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The barmaid asks:

• What are you up to today Kitty?
• Well, again I will look at rice fields surrounded by the mountains and I will observe how the clouds of steam float over the rainforest. Also I plan to listen to cicadas, the croaking of frogs and birds singing.
• Great! And what sounds does your city make?
• In Warsaw, in the summer time, playing children can be heard in the backyards, sometimes you can hear the sound of passing trams, and from my roof in the evenings you can hear the sounds from the nearby Zoo Park*.

Dear Reader, Have you ever wondered how many things and emotions you can experience in just one day? Have you ever felt sensory overload? That’s what Kitty R. feels while travelling; so many things, emotions, details, happening around her all the time! Chiang Mai in Thailand is a great example of that feeling, that’s why instead of writing today, she has decided to present you One Day in this town.

• What did you do today Kitty R.? Do you recommend any attractions?
• Well … I haven’t done anything special. I walked around, I looked, I lied down, I took pictures. Nice day. Attractions. Kitty R. looks at the piles of leaflets in the hostel’s vestibule. Tigers. You can come and take a selfie with them, the price depends on the size, age and color of the tiger. A controversial place, that divides internet society into two opposite groups by the question: do they drug / abuse the tigers there or not?

It is time to part with the Pumpkins; Y. moves to the South (Cambodia), L. heads to the North (China), Kitty R. and Sir Last move to the West (towards Thailand). Warning. Today’s post will strongly sound like a Kitty Coelho thingy, that is, full of philosophical clichés about what a journey means to her. She has promised to write about it, you know… After all Kitty R., does not force anyone to read it; for example, you can immediately jump to the video below and thus tick off the whole thing.

Kitty R. continues the river wandering through Laos, that is, she flows with the Mekong River to another small town - Nong Khiaw. All this is still happening with the good company of Sir Last, Y. and L., constantly wonderful people, with whom time passes lazily, without social compulsions or unnecessary small talk. They call themselves Pumpkins due to the few-day worship of the local homemade pumpkin soup. Sir Last asks the waitress: ‘I’m sorry, the spring rolls in Lao style, what does that mean?

From Vietnam to Laos, the mini bus leaves only once a day. This sentence contains everything, including the fact that on that day from the entire border town of Dien Bien Phu only a few travelers and a few local people are heading to Laos, which suggests that this is not a very popular direction. The minivan moves unhurriedly, stopping here and there, efficiently taking various goods for transport (roof plate, food bags, bucket with something alive), thus filling all available space.

Again Kitty R. and Sir Last travel by vietnamese night train, in which the compartments are made entirely of varnished dark wood, on the table there is a jug with freshly plucked flowers, and blue bathroom flip-flops lie scattered on the floor. The compartment is for 4 people, so Kitty R. and Sir Last are accompanied by two young American women who teach English in one of the Thai schools in the countryside.

Travelling around Southeast Asia is simple and sweetly thoughtless. After landing, most often in Bangkok or Hanoi, the tourist is immediately taken into a spider’s backpacker network, not requiring from him too much thinking or organizing. Town after town, attraction after attraction, thread by thread; offer attack at every step. To get out of this imposed network is probably possible only for lucky motorbike owners or very fierce hitchhikers. A specific travel dress code also seems to be solid here; dresses and trousers predominate in banana and watermelon patterns (Kitty’s favourite couple is the one dressed as a pineapple-couple).

To write that Saigon is crowded for Kitty R. is as writing that the Earth is round; almost everyone knows that. However, for Kitty R. to hear about this is one thing, and to survive it, is another matter. Ho Chi Minh is not a pedestrian city; here are scooters that fill the urban space to the brim; all pavements are completely obstructed by parked mechanical two-wheelers. Kitty R. observes and inevitably participates in the street traffic with a certain fascination; it seems that there is absolute lawlessness here.

Kitty R. and Sir Last have been on their way since long enough to adjust to many Asian innovations, they became their everyday life. High-fives with children as natural as having every day breakfast, tough-refusal-with-a-smile to tuk tuk driver’s offers, chopsticks they could use with covered eyes, and they even started to give names to their room-mates: cockroaches and geckos. In connection with the above, Kitty R. and Sir Last decide to go to Kratie.