Certa Fied Sleep

I'm cured! My back has been flawless since arriving in Asia. I even carried Levi on my shoulders for most of a day with a 70 lbs pack and live to tell the tale. Although I spent the last few weeks in Canada visiting a chiropractor for the very first time, I've now learned that all I really needed was a concrete floor and a bamboo mat. Cheap!

You see, the beds here are nothing like our super-duper, really cushy, pillow top, deluxe feather tick covered beds back home. In fact, I've yet to see a single bed skirt! I'm sure that there is accommodation way outside our budget that might compare to Lana's luscious, lump of mattress heaven back home - but we're not about to break the backpackers' code of conduct. In fact we can honestly say that we have superseded the code. Where a typical backpacker has a single bed, we most often will be sharing. You see, a double room, or even a triple is always made up of single beds. Usually Levi and I are in one bed with one girl on the floor and the other with Lana. What can I say- Asia is a cozy place.

The salient features of a mattress here has nothing to do with a certification from the North American Chiropractic Association, or how bowling balls dropped from a height will not wake up your partner. Here it's more about a conspicuous lack of bugs, stains and prominent lumps or protruding springs. You are also looking for it to be level. My current bed has a box spring that is broken in the very middle, where it rests on the floor.

The honest truth is that I am worried that I'll return to Canada, to my expensive mattress with it's 800 count sheets and be crippled by it. I'm seriously considering a nice piece of plywood - Canadian maple likely. A nice hard surface to keep my back in line and my sleeping sound.

Greg