Louang Phrabang, Laos

After one night in Vang Vieng, I jumped on the first bus out of there (actually the second, nine seemed too early)--not that Vang Vieng isn't a beautiful town with the limestone karsts towering over the Nam Xong, but there really wasn't much to do there and I thought I was getting the jump on the other tourists (lately I feel like i'm in the Amazing Race), only to find so many familiar faces on the bus again--this is the first time I've taken chartered bus transportation--in Thailand we were riding trains and buses with the Thai Polloi, and now riding with European and American backpackers seems a whole different experience, there's that "ugly" mirror again, I can't really separate myself from these other children of privelage. The bus ride was I think 7 hours, winding through even more majestic limestone cliffs, towering like ancient temples of some ancient behemouth race over the small bamboo mountain huts of the nieghboring villages. It felt more majestic than what I remember of Yellowstone, but I may be coloring it with my own orientalist notions of chinese scroll paintings--tiny toothpick trees on vertical limestone slabs and calligraphic clouds swirling like steam out of a teapot. We arrived in Louang Phrabang close to dusk. (right now in this internet cafe-tourist package shop, this bear couple are having a mini-tiff about the tour package they want--Evan, come here now please--I don't want to argue about this right now--one doesn't want to walk for an hour and a half--the other, apparently the type-A one of the pair just wants to arrange something, anything. I hope this isn't their honeymoon) After I checked in to a guesthouse and had dinner on the Mekong again, I took a walk over to cafe L'Estranger (heard about it and read about it in the rough guide, the only other option being hanging out in a bar on Thanon Falang)--the name taken from that indochine classic about the despondant Lao that kills a Frenchman on the Mekong. Walking to L'Estranger in the barely lit dark along the Nam Kham I could easily imagine I was in Europe somewhere, not sure where quite-euro-river-lake-town (Louang Phrabang is the Lao cultural mecca housing the most sacred image of the Buddha, sacred texts and epic poems have been written here. I'm considering taking a slow boat north up the mekong (north being the less touristy direction, although many others have probably read the same advise in their guide books) and coming back here in time for Lao new year's on the 13th, we'll see how that goes (I gotta pee like a motherfucker. had a big pot of Lao green tea all to my lonesome).