Kickin back, expat style.
I'm sitting at an internet cafe in Vientiane right now. It is 5:00 in the evening. I must say that I begrudged the fact that I had to come here to Laos to get a work visa for Thailand. I was hoping to go to Hong Kong to visit Dominic or Singapore to... see Singapore? In the nine hours I've been here, though (five of which I spent sleeping), Vientiane has won a special place in my heart. It's not that I was wrong when I predicted, from rumor and reading, that it would be one-horse, dust bowl hick town, it's not that I was wrong when I figured it would be tiny, with nothing to do, it's just that I didn't realize how very very nice that could be. After... six (six weeks now, holy shit!), after six weeks in Bangkok, which moves at the speed of New York on meth, to kick back for two days in this ex-colonial Shangri-la that seems to have more in common with a mexican pueblo town than its neihbor's capitol to the south, can be a PROFOUNDLY pleasant experience. Being further north and nearer the mountains gives Vientiane a less humid and more cool temperature, one which today has been so perfect that I never once felt the sensation of being too warm or too chilly. One can walk down the street with ample room on all sides (something impossible to do in Bangkok) without being mobbed by cab drivers, touts, and peddlers (something impossible to do. The streets are clean, the buildings well maintained, tropical gardens abound (something I missed in both BKK and Phnom Penh... maybe this is why Vientiane reminds me of Latin America. I would quickly grow bored of living here, but it is definately the kind of town I wouldn't mind staying in for an occasional respite, the kind of town where you can feast on a huge Indian meal and sit around in the restaurant, just looking casually out the window at the river for two hours, half heartedly listening to "caddyshack" play on the TV behind you, taking more bites every now and then as space in your stomach allows. Yup. It's alright here.