Next up was a sixty kilometer ride on motor scooters. Helmets were provided, but they were half helmets and masks were not provided. Arriving in the town of Taveng dusty, a bit sore, but mostly dusty and dirty. Here we waited for about two hours for the boats to arrive. While waiting I observed a man bailing water out of his completely submerged, red canoe with a three gallon bucket while a little boy tried to help with his half liter water bottle. I said to myself, “gee, I hope that’s not one of our boats.” Well, it was.

Finally the other boat arrived and we all packed in, Danial and I in the leaky one, for the trip up a tributary of the Se San River. I kept my ears plugged most of the time with my fingers as the motor was rather loud and I’m going deaf anyways. Along the way we passed dirt steps cut out of the river bank leading to little wooden houses here and there. We also passed men, women, but mostly children along the river bank and in the river. I waved, but got no reply. Their expressions were inquisitive, but defensively so. The place felt very wild.

A few hours later and after a mechanical mishap where the wooden motor support broke and was nailed back in using a pair of needle nose pliers, we arrived at the village on the river bank. Here an old woman and two or three young girls were washing in the river. They also looked at us quite defensively and left. We then followed the guide up the trail and past this little, rickety fence that spanned all of three feet on either side of the gate.

The village itself consisted of about seven wooden building on stilts of which our “cabin” was by far the most robustly built. Our cabin also happened to be smack dab in the middle of the village. Our guide said that they had wanted to place the cabin on the edge of the village, near the river, but the villagers wouldn’t allow it there, saying that there was a ghost in that area. There were many children walking about and playing, and they all stared at us, but none ever waved back or tried to talk to us, not even when I spoke Khmer to them. A few women were around, but there weren’t any men there that day.

Pretty hot and sweaty, we all headed to the river for a swim. It was quite refreshing in the heat and there were many colorful butterflies fluttering around on the bank. The river here actually got fairly deep for this time of year, up to chest height only twenty feet from the bank. Most places on river/creek are only two feet deep or so. Afterwards we had dinner, cooked by our guide and consisting of rice and a little stir fry with sardines. In the elevated cabin we slept in hammocks printed in US army camouflage with English lettering and many typos.

The next morning we had breakfast consisting of rice and sardines again. There were about four men outside by the open cooking fire with our guide. We were introduced to the village chief and that accounted for our villagers interaction. We then headed back to the wooden canoes with our guide, two boat drivers, and one man from the village who would be our local guide and porter. He carried all of the cans of sardines and several bottles of boiled water. This water was boiled in the same pot as our rice and turned out to be pretty foul tasting, a mixture of rice and heavy smoke.

A short ride later we got dropped off and started our trek in the national park. We would pass these white, mottled, tall trees fairly often and they were the largest and tallest in the area. We happened on one that was a good six to eight feet in diameter and was fairly tall. We also passed around and under a lot of bamboo which, interestingly enough, appears to grow in clumps of about five feet in diameter at the base with the tops flowering out to all sides, sometimes connecting with others to form a canopy of criss crossing bamboo.

We passed some other large trees with a wedge cut into the trunk about two feet wide and obviously burnt in that area. Our guide stated that the villagers do this to cause the tree to excrete resin, which gets collected and is used as lamp fuel. At one point we heard some loud trumpeting and I thought it might have been a wild elephant. But our native guide said it was a deer. We finally ended up at a small pond for lunch, yep, rice and sardines.

At this break spot a medium sized dog showed up and left. Then a puppy of the same coloring showed up and just hung out with us. It seemed to obey our native guide more or less, so the joke was that we had just walked around in a big circle and the village was right around the corner. Too bad my GPS didn’t work to track our route. The puppy would accompany us for the rest of the trip, always underfoot.

After lunch we walked along the Ho Chi Minh trail and up to a pile of rusted machine guns. They looked very old, more like WWII or WWI era than Vietnam War era. There was about four or five larger machine guns, the size of the M2 Browning .50 caliber and a couple of smaller ones. All were piled together in one spot. I picked up one of the smaller ones and immediately one of the bipods broke off. We all took turns posing with it.

Then it was a head down trek to our camp site, next to a creek. It was very hot and humid, and we bathed in the shallow creek which was only two or three inches deep. Dinner by candlelight was of course, rice and sardines. At this point I was getting kind of annoyed at all the rice, but not as much as the others.

