Laos

We entered Laos, Vientiane, in good spirits and our first night was spent in a wonderful hotel. My stomach was still a bit off, but we had a tastey meal comprised of local fare, and spent the rest of the evening reading books, as we were exhausted. Laos is very much like Thailand on valium, similar cultural feel but much less hectic, I would even describe it as sleepy. The next day we obtained visas for our forthcoming entry into Vietnam, and then found a wicked awesome bakery/coffee shop and enjoyed the delight of true european pastries for the first time in what seemed like forever, and Anita read 1984 while I read metaphysics. A subdued day to match the atmosphere. Theres really not much to do other than that in Vientiane.

After the Vientiane experience we were off on a 5 hour ride to Veng Viang on a cramped tour bus, not fun, but have honed our zen travel meditation to an art in the previous months, making this an easyish trip.

Wow, this town was something out of the twilight zone, but in a good way. It had the same laid back feeling of Vientiane, but WAY more restaurants, cafes, bars and other places. There was one common thread that tied all these tourist venues together; Friends. I don't mean people you have bonded with and love, I mean the t.v. show. Thats right, pretty much every place in Veng Viang had episodes of friends blaring at maximum volume from multiple tv screens. Scores of tourists were layed out on cushions sipping beer or coffee and silently taking in the 90s sitcom. No idea how this started, or caught on, but it sure enough it is the norm there.

One extremely fun thing to do in this town is to go tubing. There is a calm river that runs along side the town that had beautiful views of a mountain coming out of a forest on the otherside. Tourists started taking an inner-tube from 7km upstream and float calmly back into the town over the next 2 hours, usually drinking from beer cans kept cold from being in a net in the river. At some point a local came up with the great idea of building an open roof bamboo bar on the riverside with a platform and zip line that extended into the river, to people could get boozed up and jump into the river from up high. Then another bar was built further down the river with another zipline jump. Then another. And another, etc...

So we went tubing and had a great time. We had a few beer, but we didn't do any of the zip line jumps, even though the river was deep, because we had heard of accidental deaths from previous years. So we floated sublimely down the river, carried by the current, occassionally becoming clustered with a few other tubers for short conversations but largely it was just the two of us. It was an excellent way to spend the afternoon once we had learned how to relieve ourselves in the river by dipping slightly lower in the tube. One of the highlights of our vacation so far (the tubing, not the urinating in the river specifically). After some Friends watching from a hammock in a bamboo hut, we hit the sack and prepared for the following day's travels to Luang Prabang (a 5 hour bus ride).

Luang Prabang is a UNESCO world heritage sight, so there are a few special qualities in this town. One of them is a 12:00 curfew, which is fine by me, since I have regularly been getting up at around 8:30 am for the first time in my life anyway. It makes it a wonderful sleep experience when there are no noisy vehicles and honking which is so characteristic in other parts of Asia. Again, in true Laos fashion, Luang Prabang is a relaxed, slow pace kind of town. Once in the city, no transportation is need beyond your own two feet. One of the cool things about the temples here is that they all have gleeming carvings of Nagas (river spirits, serpents) as hand rails for the staircases. The temple landscaping was beautiful and the silver and gold nagas just added to it.

One night we had a wonderful meal of water buffalo BBQ. It is similar to the Japanese/Korean Shabu-Shabu with a few quirks. A gently sloped conical metal "hat" is placed over some open flames. The edges of the cone flatten out for a few inches and then raise to house a moat of broth that surrounds the rest of the sloped cone. Chili, garlic, noodles, and various vegetables are placed in the broth and the water buffalo meat (very lean, chewy, and delicious) is placed on the slopes of the cone itself. There was a tamarind sauce to dip the BBQed meat in. It was delicious and probably the healthiest meal we had eaten on our whole trip. Other than relaxing and enjoying food and literature, we did very little in Luang Prabang.

One unusual thing that happened was waking up at 4:00 am to a man singing "I just called to say I love you" over and over again. Not the whole song mind you, just that one line. Over and over again. It sounded like it was coming from the floor above us. He may have been drunk, heart sick, or just crazy. It lasted for about 5 minutes, perhaps longer thant he song itself.