go to Vientiane had stayed for a total of four hours before heading straight back. As I was soon to learn, this town is hard to escape…

After dropping my stuff off in my room a group of us who’d met on the bus sat down for some dinner in a restaurant recommended by Scott. As he filled us all in on the great fun he’d been having here, the suggestion soon arose to relocate to the local drug café—where opium, marijuana and magic mushrooms are all on the menu.
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After somehow managing to get to Kunming in time for my international departure I arrived in Vientiane, the capital of the Laos PDR, a delirious and emotional mess. After changing some money at that airport I got a taxi into town and checked into the cheapest hostel in the Lonely Planet.

I’d been warned by several people that Vientiane was a boring place, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the crappiest capital city in the world. That’s not to say that Vientiane is polluted or crime riddled, but rather that there’s absolutely nothing at all to do or see.

When you walk around it seems as if not a single building in the city rises over three stories. Businesses open late and close early, with many also closing for a long lunch break. This makes the pace of life delightfully slow, however, it gets to be incredibly boring after a couple of days.

I’d not have stayed as long as I did, however, it took me five days of pot smoking and bed rest to recover from my sleep deprivation.

As soon as I felt up to travelling again I was on a bus, heading north, to Van Vieng…

In an earlier post I said I couldn’t imagine having a wilder week in Chengdu without someone’s death… the past week has shown me that my body is capable of anything my imagination can throw at it.

The realisation of an intense and prolonged drug bender is not an easy task. Admittedly any fool can go out and recklessly take a whole bunch of drugs, however, the trick to a sustainable bender lies in moderation, variety, and a knowledge of how your poisons interact. If you persist in the consumption of just one drug then you will soon find yourself either burnt out or requiring medical attention.

This week was a long time coming. Indeed, the only reason I’d come back to Chengdu was so I could spend one last week with my friends before J and I left China, to return to our respective homes. As such I’d made a concerted effort to ensure we were well and truly stocked.

Have a plan and stick to it.
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After boarding the afternoon train to Kunming I collapsed into a deep slumber–not surprising considering I’d been up all night. When I awoke I found it was the middle of the night and everyone else on the train was asleep. Having come down from all the pot and ecstasy I also found myself desperately horny. After waking Betty she quite readily joined me on my hard-sleeper top bunk for a quickie, with 58 other Chinese people asleep in the carriage!

Towards the end things started to get a little noisy, however, the Chinese shy away from any form of direct confrontation, so anyone who was woken by our activities politely made no indication.

We spent our first day in Kunming doing fairly mundane things, like organising my visa and flight ticket to Laos, as there seemed little to do in the city–in actuality we spent a lot of time being indiscreet in our dormitory.
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