The bees here were also quite thick. Usually I let bees alone or just shoo them off. But annoyed at being constantly pestered by these bees and smaller flies I smacked one hard. Usually this stuns it enough that it doesn’t sting me or kills it outright. But not these Khmer bees. With its last breath it stung me, the first time I’ve been stung in a decade. That night I killed about eight and got stung four times. I hit one so hard on my left thumb that my thumb throbbed for ten minutes afterwards. But I don’t think that one stung me.

The next morning we hiked for a few hours after rice and sardines to meet up with the boats again. Along the way we saw a pretty snake with iridescent coloring. Ants were all of the place also. There were some large trees with red flowers and a few other flowering plants. We also went to a small hill that afforded a view of the surrounding jungle that seemed to stretch forever.

After lunch it was back on the boats to drop off our native guide and the puppy, then on to Ta Veng for our sixty kilometer dust ride back to Ban Lung. We were completely covered in red dirt and dust and Danial the Swiss looked at his once light colored shirt and said “this will never be clean again.” I had to agree at the possibility. I’m not going to even try to have it washed here, but just bagged everything until I can get to a proper washing machine with proper washing detergent.

Overall it was good to see the wildest areas of the country where few have gone. I was disappointed at the lack of guidance by our “guide,” but not as disappointed at not finding wild mango trees, banana trees, and coconuts. There actually were not even an coconut or palm trees except for around people’s homes where they were planted.

The only other thing I did was to rent a bicycle to ride out to the “crater” lake five kilometers away. It was nice and clean, but it was overcast that day and the ride out covered me in dust and dirt. I also found the cashew trees, they were everywhere. I picked one off the road and tried to open it up, only to find that it was very oily and soft inside. Perhaps you have to dry them first or this one was not yet ripe. They also had them at the market at fifty cents a kilo, but again, all raw and shelled. And I didn’t even have to borrow money from Joonas, getting to Phnom Penh the next day with three whole dollars left, but very hungry.

On the dirt road to Ban Lung we passed and were passed by a multitude of motor scooters, buses, cars, trucks, and other minivans all in a cloud of fine dust. Then it started to rain! One of the occupants started to yell at the driver in Khmer and then she spoke to another in a language that is completely unlike Khmer, Thai, or Lao. The driver gets out, tells us to get out, and he then takes the luggage from above and places it all in the back seat. Hmmm. I’m sure this isn’t the first time it’s rained here, so where is the damned tarp?!

As it were, we now had the same amount of people to fit in 1/3 less space. In my row there were four adults and three kids. The driver had a young woman also sitting in his seat as he drove. I wanted to pull out my camera, but I didn’t want to look like the usual tourist where such things are a marvel to behold. So we endured for the three and a half hour trip to Ban Lung.

At a guest house later that day I was surprised that things were as expensive as they were there. $5-10 per room and $2-3 per meal item. Not what I was expecting for a poor and remote corner of Cambodia without “proper” banking. They do have a bank, but you can only withdraw money if you have an account, that is, they are not hooked up to the Visa network. I tried to exchange some Thai baht there twice, but gave up after twenty or thirty minutes of waiting each time.  So I had a limited amount of cash to play with.

Walking around is what I usually do my first day or two in a new town. But not here. The dust is so intense and ever present. Every car or truck that goes by blows up a cloud of super fine red dust that hovers for minutes. I remember my track commander telling me about “moon dust” as we were going on a training mission in the California desert. He said it was super fine, if you get in it the vehicle will sink, and if it gets on your clothes you’ll never get it out. Well, I didn’t see any moon dust in California, but I’ve found it here. After lying in bed watching television for a bit, I got up to find that the sheets and pillow were covered in red dust. Blegh.

Later that day I went to the dining area and talked to two gals as they tried to wipe away the red dust from their faces. They had only been there a day or two and were leaving. I then walked over to this viking, young man with blond hair and a beard. Joonas turned out to be a Fin and his hair is actually dyed blond, but he sure did look like my perception of a viking.

Joonas had heard me talking about doing some trekking in the jungle and said he was going the next morning on a three day trek with another person and that I could join them.  After some back and forth with the government agency that runs this trek, I told him I might not have enough money to do the trek and get out of town again. He then offered to loan me some money and that was that.

Fortunately it was only about forty-five minutes after crossing a pontoon motorcycle barge to the real minivan that would be taking me somewhere. This barge consisted of two shady wooden boats with a platform connecting the two and a motor. At the minivan I was joined by ten other tourists going in different directions. About 2/3 were going sight seeing and the rest into Cambodia. We dropped off the sight seers  while those of us crossing the border got stamped out of Lao for a one dollar administrative fee. Funny thing is I’m sure a couple I talked to who got on the boat to sight see also said they were supposed to go to Cambodia. Well, they didn’t with the rest of us.

