Vang Vieng

"This place feels like a border town". I said it, but Alisa was thinking it as we pedaled in from the mountains to V.V. By the way, if you were wondering why I didn't blog about Alisa in the last post it's because we separated for a lot of the first days climb. Listening to her very good advice, I shipped at least 10 pounds of gear back to Bangkok so I could keep up with her. As a result, hmm... how can I put this politely, I kicked her ass up and down those mountains!! Bring it on Lance! Anyway, for the past three days we had been in the boonies and stayed in places where the tourists are not backpackers and not westerners. That always makes me feel superior to everyone else traveling. It's like I have it figured out and all these poor suckers are just along for the ride following mindlessly some route chosen for them by Lonely Planet. The fact that I am surrounded by them right now in an internet cafe is not lost on me, at all. But I still do feel superior...it's the curse of the low-self-esteem-afflicted I'm afraid. Coming back onto the backpacker circuit also has the downside of seeing how cheesy mass tourism really is. A few of us here and there eating noodles from some hole in the wall is one thing. But Vang Vieng is the antithesis of that...a town created for tourists by people who think (and quite correctly I'm afraid) they know what tourists want.
For example, bars. Not just a few bars to cater to the thirsty, but a main street that is bar after bar after bar. This town is a tiny, dusty hole with 2 main streets and maybe 30 bars. But it isn't Khao San Road with blaring, pumping party music. It's TV bars. Every bar has either a big screen TV or multiple TV's so you can watch from any table. The tables are low slung affairs with pillows on the ground so you can lie down and take in the show for as long as your high lasts. TV bars with themes. Like the one that shows only episodes of the smash hit FRIENDS. Over and over, day after day, one mind numbing FRIENDS show after the other. I was trying to imagine the hip LA english that the staff at that bar were learning by listening to Matt Le Blanc and Jennifer Aniston. But not for long because we passed the TV bar that shows the SIMPSONS ad nauseum...DOH! So this dusty town with nothing but guest houses, bars and internet cafes feels very border-esque. The problem is that the border is no where near here.
As the sun went down and we walked around, it hit us both how this is the new-milennium opium den. Pizza places can sell you a "happy pizza" with marijuana on top instead of oregano and you can get a magic mushroom shake. After that you can lie down and trip your way through Homer Simpson as long as you'd like. And people were...lots of them.
Today it is hot. Really freaking hot and the sun is out full strength. Not the filtered sunlight we've been getting up in the hills from all the slashing and burning...no it rained last night. The rain cleaned up the air nicely but took away the smoke filter and now it is really (did I mention) HOT! It is so hot that my pride followed all my strength and we found ourselves planted in front of a TV bar watching some excellent movie choices like "My super ex-girlfriend" and then "The Pink Panther". Thankfully the power went out before some other movie started, and we remembered that we were in Laos. As in S.E. Asia Laos... as far away from AMERICA as you'd want to go! So we left and walked down the street as the power came back on and we stared at the opium dens anew and felt instantly superior to the losers who could come all the way to Laos just to watch TV. That's why I'm here now at the internet cafe really getting my fill of Laos culture before dinner and the next movie!! It's all really just a hoot and only gets obnoxious if I judge it, myself, or anyone else for that matter.