Vientiane

After my weak of illness in a party town, I decided to head towards the capital, Vientiane, for a more sedate scene. That didn’t last long as the Laos New Year, or Songkran, was starting that night. Its basically a huge water fight where the whole town shuts down. For 3 days, all the locals have all day parties at their houses where they drink beer and drench people with water. Water guns, balloon, hoses, buckets, etc… really anything that can be used to cure people of that pesky dryness.

I met up with my French Canadian friend, Nadia, that I knew from Hanoi and an Italian from her guest house and we armed ourselves with some top-shelf water guns. The first night, we stayed near the Mekong river along a strip of restaurants near our guest house. Our dinner was sporadically interrupted by random water fights. One little Laos boy took us as his arch-nemeses and hung out at our table. I would give him my water gun, so that he would shoot the Italian guy. The boy’s mother would occasionally put her son in dry clothes, only we would drench them again minutes later. Soon, she got into it too with her super water gun. Pretty nutty night.

It could not prepare us for the next day though. Nadia and I did some sightseeing and we decided to take a tuk-tuk ride to Buddha Park, which was 27 km out of town. After negotiating a price, we jump in for the 40 minute ride. There was literally a party every three houses and within minutes, we are completely drenched. This goes on for the entire ride. People are dancing on the streets and calling our driver to pull over. Then, they spray us and throw baby powder all over us.

By the time we get to Buddha Park, we are a mess. I give our driver some money to go get a beer while we check out the Buddhas. It is a beautiful place that was marred by a pack of water gun toting homeless kids who decided to keep getting us wet, even after we were getting visually upset because our cameras weren’t working properly. Turns out that electronics don’t like water as much as you might think.

We decide to stop for a beer where we are meeting our driver. He has already had four. After sunning ourselves for a few minutes while drinking our Beer Laos, we take off headed back. This time, our driver, a little buzzed and liking us, decides to stop at every party. This time, we get out, get wet, and dance with them. Also, they give us glasses of beer that they want us to chug. It turns into complete chaos. After the fourth party, we are trashed. Dancing in the streets while lady boys grab my crotch. Nadia has baby powder all over her face. After three more parties, we are completely blacked-out. We don’t remember coming home, but eventually we piece together that we got back to our rooms around 7 PM with the intention of taking naps and showers and meeting up, but slept until 5 AM. I don’t remember anything.

The following day was pretty much useless except for the childrens' talent show, sponsored by Beer Laos, that we rapturously watched after dinner.