We then switched minivans again, getting into one that pulled up with people coming from Cambodia. At the real border we all got our stamps for another one dollar fee and off we went. Only about two hours after crossing the border we arrived across the river from Stung Treng and took a ferry across for about ten cents a person. There is also a brand new bridge spanning the river that isn’t open yet. It is of Chinese construction and there is quite the debate about this. The Chinese are building a “super highway” to connect itself with all of South East Asia. My personal opinion is that it cannot be a good thing and I fear that Cambodia’s rapidly depleting natural  resources will only deplete faster with this.

In the minivan I met a trio of European travelers and we all hung out for the rest of the afternoon and evening before breaking up to go our separate ways in the morning. It was a fun group of very nice people, a German, French, Dutch, and me. We exchanged contacts and perhaps will meet again.

In Stung Treng, a sizable city nearest the Lao border, I was made aware of how clean and nice Lao was. Stung Treng like every other city or town in Cambodia is littered with trash. Rotting fruits and vegetables, empty gum wrappers, plastic wraps and empty  potato chip bags litter the streets. I had gotten used to it in my four months in Phnom Penh, but having spent an entire month wandering around, the sight was a bit shocking and disgusting. It really is invisible to the local population who have much more important things to worry about.

The next day I caught the minivan to Sii Phan Don, the Four Thousand Islands in southern Loa, bordering Cambodia. About a third of us got off at Don Khong, the biggest of the many islands. I had decided to stay here as it would be easier to book a bus or van all the way to Cambodia or so I thought. There are also no banks between after Pakse until you get to Kampong Cham, just two or three hours from Phnom Penh. So I didn’t want to have to worry about catching a bus from one place to another, but rather would prefer dealing with one bus for the entire way.

We then took a long tail boat the three minutes to the island, but not before having to listen to a man trying to sell sight seeing services after we had all gotten on the boat and sat down. We were quite the captive audience then. On the other side it was quite calm and quiet, with no taxis or guest house employees mobbing us as we got off the boat. One man asked me if I wanted a room as I was walking with my backpack, but I said I was looking for a cheaper one when he quoted me 60,000 kip. He then told me the name of another one down the street that was cheaper.

Sure enough I walked down that direction, passing a young woman on the way. She then proceeded to turn around and follow me to the guest house. As expected, she worked there and showed me the room for 40,000 kip. There wasn’t another person in the house which consisted of three rooms plus the bathroom and open living room all upstairs. I then asked her for a bicycle as there was a sign saying they rented them here, but her English was as bad as my Lao and I got the point that they didn’t have any.

After dropping off my gear I walked back to the river, all of half a block and found the gal again in front of a store of some kind. She motioned to me and showed me a bicycle that was in dubious shape, but I took it anyways. Well, I should have taken it for a test ride, because aside from having good air pressure, everything else was bent or broken. It was a single speed, the pedals were very bent and wobbly, the wheels rubbed, and the right handle bar plastic had been twisted upside down and was stuck there.

But I still took it through the bumps and pot holes, getting my money’s worth until my wrists started to hurt from the bad angle. I did bike the entire bottom third of the island, probably twenty kilos at a nice leisurely pace. I would have tried to bike the entire island on a better bike, but it occurred to me that because the bike was in such bad repair it caused me to have to bike leisurely.

I ended up on the other side of the island at the biggest town on the island. I had lunch here at a restaurant on the river, looking onto Cambodia. Little boats were constantly going back and forth between the two places, obviously without regard to visas or passports. Afterwards I took the road direct to the first town instead of following the coastline. Here I found three ostriches that looked like they wanted me to shoot them. They all were standing in the shade of individual trees with their beaks open and wings drooping down.  I also saw a great example of housing and life in Lao, a poor wooden house in the middle nowhere with a huge satellite dish.

Back  in town I decide to don my swim trunks and go find a secluded spot to read and swim. I biked the only direction I hadn’t gone, north and after about five kilometers I gave up and turned back. The entire coastline seems to be ringed by houses and farms. I ended back in town at the wat on the coast and walked to the water from there. I walked out halfway to the next little, tiny island, but it was only thigh deep so I decided to just sit and read. Soon after two buffalo swim around the corner and come up near where I am reading. I have them a wide berth and they wandered off, but not before walking right by my bicycle and copy of the Lonely Planet. Perhaps this will be the next cover of LP Lao?

