Day 120: Vientiane to Pakse

I awoke early in the morning, packed up my stuff and tiptoed out of the dorm room; the Irish/British “couple” were still asleep in the bunk above me, and I had no interest in witnessing round two when they woke up. I figured that since I was stuck in Vientiane for the day, I might as well walk around and check the place out; but when I walked out the front door of the guesthouse, I hit a curtain of rain. Lao weather and I were not getting along.

The rain continued all day, so I spent the ten hours until my bus left restaurant hopping and reading. The great thing about restaurants in the developing world is that you can sit there for as long as you want and no one will say a word; at one restaurant, I ordered less than a dollar’s worth of food and sat there reading for four hours.

Vientiane’s ex-pat scene is surprisingly vibrant—I think due to a number of NGOs headquartered in the city—and as a result the restaurant selection is quite good. I ate breakfast in a western-style coffee shop, lunch at a Thai place, and dinner at a local Lao joint. I shouldn’t have to tell you which meal was best.

While we’re on the subject of food, I should mention that as I travel more and more, there is one thing that continually tickles my fancy: eating. If I never saw another Buddhist temple, I might not be disappointed, but trying different foods never gets old, especially when you can throw in the odd western meal every time you’re in a big city. And eating in the developing world is such a luxury: who needs a supermarket and a stove when you can walk into any restaurant you want and get a meal for one or two dollars? I’m in for a rude awakening next time I live in the states for an extended period of time.

The other thing that I continue to enjoy is meeting locals and picking up bits of new languages. Thailand and Laos have given me backpacker overload, but the locals I still enjoy, and I never get sick of butchering the pronunciation of a new word. Did I mention that both Thai and Lao are, like Chinese, tonal? That means that even when I get the sound of the word right, I’m still most likely using the wrong tone. Luckily the restaurant and guesthouse owners I practice on have far more patience than I do.

That night, back at the southern bus station, I finally got my bus to Pakse. Southern Laos is supposed to have entirely different terrain and climate from northern Laos; instead of mountainous, cool, and wet, I was headed for flat, hot, and dry. I couldn’t have been more excited.