(all pictures to come--these computers and this program prove to be too unreliable a combination)

Luang Prabang, the four thousand islands in the Mekong near the Laos Cambodian Border, and now Siem Reap.

Luang Prabang was cool; a relaxed town we toured with an Irish guy who was a little off his bicycle. He hadn't talked to many people, traveling as overland as possible through the middle east to Asia over the past 8 months, and exploded seemingly, as we drank beer in a little noodle joint just outside the old town. He had a shaved head and an 18 inch braided beard that kids in Nepal chased him yelling out the name of some goats hair for. He was a gregarious guy and got drunk on one beer more than we drank: we're sitting there drinking big beers but only two and he drinks one quicker and manages to get down three and he's singing Kevin Barry, though he hates the revolutionary songs he says. The town has many monks, many monks and goes to bed early, nothing really being open past 10 or 11. We find the Hive, a bar that pleased neither Traci nor I, because it's the only thing open. It's full of western white people and pumping music that is just short of obnoxious. Everyone's drunk and the overheard conversation is discouraging deep to the soul, but we buy expensive--relatively speaking--beer decide to leave afterwards. This dude, Alex, is drinking Smirnoff straight from the bottle--to which he periodically adds 7up--and plain jaded looking. I try to make the inane small talk--do my part to participate in the soul-discouraging conversation--and yeah it's small. Then, I forget the lead up, he yells at Traci, saying she came there to see all the foreign people, that's she full of shit when she says otherwise.

We don't take this well. We argue and make fun of the guy--he was there before us and had obviously been there awhile--and have a good time at it. He asks me about eating and I tell him his best bet is street meat. Immediately he's trying to get me to go with him, standing up and falling over chairs and tables. He no longer trusts me to help him up and stumbles off to some group that cheered his fall. Traci and I leave.

We ride bikes around the city, it's quite nice. Relaxing and provincial, tons of monks in bright robes everywhere you turn. I went to a waterfall without Traci--she wasn't feeling well--and did a twisting sloppy flip off this 5m waterfall.




It was nice that I didn't hurt myself.

Bus ride to Vientiane--long windy vertiginous roads made this 10 hours of hell for some. The little monk boy was nodding his head to the music at the beginning, but was soon hunched over, his father's hand on his back, vomitting and remained so until he got off.


Vientiane to Pakse--not seemingly as long despite the assseats at the back of the bus we shared with these rich dudes fighting over a blanket or laughing at the Mac laptop one of them brought. They fed us. Then stopped the bus and threw the trash out the side door.

We took another bus to Si Phan Don, one that stopped to wait an hour for to fat backpackers who wouldn't pay the 50 cents or a buck for the few mile tuk tuk ride to the main road. Dudes didn't give nor receive any smiles.

But we're smiling anyway, as soon as we reached Don Det. 3$ a night accomodations, 2$ meals 1$ beers etc. We crisscrossed the two islands Don Det and Don Khone on bikes under a burning sun, sweaty hot and happy. Drinking beers where we wanted watching the Mekong thunder over rapids or shelter water buffalo from the myriads of bugs plagueing them.

The not so smiley was the funeral. The day we got there we were walking to rent a bike and saw this truck being offloaded onto the island. Imagine Huck Finn with a Korean-make truck on his raft pulling into some hillbilly river town and you got the scene. It was a spectacle. Everybody watching and engrossed. We returned our bikes and found a congregation by the loading area (I can't call a slope of dirt a dock) a woman wailing, and men sitting around a fire. We passed again and no wailing but we saw the little girl on a platform by the fire. We thought this was maybe some elaborate ritual to break a fever. She didn't seem dead. We found out later that the two year old girl fell in the river and was lost for 30 minutes or so. They tried to revive her; westerners tried CPR but the family refused. She'd been under too long. So the family was drinking and trying to carry on like normal. We learned the severity of the situation over drinks at the Monkey Bar, which earns it's moniker from the chained up monkey out back that towards the end of the night tormented us by bouncing around, jangling it's short chain. It was almost closing time--the time when the generators on the island stop running and everything goes black, sort of like a horror movie except with more Australians than monsters--and this guy Floyd had a bottle of Lao Lao to drink. Lao Lao, for the uninitiated, is vile shit. Traci and I were anything but initiates. We thought we were tough with the soju, but were proved terribly terribly wrong. The stuff is brewed at home nad comes 50 cents for a 10 ounce (sprite) bottle. Floyd wanted to play quarters and after Traci was suckered in by a crunk Australian named Abbey, I wasn't far behind. I did well, until Abbey started cursing my name and telling her boyfriend that he was going to have to hold her hair and I held up took pity and lost my groove. Then Traci started sinking them, inadvertantly, we were a team, and it was nasty. Finally, lights went out, things got weird and we had to go. We had to walk straight through the funeral, which we now knew was a funeral, and things got a little weirder. Traci asked what we could do. Guy-named-Andy said sit down and drink. And so we did, the group of Laos, one of whom spoke English, Andy and us. They fed us more of that vile nasty petulant liquid. We learned the details, sad and sat awhile trying to carry on with the folks. When the father left we did. It was only too soon . We'd each smoked two cigarettes, and we don't smoke.