Well, I got back to reading and not five minutes later two kids come up, one little girl about five talking a mile a minute and a boy about the same age. The boy posed for me with flowers on his ears while the girl laughed away. They then jumped in the water with the little girl making funny sounds while looking at me and smiling the entire time. Another five minutes later and three more boys show up. These kids get completely naked and go swimming. Another few minutes and an additional three show up and I give up.

As I was leaving I  noticed dozens of canoes with school kids in them rowing around. I was wondering if they were doing PE and rowing around the island or if they were going home as it was nearing 5pm. I asked later and was told it was the later. I didn’t see any pimped out canoes though, but of course this is a communist country and the school kids are in uniforms.

I rented a motorbike from the guest house, topped off with fuel at the gas station using sign language, and off I went with a bad one page ‘map’ and a general direction of where to go. I had tried out the brakes on all of the six or seven motor scooters they had and picked one that seemed best, the only one with a brake lever that wasn’t bent back due to a previous crash. Well that was a mistake as there was a very noticeable rubbing the entire time. I looked at the chain and it was a rusted mess. I hoped it wouldn’t brake on me and kept speed down to about 40-50kph.

I rode all the way out to Paksong, supposedly the center of the coffee growing area. There were houses all along with trees in the yards, but not being a coffee drinker nor a gardener, I couldn’t say what was a coffee tree and what was not. Paksong is a pretty small town and I stopped and got a bottle of water from a corner stand to some looks. I then went to the market and briefly walked through the stalls of fermented fish in open buckets, bootleg cds with poor photocopied covers, food stalls, and clothing stalls. I really wanted to buy a snack there, but the handling of food with bare hands and the flies kept me away.

I then rode about ten kilometers back to find Tat Fane, the big waterfall in this area. A kilometer off the main road, down a dirt and gravel road led to a little market and then a small parking area with a gate. I paid my five thousand kip and walked past some houses, then to the Tat Fane Resort. I found the lookout and took some pictures of the one hundred twenty meters waterfall almost directly opposite the valley. I started to follow the trail to the right, but decided this would be the absolute wrong way to go to get to the falls as the lip of the canyon rim was in the opposite direction. I walked back to the resort and got some directions.

The trail is unmarked and was in the opposite direction, between one of the houses and the bungalow. I walked it past some crop trees and followed the more worn trail that led in the general direction I wanted to go. Twenty minutes later after descending some steep hills I ended up at the first of the two falls and found a curious tree with all sorts of pods growing up and down it’s trunk and branches. I worked my way to the edge and then decided to head after the bigger of the two falls which shouldn’t be too far away.

Sure enough a short walk later I was at the bigger fall. Curiously I saw a man in his underwear walking away down the creek and disappear. I snapped some quick pictures and went to the fall, getting some good pictures of the valley far below while firmly grasping some young bamboo on the side of the cliff face. The valley below looked incredibly beautiful and pristine. I wish there was a trail down to there, though it would be quite a hike back out. The cliff walls here is nearly ninety degrees straight up and down.

Walking back along the creek I found that the mysterious man in blue briefs was back. I walked towards him, waved, and said ’sabaii dii’ (hello.) This elderly man then got up fro his crouch in the creek and walked up to me with something small in his hand. It was a small snail and he held up his other hand that held a small plastic bag with a few snails in them. I pulled out my camera, asked him if it was OK to take his picture, and took some pics when it was obvious he didn’t object. I thanked him and he went back to lifting rocks off the bottom of the creek in search of more snails. I left him a small tip between his flip flops when he wasn’t looking and left.

Huffing and puffing back up the steep hill, I started day dreaming as usual. Then a voice told me that “hey, you’ve gone too far dummy and you can’t hear the falls anymore even though you should be between the two.” I then retraced my steps almost all the way back and found the cut off that I had missed.

At the first of the two falls again I followed the creek back about a hundred meters to where a small waterfall was. I was pretty hot and sweaty then and thought it would be great to swim here. I had even brought my swim trunks just for such an event. I got into them and found that the water was quite chilly. Then I noticed that the lip of rocks a foot below the surface disappears in an arc around the waterfall and was pitch black beyond. Hmmm. Must be deep I thought.

I picked up a stone and cast it in and it just disappeared. I then picked up a larger one requiring two hands and heaved it over the edge. It disappeared with a splash and bubbles kept coming up to the surface ten seconds later. I didn’t see it and didn’t hear it hit bottom. As it were, I chickened out of swimming in this bottomless pool in the middle of nowhere and just splashed water over myself, took some pictures, and left.

