Wanderlust Heaven!

Luang Prabang is a hard place to describe or photograph. It’s a little city – large town really – which is surprisingly expansive, and whose charms reveal themselves slowly, street by street. It’s packed full of wats (temples), more than 60, but the true character of the place is best found in the alleys, once dirt paths, now paved, which connect the handful of main streets. It was the ancient capital of Laos, and had its share of ups and downs, including near-abandonment during the mid-1970s. Even today it has an odd feel – an ancient place that was emptied out and left to rot, but then rescued in a sense (in 1995 UNESCO declared it a World Heritage spot) and re-populated, in many cases by ‘outsiders.’

LPB is, I would think, a great honeymoon spot. It has 4-5 top-notch French and Lao restaurants, and scores of nameless little joints with food nearly as good. There are also 4-5 top hotels and resorts offering colonial-style or local ‘royal style’ accoms. The town itself, larger than you’d think, is perfect for strolling around and checking out local handicrafts – which are quite nice. And, just when you, the adoring couple, are starting to get stir crazy from all the luxury, there are lots of ‘eco-tourism’ adventures on offer, including trekking to hill villages and white-water rafting. ‘Eco-tourism’ is a big word around here…and I suppose that’s a positive, although to me the word really means ‘the locals carry the heavy stuff – rafts, etc. – while the tourists promise not to throw their water bottles in the woods or rivers.’ Call me a cynic…

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One final bit of torture remained as I flew to Asia. When I had set up my new laptop and ported over my programs and files, my iTunes library had oddly duplicated every single song of mine – and lacked any sort of de-duping feature. I briefly considered using my long trip back to Asia to manually de-dupe the library…but that would mean deleting 6,500 songs, and I desperately wanted to avoid wasting a single minute on a task so aggravating. Before leaving Boston, I Googled around and found a program called Marketsoft Dupe Eliminator for iTunes. Looked like what I needed, so I forked out the $35 and crossed my fingers.

On the flight, I powered up the program and got it going. Sure enough, it cranked through the library and found all the dead files and dupes based on my stringent criteria (I didn’t want to delete any non-dupes). It then cleaned up the library and I was good as gold. $35 to be free and clear and not waste 24 hours – a real bargain.

Transited through Narita in Tokyo. Near my gate I found a new little sushi/sake outlet – highly Americanized, with California Rolls, Spicy Tuna Rolls, and all that crap – but good basic sushi and sake too. Sated, I boarded my second flight to Bangkok.

Bangkok, as usual, was to be only a quick stop before heading someplace more unusual. In 2006, it was Burma – this year thus far, it had been Cambodia, and was now to be Laos and Vietnam. Landed at 11 p.m. at Suvarnabhumi – again, a long line at Immigration. Welcome to the Land of (Weak) Smiles. Got a cab to Bob’s place of residence, Starry Place, where I had a room for the night. Bob was already in Laos with his girlfriend Kate, waiting for me there and getting his Thai visa extended. I got into my room, dumped my bags, and walked across the street to the infamous Water Bar for a couple slugs and some food. I’d been traveling for 26 hours and while tired, severerly in need of decent refreshment.

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Got into Boston late on Sunday night. Normally I wouldn't care what time I rolled in, but there were a couple complications this time. First, I had to get my rental car from Avis – generally not a ... [Continue reading this entry]