noodle quest 2006

this is vang vieng- but probably a few years ago- all of these places are now outdor lounges with lao/thai/western food

we have been in vang vieng the past 2 or 3 nights and it is a really “chill” place. by this i mean it fits every western ideal of “chill” that could hope to be obtained; outdoor lounges cheap “happy” and western food, teas with mroe than leaves in them (i.e. types of psychadelically charged fungi), tubing day trips, and endless episodes of friends and movies beign played everywhere. however, we are feelign a little bit over it. i mean we are in LAOS for freaks sake but it feels like we could be in any backpacker haven in the world. i woke up yesterday morning to the sounds of jimmy buffet’s “margaritaville” and saw two bare chested brit boys in surf shorts and a slutty girl in booty shorts and a cowboy hat walk down the street with the backdrop of these outrageous jagged mountain cliffs and lao women in traditional floor legnth hand embroidered wrap skirts and a cow that was getting in everyones way. it is really a juxtaposiion that we are at this poin all too familiar with and relatively uninterested in. it feels very hard to stray from the toursit paths in this country (i.e. VIP bus from vientaine to vang vieng to luang prabang and out) and we dn’t know if we are really motivated to try as there are other places we feel more inclined to. we both are really anxious to get working and do some volunteer work- all of this lazy privliged backpacker life has become extremely dull and frustrating. so tomorrow we are going to check out this organic farm outside of vang vieng that we have an opportunity to volunteer at. if we like it, we will stay for a week or two and if we don’t we will bounce to luang prabang for a few days than hit up the ploaces we need to get to faster (i.e. northern thailand for massage school, cambodia for work).
jess is on the phone right now extending our tickets and i am super excited but also nervous as after laos jess and i are going to be parting ways for a while. she is goign to head straight to cambodia i think to work at APCA an ngo and i am going to head to northern thailand to attend a two week thai massage licensing course and explroe chaing mai and chaing rai which HOPEFULLY will not feel as tourist packed and lame as laos has so far….
i am on my last day of strep medas and hopefully i have kicked it from my system…
and the journey goes ooooooooooooon!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 at 1:40 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.