Back at the top I found that three people were harvesting coffee beans along my route back. I said “sabai dii” and they said it in return and looked at me inquisitively. As I walked closer I heard the older man say “barang” which means foreigner. I walked up to them and exchanged greetings again before motioning to my camera and asking if I could take some pictures to which they agreed.

There were three of them, a man and woman in their twenties clothed head to toe to include fingerless gloves, hats, and scarves. The older man was less clothed. The older man then used a stick to pull down the tall branches of the coffee tree, about twenty feet high. One of the other two would then use a stick, hook it onto the branch, stand on it to keep it in place, and go about picking the beans. After a few minutes I thanked them and left.

Along the trail back I saw three young girls picking something along the ground. Though they were quite playful and boisterous, they each had a plastic water bottle to store what ever it was they were looking for. One of them saw me and they all ran up to me. I took a few pictures as they posed and showed it to them to much giggling.

I then rode to the little market and went to the first little house/restaurant with a few tables on the deck. There was a man sitting in front and a little boy in a little stander/roller thingamabob. I ordered the only thing available, Fo, and started to talk with the man, Ling, who spoke English fairly well. He told me that the taller of the trees was Robusta, and the short ones were Arabica. He said it takes about four years for the trees to start producing coffee beans and that they would continue to produce beans for decades. He’s been in this house with a plot of land behind for two years now, so no beans to harvest yet. He also explained that most of the farmers sold their beans to a few of the big companies, but that a few had banded together to export the beans themselves. He also told me his thirteen month old was nicked named “Jimmy Hendrix.” Sure enough, he answered to that name.

In Pakse I donned my backpack, waved off the tuk tuk drivers, and started walking in my flip flops. I saw about a dozen monks receiving alms and made a dash for my camera which was in my little backpack strapped to my big backpack. The photos didn’t turn out too well.

A few blocks later in the morning light my four month old, four thousand riel ($1) flip flops gave up and quit on me. I’m actually amazed they have lasted this long as often as I wear them and as often as I scrub them and catch the little tabs that keep the straps on. So I stopped, dropped them on the ground under a table (perhaps someone with more patience will repair them) and donned my sneakers.

I walked to a few guest houses and finally settled on one just because I was tired of walking around. There was a better, larger one down the road that I had stopped at (Fang by the little bridge) but the lady and I couldn’t communicate and she gave my room to a nice German gal even though I had been waiting there first.

Anyways, waiting for my room to be vacated and cleaned I met Jaime from Homer, Alaska. She’s been traveling for five months all over the world and was looking to do a one day tour of the coffee growing area, the Bolevan plateau. They were short a person for the trip and had I been given a room and showered, I would have gone. As it were they weren’t enough people for that trip so Jaime had to run to find another group before they all left that morning.

Anywho, I don’t recommend the overnight bus as I was pretty tired and ended up sleeping till noon, awaking due to the intense heat radiating from the roof. Walking around town in the noon sun was excruciating, it was HOT! I didn’t realize how good we had it in northern Laos, but the heat here in the south is intense.

But as it were, around 2pm a huge thunderstorm moved in and monsooned on us for over an hour. It’s very nice now, but that won’t last long. And Pakse is a very quiet city, though it is a Sunday. I met a friendly moto driver and some kids shooting slingshots walking around. I really think the problem with northern Lao was that Luang Prabang is a UN listed “World Heritage City” and that had gone to their heads, rubbing me the wrong way. I’ve had quite a good experience with the rest of Lao.

Tomorrow I will either go on the one day tour of the Bolevan Plateau or take a minibus to Si Phan Don, Four Thousand Islands. One day there and I should be on my way back into Khmer Country. Anyone wanting Lao coffee from Lao had better let me know ASAP.

At around 9pm I walked to the park towards the Future Bar and noticed about six to ten policemen stopping vehicles randomly. Some were sent back on their way fairly soon afterwards, but others were there for quite some time. The cops didn’t have any police vehicles, but rather three personal motor scooters. I saw at least two newer trucks just blow by them and the cops made no attempt at chasing them. I didn’t want to get too close so I couldn’t see exactly what was happening between the cops and the drivers. It seemed shady.

I got to the bar at 10 and of course, Marco was nowhere to be found. There were several people there, a few Caucasians,  some non-Laos Asians, and some locals. It’s a pretty small bar with thumping music and no dance floor. I finished my big bottle of Beerlao and left.  On the way back to the guest house before the curfew I kept getting accosted by ladyboys. Who knew there was such a market for them in Laos and that the communist government would be so tolerant.

