Luang Prabang – a little pocket of the western world, hidden deep in the east. I couldn’t help noticing the whole time were there that the little town seemed to be where tourists and expats traveled to escape the Asian world they’d come to see. The population seems to be made of french speaking falangs and a smattering of locals who work in the souvenir shops.
We arrived in the afternoon and proceeded to drive around the city for an hour looking for our hotel while getting more and more agitated at how far out of town it ended up being. Luckily, the resort was beautiful and relaxing, the staff attractive and friendly and the drive into Luang Prabang picturesque enough to divert our attention during the half-hour trip.
I spent the first night at the hotel getting tipsy on fancy cocktails and sitting through Keiran and Noi’s bouts of hysterical laughter and sporadic continuations of the argument they’d begun in the car on the way up. I just sat and giggled into my margarita as the cute French-Canadian chef and the equally sweet Laos waiter sauntered by, occasionally throwing in a sarcastic remark to liven up their discussion.
The next day we headed into town early to make the most of the day, much to the disgust of Noi who’d remained in bed as Keiran and I breakfasted. Luang Prabang is like a tropical, mountainous french village. Long, skinny streets are lined with gorgeous 1800s terrace houses that groan under the weight of ancient vines.
I kept expecting “twelve little girls in two straight lines” to waddle around the corner with Miss Clavel at the lead.
Now, the extent of my “making to most of day” involved sitting around in cafes, drinking Laos coffee (+ condensed milk), strolling up and down the main road trying to find a falang book store (Russel Brandt was giving me the shits! Ok, you took a lot of drugs and now you’re super famous. I love you, but when you married Katie Perry, what little integrity you'd sustained through addiction, dereliction and extradition certainly dropped below zero) and laughing at some weird Laos shizz.
Eventually, Noi, the laziest of our trio, decided it was time to scale Phousi (cue wildly inappropriate, casually racist and exceptionally filthy innuendo). After climbing the two bazillion stairs...
...we reached a smallish temple...
...and proceeded to do the touristy thing; feigning a more Buddhist inclination than I actually possessed so I could let some birds out of cage and feel slightly more spiritual.
All the while, Keiran and Noi squabbled over whether we should visit the Buddha cave or the waterfall the next day.
Things improved, when I got chatted up by a nice monk at the top. Managed to escape his stream of increasingly personal questions by announcing, “Oh, I haven’t seen Buddha’s foot print yet. I’d better go do that. It really is a must-see!”
And, after all the lead up, it was a bit meh.
When promised the footprint of the almighty Buddha, you anticipate something more than a slightly foot shaped indent in a rock. Well, I suppose you shouldn’t, but my imagination and expectation seemed to have run wild along with my common sense: "OMG, I'm going to see the footprint of Buddha. The Buddha! I bet it like grants wishes and shit! I'll finally get my dream of riding a unicorn over a rainbow with the Jonas Brothers!"
Yeah, it was just a footprint.
That night, we again stuck viciously to our role as tourists by visiting the night market.
Ten minutes in, Keiran abandoned us to find a pub showing the Australia vs Iraq soccer match, leaving Noi with the cash and a hankering to spend it all on sins(Laos skirt) she’d never wear. I was unimpressed to the extent that my enthusiastic swearing drew the attention of a fellow Australian. We Aussies are clearly of the same heart. A heart that wants to hear “THAT’S FUCKING BULLSHIT!” being yelled at a small, amused Laos woman because there isn’t any money left to buy Beer Laos.
The random guy I attracted with this vulgar outburst told me the same thing every other Australian in Luang Prabang had said: “Man, Utopia! It’s this bar, restaurant thingy. You have to go there!"
So, away to Utopia we fled, with our wallets empty and our hearts full on the prospect of cocktails and freedom from the pater. Of course, he managed to tag along after being unable to watch the soccer (which was scheduled for the next week). This meant, I ended up at a very hipster chic bar overlooking the Mekong, smoking an apple flavoured hookah, with my Dad. Don’t go thinking I frequent bars and clubs with my parentals though. This was the first of only two slightly awkward tipsy occasions.
