Sunday, August 06, 2006

Vang Vieng

The only thing that made it possible to leave Luang Pabang was knowing that some day I will return there. Hopefully to stay. It is everything Vang Vieng should be. For one, there are scores of places to eat French pastry, drink cappuccino and read the Herald Tribune. It seems like the perfect place to grow old. The city is full of tiny brick lanes which absolutely make it impossible to get a car down them. Lush gardens everywhere compliment the colonial French Architecture.

Vang Vieng on the other hand is a dirty little party town and I can tell Sasha hates it. She is being brave though. We need a rest after the harrowing trip here.

We came in on a mini bus. We had tried to get a public bus in Luang PaBang but they didn't seem to want to sell us a ticket. They offered it to us at the same price as the van. We were packed in 10 to a car. As we wound through the mountains everyone held their cameras out the window trying to capture the wild rugged mountain-scape that dwarfed our tiny vehicle.

We have booked a one day trek that includes hiking, caves and rafting. It's a little bit too organized but with only two days here its about all you can do. We have to make haste back to Bangkok if we are to catch our flight to Suri Thani on the 10th. That means two nights here then another day of travel to VieneTiane. We will spend two nights there then cross the border to Nonghai and catch the sleeper train back to Bangkok on the night of the 9th. We will arrive at the train station in Bangkok at 6am. From there we will take a local bus to the airport.

The sun is setting now and the spectacular mountains that surround this tiny town are disappearing. There are scores of new hotels going up just as the jumble of old guest-houses appear to be crumbling into the red earth. They are repaving the entire city and dust is every where. You have no choice but to call these tiny towns cities, because besides the jungle that is all there is.

The bars here are filled with the reincarnation of the Woodstock generation. Instead of tables and chairs there are railed in platforms about a foot high filled with pillows. They lounge around stoned out of their minds watching re-runs of Friends. In every bar we passed there they were, Monica and Joey and Rachel and uh, uh... Rick? Brad? Squawking on blue screens. The contentment here is made possible by something called a happy shake. A mixture of opium, mushrooms and alcohol. The police, costumed like sadists from a Lina Wertmuller film, look the other way.

I spotted Boz from afar. He was wearing his yellow pants, grinning from ear to ear. I was happy to see a familiar face. Especially one that was sober. I told him that Sasha and I were going to book a one day trek and if he and Dom came along we could all get the same one for 13 bucks each. He and Dom exchanged glances and then looked around at the stoners.
"I'm in." They said in unison.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Rene, are you okay? You have not posted anything since Aug. 8.
Birgit