Laos

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IT has been another eventful week for me here as the good times continue to fly on by. To start is off my roommate Brad and I went and played soccer with some of the Thai kids who are studying English at the same school as us. While I was just struggling to keep up we somehow managed to win four of the five games we played so I will have to go play again this week. After soccer, we went out to pizza with our teammates and their friends. Thai pizza can get quite strange we found out with toppings ranging from squid and shrimp to pineapple and corn. The oddest thing however has to be the hotdog stuffed crust. The salad bar was also quite a spectacle to behold because they only give you a small bowl and you only get to fill it once four of the Thai girls took about fifteen minutes making a salad and came back to the table with the amount of salad on top of the bowl about triple the amount in it.

The next day after another lecture on Buddhism from our teachers partner who had just arrived from California a couple of days previous I headed to Laos. (Ironically, the word for whiskey here is Lao) The first night was spent just across the border in Vientiane. After visiting Wat That Luang, however, we had a hard time finding anything exciting to do so the next morning we headed to Vang Vieng. The bus ride there was one of the few times on this trip where I experienced a little bit of culture shock. We were the only Pharongs (foreigners) on the bus and it took a while to reassure myself that we were on the right bus because there were no English signs anywhere. (Also, there was in chicken on board just behind me).

Three hours later, we were in Vang Vieng. An amazing little tourist enclave on the Nam Song River (which our room overlooked), all of the bars constantly have western shows and movies playing (mostly friends with Family Guy at one). The first day we went rock climbing on the incredible limestone cliffs, where I of course had a mutual friend with one of the other guys we climbed with.

The next day we went tubing down the river, which can only be compared to spring break, scores of white kids drinking and floating down the river. A bar every couple of feet, huge rope swings, volleyball, and even a little zip line. To end the day we went to Smile bar and talked about the day while lying in hammocks.

This morning it was Back to Nong Khai for another week a classes before the Rocket festival next weekend.

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Photos

Wat That Luang
Pretty Much the coolest thing in Vienetiene.

The Victory Tower
also in Vienetiene

Rock Climbing
well, the view from the bottom anyways.

Comments

[Jorge]

The more I read, the more I want to travel again. Thanks for recording and sharing some of your experiences.