This morning I checked out of my room and had a nice breakfast at the Scandinavian Bakery  down the road. Then I went for a walk down to the Mekong riverbank. It was a good three hundred meters from the high water bank and the sand here is flecked with golden particles just like in Kratie, Cambodia. So I’m sure now that it’s really not gold that Meggie and I were looking at.

At 7pm tonight I’m off to Pakse.  Hopefully it’ll be a nice bus for as much as I paid for it.

One thing that really brought to my attention the nature of the government here was a story  about a business owned by a Laos and a Westerner. There have been a lot of Chinese planting rubber trees in the north and that was becoming a significant problems for the local farmers. The Laos man then came to Vientiane to make a formal complaint. His wife was then seen in the city some six weeks later and someone asked her why she was here. She explained the story and said her husband was last seen being forced into a white van some weeks prior.

Later that night Marco and I went looking for a local bar. We finally found one after walking around a bit, but Marco was dressed like a slob and they wouldn’t let him in with his tank top. There were also another pair of westerners there trying in vain to get in, one with shorts and the other with flip flops, all no nos. We walked back to the guest house and I got back at 11:20, the door was locked. By law everything is supposed to close by 11:30pm and many of the guest houses lock their doors at midnight. So I waited around with a few others for a few minutes before the night person came down to let us in.

Today I rented a bicycle and went to see the last two sights on my list. First was Patuxai, a Laotian Arc de Triump, but much less impressive. It was built with concrete from the US that was supposed to have been used to build a new airport runway. I went up the four flights of stairs, finding what else, but t-shirts and tourist junk  on the inside for sale. At the top there were some good views of the city.

I then went to Pha That Luang, a rebuilt old temple that is supposedly the most sacred in Laos. Here I found the usual photographers taking pictures of locals for a fee. For the first time though, I saw a man with a photo printer on top of his motorcycle, powered by an external car battery. No more waiting a few hours for the print shop.

I then went to ride around the city, but since I didn’t want to pay the ten cents for a map, I got totally lost. I stopped by a market with huge catfish being chopped up. It was clearly a locals market as I looked for and did not find any Beerlaos t-shirts for sale. I also only saw one westerner there and he wasn’t carrying a camera or backpack. Then I retraced my steps and made my way back to the Mekong for lunch and a siesta. Tonight Marco and I will try again to go to the bar/disco. And tomorrow will be another lazy day before my overnight bus ride to Pakse in southern Laos.

The road from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng is very twisty as it winds its way down the hills and mountains. The hills and mountains here do not have jungle on them as they have all been slashed and burned and have only light vegetation and a patch like appearance. The bus careened down the narrow paved road with the brakes squealing the entire time. It would have been great fun on a motorcycle or in the Batmobile, but on a bus it made me a bit nauseas.

Hours later we made ti to Vang Vieng and dropped off some people. Then it was a rather flat and straight road to Vientienne with the driver honking at everything and passing everyone. At the end of the trip I got on an over priced as usual tuk tuk with a bunch of other people and went the two miles or so to the Mekong River. I met a German gal by the name of Johannah and we walked around block after block looking for some decent and cheap rooms.

Johannah settled for a dirty room in a dirty building for 60,000 kip and I went and took a room at Joe’s guest house for 80,000 kip without a window or bathroom. Joe’s is run by this older, bald gentleman who speaks excellent English (Joe?). The rooms and the place in general is absolutely spic and span and he promised to move me to a single room (I was in a double, the last one available) for 50,000 the next day.

We planned on meeting up for dinner later, but I didn’t see her again. I walked around the river front feeling a little ill and saw some type of French-Laos music show on stage before finding a little restaurant for dinner.

Early today I took out my Lonely Planet guide and went through most of it’s walking tour route in reverse. At the local market everyone kept talking Laos to me and I just smiled. I saw a bunch of gold smiths working their craft with one man using several D cell batteries to electroplate something in a bowl of water.

It’s noon now so I’ll take a little siesta to read and cool off before trekking to a site overlooking a city. I would take a tuk tuk, but they all overcharge, so it’s good old “beat feet” for me. And I haven’t found a really fast computer place with decent computers to upload pictures yet, sorry. Overall though I like the feel of Vientiane. It’s big enough to not get hassled by everyone and with a lot of places to walk to. But I’m surprised housing is as expensive as it is.