Luang Prabang - Vientiane

Luang Prabang has truly the strangest night life I've encountered so far. Of course we had to go to a country that was officially communistic to find someone with stranger/stricter alcohol laws than Norway. At eleven o'clock the bars in town close and everybody has to take a tuktuk to a night club ten minutes away. James tried to fake an irish-foot-lock to stay ten minutes longer. The club is cool, but for some reason there are barrel tables everywhere, also on the dance floor. This last another hour and then everybody gets thrown out. Where to go? You guessed right, the bowling alley. This is no night bowling, disco bowling or bowling where you get porn on your screen when you get a strike. It's just a regular bowling alley that sells booze and is full of drunken, white monkeys. We went there three times... We also went to a fare in the middle of nowhere. It was out of a horror movie where we were the only guests. We got to shoot with some soft guns and drie bumper cars.

Our group slowly started to split up. Anne was the first to leave for the south. Then Amir headed off to Hanoi. Chris left two days later for the south of Thailand after having missed his first flight due to sleeping. Darlene takes no responisbility. Marie and Lotte also departed. And then One-arm left us. Left were Darlene, James and I. I went bicycling by myself a couple of days and had a tremendous time going through the villages in the outskirts. The people were cheering me like it was tour de France. At one point I stopped outside a school beause all the kids came running to the fence screaming "Sabadee". I replied and they were ecstatic. Laughing and running around me while I took some photos, the kids seemed to have fun seeing a white guy. I remembered I had some Norwegian stickers in my bag and I started handing them out. The kids stumbled over eachother to get them and used them as tattoos in the face. I took a picture of them after my little embassador job and continued my journey to the waterfalls. On my way back I stopped at a random family that seemed to run some kind of local restaurant. At least I ended up eating noodle soup and sticky rice in the living room with the man of the house while the kids were watching the TV. Best soup I've had and it cost me 10 000 kip, rice included. Darlene, James and I went on a last bike trip together and ended up at family's place, eating their fruits and rice. Such parasites we are.

Darlene and I left James in LP and headed for Vang Vieng. The toyota hiace that picked us up was already full, so we sat on the floor and sides inside. It was tight. Luckily it only lasted to the bus station. There we got into another slightly less crowded bus and headed down the curvy roads to VV. It felt like eternity, but we finally got there and checked in at an ok guest house. I liked the owner, Darlene didnt. He was sexist hehe... Vang Vieng is probably the strangest place we've seen. A mixture of nice limestone hills, much like Yangshuo in China, mekong river, shady bars and cafes playing reruns of Friends the entire day. In the river you can go tubing, that is sitting in a tube from the wheel of a tractor, and follow the current of the river. There are multiple bars down the river and they fish you out of the water and give you shots. It was all fun, but too much of Sisqo's shakedown for me. Felt kind of out of place. Lotte was with us again with a young Aussie. We had a nice day together.

Darlene and I went bicycling and hiking around the town. We checked out some interesting caves. Outside one of them we found a cool jew that went in with us. We walked around inside and it was really cool but slightly claustrofobic. Safely outside we went all three on Nir's scooter. It was fun and painful on the dirt roads back to town. The suspension on the bike got some exercise that day. He dropped us off just out of town and we walked the last part. My stomach has been fighting me the last day and during this little walk I had an emergency. Luckily there was a kind of beer garden/guest house there and I ran into it. Turned out it was a maze, but right before touching cloth turned into filling up cloth, I found a toilet and punished it. Meanwhile the owner of the place sent Darlene a small comment, question her IQ since she didn't walk on the boards into the guest house. The sement under it was "wet", but I didn't see anything either since it was quite dark. Darlene, having been fed nice truths about men from me and sexist approaches from our own guest house owner, got the little extra she needed from this guy and she exploded! Full of wrath and fury she ran in wanted to put him in his place! Telling people passing by that his place was shitty and they shouldn't eat there! Leaving the place with an insult that would make a pirate shiver: "I hope your food is bad and you get diarrhea!". While waiting for me outside, still steaming, she admitted to me she wished she'd done a better job insulting him. Leaving the whole place while screaming "An apology would be in order!", I felt more like running than walking. But it made the evening complete and I was laughing and Darlene was not :D

After alot of fun in VV it was time to leave. We went down to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Darlene left immideately with the train and I spent my last kip in the capital on food and spent the evening online fixing a place to stay in Bangkok. When I got back to my guest house I was pleased to see that I still got connection to the cafe's internet. Lying down on my bed, I had a hunch something was wrong and checked under the pillow. My bed was full of ants. I went down and the guy seemed pissed off and bothered and was complaining to himself all the time while changing sheets, like that would solve the problem. The ants were still there and I slept with the lights on and stayed in the other side of the bed. In the morning I tried to get a refund and the guy went mental. Standing there with this crazy guy, acting like a monkey with rabies, I got slightly scared in the end and gave him the key and left. A bad case of ADHD there. Since I left the place 7 in the morning I had alot of time and walked to the airport. Next up: Bangkok again.

Photos:

https://picasaweb.google.com/111895625193387647956/20111130ChiangMaiLastPhotos?authkey=Gv1sRgCPvhnJfSvJHcsAE

https://picasaweb.google.com/111895625193387647956/20111204ChiangKongLuangPrabangBirthdayAndParty?authkey=Gv1sRgCMmOy7PjyezQxAE

https://picasaweb.google.com/111895625193387647956/20111205SlowboatAndLuangPrabang?authkey=Gv1sRgCPjdpt2jmvDzSQ

https://picasaweb.google.com/111895625193387647956/20111212LuangPrabangPartyKamera?authkey=Gv1sRgCKe6wf_FlYK85gE

https://picasaweb.google.com/111895625193387647956/20111209LuangPrabang?authkey=Gv1sRgCN-snOWYiO7cew

https://picasaweb.google.com/111895625193387647956/20111214LuangPrabangVientiane?authkey=Gv1sRgCPfns-XWz5PuSQ