International Women’s Day
Laos:Vientiane:Mixai Guesthouse
so the festival in Vang Vieng turns out to be international women’s day celebration, which is a european thing and not as much american i guess, to celebrate equal rights and such…anyway, happy international women’s day ya’ll!
the bus to vientiane was an unexpected adventure, not quite the same rather nice bus that i had from Luang Prabang but a smaller, dingier, non-tourist version. Driver looked, acted and drove like a young cavalier Elvis blasting thai music that sounded like Santana, or Jethro Tull channeled through a salsa twilight zone. We made splashy, sliding stops to pickup locals with sundry bags of cucumbers. Old women ate sticky rice and pork with their fingers, the smell was enough to make a rat vomit, my only refuge was the inch of window space to breathe through. Raining all the way, inside the bus as well. I tried several times to tuck the window curtain into the source of the dripping only to live drip free for moments before a new one would come to live, instantly locating a dry spot on my person, like a mosquito out for virgin blood…
vientiane is pouring rain, i find dorm bed in sabaidy guesthouse and find a cafe to dry and refuel with coffeLao. i begin to recontemplate the fuzzy travel plans for getting to vietnam in haste now since i immediately need to go pickup the visa. walk down luang prabang rd. to travel agency, they collect my passport and need 2 hrs to run it down to the embassy. in the meantime i make my way to the LAO national museum, formerly known as the LAO revolutionary museum. notable items of interest are the huge Lenin bust and photos from French occupation, US bombings of Ho Chi Minh Trail, through conception of Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party in 1975. One particular cool picture stands out of Thit Chanto, a 26 year old Lao who in ‘65 shot down a fighter bomber F105d single handedly with a rifle and has him gloating over the wreckage with smiling women running up in the background. Good shot man! make it back to travel place and they have visa, no probs, in fact now you DO NOT have to specify arrival/departure points for vietnam, and also the other border north of Lao Bao is open for foreigners now. flight to Hanoi and its $108, leaves Sunday afternoon, that makes my mind up so i book it. that way i got 2 solid weeks for hanoi-saigon leaving me 1 week for cambodia on the way back to bangkok.