Vang Vieng, Laos

So as it turns out, I stumbled into another lost backpacker hideaway in the middle of some random country, only this one hasn't been shut down or overgrown yet. There might be two paved roads in the city, leaving the rest of the place looking like a dusty wild-west movie set among towering cliffs on all sides. The river fans out a bit along the side of the town, and forms an island that's about half a mile long and 500 feet wide. This island, which is only accessible by a creaky narrow bamboo bridge, has been totally taken over by foreigners. There are a half dozen large bars, each surrounded by bamboo thatch huts (with no walls) filled with pillows and mats. Each bar area has a large campfire or two that burns through sunrise, one of which is set in the middle of a bamboo patch with another dozen hammocks strung up on the bamboo. Another bar has a line of huts along the riverside with a string of floating lamps out in the water. Not only can you order opium tea and mushroom shakes, but on our last day when we were eating lunch at this place, the Lao owner gave us a joint for absolutely no reason other than because nobody saw him do it. It sounds like it's a particularly Lao mentality to be happy by making someone else happy. Lao people in Thailand behaved the same way.

While looking for a place to stay on our first day in, we walked by a group of Lao teenagers drinking outside and singing along with Thai music. They, drunk, motioned us over to come drink with them. My group (three other people) were tired and needed to get rid of their packs, so I told the Lao group I'd come back later. Later, I couldn't convince anybody else to come so I just went back to see them on my own, armed with a half case of beer. It's really wierd what these cultures take of modern technology: they don't have many computers or TVs, but for some reason I've almost never seen a stereo system without the attached karaoke component. I mean, these kids brought out a huge speaker and an old, dusty sound system, but they also brought a TV to watch the video feed of their music, which was all in VCD Karaoke format. So we get really drunk in the heat of the afternoon while screaming to the Karaoke English transliteration of Thai songs. One of the guys was Vietnamese, whose dad had fought in with the VietKong, and when I met him he was wearing a US Army camo jacket and had bleached blond hair. That way I spent only 3 minutes of the obligatory 7 minutes apologizing for what my country has done to his. I hang out with these guys for the next few days, until it becomes too obvious that one of them only wanted to get into my pants. Still, in the meantime they took me to the big Lao club in Vang Vieng and requested a song on my behalf. A few minutes later, the DJ announced the next song for "Mr. Andloo" and put on the Britney Spears, which I had no choice but to pretend to really dig, since the guys were so excited about finding an American song for me.

As I'm writing this in the internet cafe, there's a russian lady screaming into a phone inside her "sound proof" phonebooth that sounds to amplify her abnoxiousness.

Anyway, New Year's was spent walking from campfire to campfire among the blacklight neon red and green painted bamboo dens on the island. Fun stuff, though nobody had a watch so there was no countdown. I started one anyway, and everybody went along with it so I guess I was close enough.

Oh yeah, on the two day riverboat trip to Luang Prabang (first stop in Laos), the boat would stop every half hour or so to load or unload some rice for the villagers, and a few poor looking village kids would run to the shore to wave at us. One of these kids, who was about 7 years old and looked extremely bored, not waving and just picking his nose because he probably had no idea why everybody just ran to shore, probably from some village that has never seen 24 hour electricity, had on a bright blue shirt with the words "PUNK'S NOT DEAD." Now that's punk.

We're now in the capital, Ventiane (named that way because the French didn't want to pronounce Wien Chan, seriously), to get our Cambodia visas, use the mail, get some books and relax in a European atmosphere. The whole place stinks of French. Cafes, wine stores, overpriced meals, there's even an Arc Du Triumph lookalike here. But it's a nice place to do some chores before heading off to nowhere. Tonight we take the 12-hour bus ride to the south of Laos, to someplace called the Four Thousand Islands, where there's no electricity after 8. Then through Cambodia into Vietnam. I'm going to love or hate candles by the end of it.