We finished up the end of our brief visit to Laos and made a beeline for Bangkok via an overnight bus. Leaving quiet Vientiene and waking up on Khao San Road is much like opening the door to your black and white farmhouse and finding Technicolor munchkins running around outside.

We didn't properly appreciate how quiet and charming Luang Prabang was until we arrived in Vang Vieng in Laos. Coming from China, anytime we'd see more than three white faces together it seemed like a mad tourist rush and therefore LP seemed quite "touristy" to us. It would seem that you lose all perspective for these sorts of things when you start a trip in somewhere other than Thailand -- backpacker central.

Our guidebooks described little Vang Vieng as being "backpacker friendly" and "a retreat from the road." Well, that's true I guess, but I think the Lao people were less tiring than hordes of dreadlocked, white guys in baggy pants drinking massive amounts of Beer Lao while watching the latest American flick, on a pirated VCD of course, at a backpacker restaurant. Vang Vieng consists of about four rough streets and alternates between identical guesthouses, travel agencies booking kayaking trips and restaurants that serve pizza and show movies all day long. Now, I can't say that we didn't enjoy this to an extent, but since we had already had a nice rest in Luang Prabang after China, we weren't too into the scene. Of course, we still indulged in a movie or two. It's about the only thing to do in town when its pouring rain and all outdoor activities are out of the question. We decided to only stay in Vang Vieng two nights before moving on to Vientiene, the capital of Laos.

One interesting moment in Vang Vieng -- we met Jumbo, the world's largest gecko. We've grown used to the geckos that live everywhere around here. Our rooms, particularly in Laos, usually come with several gecko roommates at night. They scurry around and eat bugs off the walls or ceilings. They rarely walk on the ground and there's not much fear of stepping on one. Overall, they're kind of cute. Coming back to our room one night we had the gecko encounter to end all gecko encounters. Per the norm, our room was on the top floor of the guesthouse and accessed via a long hallway. At night this hallway was much like the scene in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" where Kate Capshaw has to walk the path with all the giant insects. Replace the insects with three inch long geckos and you get the picture. We came to our door and right in the middle of it stood Jumbo, all eight inches of him. If I remember correctly, he was smoking a cigarette and when he saw us he threw it down and growled something like, "What the hell you lookin' at?" in a heavy Brooklyn accent. A minor scuffle ensued, but we eventually got inside. And people laughed when we packed that tranquilizer gun.

Anyway...on to Vientiene. We'd heard countless times that there just wasn't anything to do in the capital of Laos. We were determined to prove otherwise. Try as we might, there is some truth to that whole boring angle. Still, it does have a certain charm and we did a little souvenir shopping. I bought an antique compass that was probably made in Hong Kong last week and Jennifer got a handmade scarf that probably came from the Walmart sweatshop down the street. Determined to have at least one memorable adventure, we decided to seek out the patron saint of Laos. No, not that silly golden temple. We were going to the Beerlao Brewery 12 kilometers outside of town.

We flagged a local tuk tuk driver and basically made him understand where we wanted to go. Even after he understood, he stared at us rather blankly because he couldn't understand why we'd want to go there. Of course, we didn't exactly know what we'd do when we arrived either, but we were winging it and he was happy to take his $4 from us, knowing full well we'd need him to get back and therefore another $4. After a long, dustry ride through neighborhoods that 90% of the backpacker crowd probably never sees, we arrived at the brewery. It was easily marked by the giant yellow street signs warning: "Caution! Beerlao truck crossing!"

We got out of the tuk tuk at the guardbooth and our driver gave us a "Now what, dumbass?" sort of look. We stood and stared at the brewery realizing we hadn't quite thought this through. In order to help us our driver went and spoke to the guard.

"These stupid Americans asked me to bring them here. I don't know why."

"Wow...that is stupid. Did Lonely Planet tell them to do this?"

"I don't know. What do we do now?"

"Beats me. Send them to the office."

And with that we were waved toward an office that said "Welcome" above the door. We went in and found a secretary sort packing up to go home. We stood rather stupidly and indicated that we wanted beer. She said that there was no restaurant. We continued to stand and look stupid. She said hold on and disappeared for a few minutes. When she returned she handed us each a promotional booklet about the brewery and told us that they were just closing. If we'd been here about 15 minutes earlier we could have had a tour. Just our luck.

We went out to find our tuk tuk driver still waiting, clearly expecting things to go pretty much like this. We paid him another $4 and he took us back to town. It was, at least, a minor adventure and we made our driver's day as he probably made a day's salary in an hour off two silly Americans.

Laos is a fascinating country and everyone should try to learn more about it, particularly Americans who may not realize the rather shady dealings we have been involved with there in the last 40 years. Laos is the most bombed country in the history of the world and people continue to die every day from unexploded ordinance (UXO's) that lie abandoned in fields. Most of these deaths are children simply out playing. Many of the bombs dropped on Laos were from American planes during the Vietnam war, a war which Laos was not officially a part of but was still damaged by both sides. American pilots under orders not to come back from their Vietnamese bombing runs with any ammunition still left, would drop the rest of their payload at random on the Lao countryside. Despite this difficult history, it is a country of smiles and friendly people.

Apparently, I have more to say then I thought so stay tuned for our triumphant arrival in Bangkok.

To be continued...