The next day, with Noi still complaining that she wanted to see the waterfalls, we gathered our dignity together after the night before, and headed out of Luang Prabang to the Buddha Caves. As always, before reaching any sort of tourist attraction, monument or sacred site we had to first wade our way through the village of souvenirs that encircled the caves.
When we finally crossed the Mekong in a small, motorised boat it became clear that the Buddha Caves were exactly as their name suggested.
Caves full of Buddhas. Heaps of Buddhas in fact.
If your sensing any sort of cynicism or sarcasm... then your wrong. It was pretty spectacular actually! And, I made friends with a nice New Zealander in a pitch black cave. Seemed a bit pointless to have such ancient indications of past civilisation in a light-less complex, but each to their own.
Our last day in Luang Prabang was spent sunning by the pool at our hotel. None of us could be bothered making the trek into town before our flight, so we all went our separate ways: reading, sleeping or showing off their tattoo by wearing a skimpy bikini in the pool (guess which was me). I’d made friends with a young Australian guy the night before who was also staying with his parents at the hotel, which meant that along with him and the cute French-Canadian chef and the sweet Laos waiter I managed to stay occupied improving my ego for the hours before our return flight.
Luang Prabang was awesome, but landing back in Vientiane felt pretty good. This feeling was improved by two things: first, my ipod deciding to play Ride of the Valkyries during out decent into the city and second, the prospect of getting back to my generally debauched, hard partying lifestyle.
And what better way to start a stint of ferocious indiscretions than the Mekong Festival at the French Cultural Centre (or as Lily called it, the “big falang party with many falang”).
For 3 consecutive nights, I jived dementedly with 300 other foreigners on the small dance floor. I managed to not take a single photo, which I think gives an indication on the amount of fun I was having. So, here is a highly accurate and completely truthful representation of my experiences at La Guinguette (though slightly censored to avoid gaol time).
Over these 3 nights of general mayhem I met:
· Gorgeous French brothers David and Denis. Everynight David would disappear for a quicky and leave Denise dancing crazily with me. The three of us bonded in a shared love of unselfconscious abandon when it came to the dance floor.
· An American who’s hat I was perpetually pinching so I could get my Charlie Chaplin on. I think he got pretty pissed off as the nights went on. Tough titties though!
· A Laos women, not called Noi but something similar, who invited me to salsa night on Thursdays at Martini bar. I never took up her offer because the people at Martini came to know me as "that crazy girl".
· Another lovely French man called Sebastian, who I cleared the dance floor with as we pirouetted across it in a state of fake flare.
· A Dutch-Iraqi guy I got too friendly with on the couches at Martini. Lily reprimanded us for our bad behaviour only to have her then turn around straddle a random and give him a lap dance… hypocrite! The Iraqi and I met up to do some silly tourism the next day but the spark was gone, so I spurned him for…
· Tom, the English guy I desperately regret losing somewhere between Martini Bar and Don Chan on the last night and who I’ve been looking for ever since.
· Tom’s less attractive Italian mate whose persistent lips I had to dodge several times on the last night.
· The teenage population of Vientiane – JJ, 18 and Dutch; Kieran, 19 and Belgian, a random Austrian and some other Scandinavians. I ended up going to Don Chan with JJ though I was more interested in his mate, who, of course, didn't come thinking he was helping his friend pick up. Humph!
· A group of young Laos people who thought my attempts at Laos dancing and language hilarious.
· Heaps of other French peeps who I failed miserably at conversing with in their mother tongue and frankly may have scared away with my awful french grammar.
Along with meeting all these fabulous individuals I was lucky enough to receive a number of propositions and witty(ish) pick-up lines:
1st – from the skinny Laos waiter 5 minutes into the first night.
“Oh My God, what have you been eating?” he asked while handing over my vat of white wine.
“Huh?”
He smirked, “Well, you look so beautiful it must be something you’re eating.”
