Expatiperro

After successfully catching my train from Bangkok on Saturday night (second time's a charm), I'm now in Laos, in a small town the countryside called Vang Vieng. The journey here was a bit of an adventure. The final stop of the train was in the Thai border town of Nong Khai, on the other side of the Mekong river from Laos. We took a tuk-tuk from the station to the Thai border crossing, waited in line with Laotian workers and Thai traders for 30 minutes, and then hopped on a bus across the river to the Lao side. Another 30 minutes waiting in the heat and humidity, and then I was on a minibus for the 3 hour ride to Vang Vieng, sharing space with 5 very pissed off Brits who had just discovered that they had paid twice as much for their seats as I had.

Laos is fascinating. It feels as though it's stuck in some indeterminate time in the past, where clocks move a little slower, life is a little more relaxed, and Western tourists are still a novelty, if not yet a scourge. On the minibus ride from the border to Vang Vieng, looking outside the window was like looking through a history book from a French expedition at the turn of the century. Families bathing in roadside rivers; women in traditional cone-shaped hats working in rice paddies; cows lazily crossing the road, unbothered by the pick-ups that are swerving to avoid them. We drove on the country's main highway, a one and a half lane, partially paved road. Cars are few and far between; more common are pickups-turned-taxis with dozens of people crammed into the back, and occasionally we pass a cart being towned by what looks like, but logic won't let me belive is, a push-powered lawnmower.

After the drive up, Vang Vieng feels like a Western oasis, an MTV Spring Break dropped into the middle of a rice paddy. The town caters solely to the grungy backpacker set looking for a deal; it seems like every Laotian here runs either an internet cafe, travel agency, or hostel, sometimes all three. The bars and restuarants all have Western style menus, which you can order from as you watch "Friends" and wait out a torrential rainstorm. (I made it through most of the first season doing just that Sunday night.) With so many comforts, you have to force yourself to look up and appreciate the natural scenery- jagged limestone mountains surround the town, their impossibly steep slopes hiding huge caves within.

Yesterday, my only full day here, I went on a caving/kayaking expedition. We spent the morning swimming and tubing through a deep cave under a mountain just outside of town, and after lunch we kayaked down the river back to town. Before finished the day though, we stopped at one of the many riverside bars, where we drank Beer Lao with fellow backpackers from all over the Western world, had mud-wrestling competitions, danced to the latest American music, and lept from 30 foot high rope swings into the river below. If it weren't for the rice paddies around us, I might have mistaken it for Cancun.

In a couple hours, I'll be catching a bus back down south to the capital, Vientiane, where prices are more expensive (think of a $10/night hotel room compared to a $3) and life is slightly busier. From what I hear, though, it's a great place. Looking forward to checking it out.