Merry Christmas From On the Road

I’m writing this on the 4000 Islands in southern Laos. It must be one of those backpacking catch-22s that where there’s fast Wi-Fi, you’ll be too busy doing non-computery things, and where things are a little slower and you actually want to be reliably connected, the Internet is for shit. That, plus a little…encounter that I might write about presently, explains the delay in uploading blog posts about my travels.

Christmas screeched up on me this year. There has been a decided lack of three things in my life that I associate with the advent of this holiday: cold weather, friends and family, and Christmas songs and decorations everywhere. In all likelihood this day will be much like others for me, and so I leave you with this picture of my relaxation buddy and I:

She found me yesterday as I lunched overlooking the Mekong River. The island has lots of endearing stray animals, but for some reason all the cats here are born with stubby tails or no tail at all. Stray cats always drive home the realization that my cats have all been outrageously fat. I mean, look at this:

And this:

Happy Holidays! Until next time.