I grinned back before toddling off with the alcomahol in the vague direction of my friends.
2nd – from David on the first night before we swept the floor in a ridiculous tango/cha-cha hybrid.
Half way through our “travellers convo”, yelled over loudly blasted latino tunes, we’d just reached the “and what do you do back home?” part of the tête-à-tête. He’d already told me his occupation enabled him to work anywhere, all over the world so I continued with the same line of inquiry.
“So, what is this amazing job?”
He leaned in, with his sexy Gerard Butler stubble, and whispered into my ear with an accentuated, deeply alluring French accent.
“I am… a bank robber.”
I giggled and fluttered my eyelashes at his faked notoriety. Later on, I discovered he was actually an architect (or something), but his charm was by no means diminished.
3rd – from the creepy, smelly English guy with the odd accent at Martini on the second night.
He didn’t employ one specific line but rather, a string of persistent moves to get me to dance/talk/sleep with him. Lily ended up taking him home with her, so I had to suffer through the 10 minute ride back to my place, applying strategic cock-blocking and hand slapping to avoid his unwanted attention. He then slurred incoherently when we finally go to mine that “oohhhh, well marybee I shhoould staaey wittthh yoouu tonoight.” I was unimpressed and managed to slap him away before quickly bolting the gate behind me.
4th - from Tom on the last night.
“I saw you here last night.”
“Oh yeah.” I tried to place him in one of the venues I’d danced through the night before.
“Yeah, I was worried you had nowhere to stay,” He continued, building up to his proposition, framing it as though he was doing me a massive favour, “So, you can come and stay with me at the backpackers tonight, yeah?”
“Oh, I live here, so of course I have somewhere to go.” I replied, misunderstanding him completely.
It seems when I drink I get very naive. I damaged our relationship again later in the evening when he handed me my bike helmet “to see how cute you look” (FYI, I look like a 12 year old bobble head doll). He then went in for a peck and I slammed the visor down, not even noticing his approach. Felt like an idiot later of course.
5th – from JJ during a rock’n’roll dance lesson on the last night.
Separated into men on the right and women on the left, we all faced the centre where the dance instructor tried to teach us the basic steps. I was surrounded by Laos and falang friends and strangers who would usually have been divided by race, but that night our gender linked us together as we giggled happily through all the steps.
“Derrier. Une, deux, trois. A doit. Une, deux, trois. A gauche. Une, deux, trois et repetez si vous plait.”
This was until the teacher informed us to choose a partner. We all looked in alarm at the prospect of being rejected.
So, now we get to the simplest pick up. A pointed finger. Not the classiest or smoothest but it’s always nice to feel wanted. So, I scampered over to the towering Dutch teen, not before I’d checked behind me in case he was actually pointing at some blonde bombshell.
We danced terribly, yelling at the tops of our voices, “Une, deux, trois. Une, deux, trois. Une, deux, trois et tournez a doit.” Some of the dancers, who actually possessed the rhythm we were trying to create, joined in with out chant until the whole crowd was counting in french.
I was pretty distraught when the festival ended. Being too busy dancing and talking and drinking I hadn't gotten any email addresses or numbers or anything for my new found soul mates. So, for a couple of days I moaped around after Lily, who continued on her quest to find a young Australian boyfriend but instead always ended up with the crustiest, bottom of the barrel old man at the end of the night.
I've tried to avoid sounding too soppy and cheesy in this blog (though I know I've failed miserably) but it has to be said that I came to a new state of enlightenment after La Guinguette. I realised that, though I may have had the best time of my life so far, I still have a whole year ahead of more crazy dancing and friend making and avoiding Lily's latest conquest. So, I turned my attention the next big event on the calendar...
CHINESE NEW YEAR!
Or, as it were, the Big Gay Chinese New Year at GQ where I crushed on queens from around the world, got dubbed a "fruit fly", watched my red themed wayfarers travel around the squashed crowds at the gay bar and continued my mission to hug heaps of randoms. The pictures say it all...
Next Time - Japan, Mongolia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vang Vieng.
