The Long and Winding Road

Here I am, to spin you a yarn of my travels. This time our weekend adventures led us to the country of Laos. The biggest reason for our visit was because we needed to renew our visas, but you better believe we made a good time out of it! The first part of our journey entails the ride to Laos. We were so excited because our driver (yup, we have a personal driver) was going to take us in our roomy van. Now, you must know, we left at 11:30 PM and had a 6 hour drive ahead of us. Plan: sleep all the way. Execution: lay awake while being jostled around. No, jostled isn't the right word. More like being launched into space itself. No lie, at one point, I was levitating. My first thought was that I really was a wizard after all. Then reality struck and I was just a mere muggle seeing my last few moments on planet earth. I don't know how someone can actually drive like that and not fly off the road. Amazing. This ride was so bumpy that it popped my contact right out of my eyeball. Its a miracle I even found it. And then about ten miracles after that that I actually KEPT my contact. The Gods were trying to take away my sight for three days. When I found my contact, it was all dried up. I went into doctor mode and grabbed the first water bottle in sight and not dumped, but threw water onto the contact. As you can imagine, most of it landed on my pants. My next solution: carry it around in a lid from a water bottle. So...I filled out my paper work, handed my passport over, bought my bus pass, rode the bus, crossed the border, all while holding my specimen in that lid. Not suspicious at all. 

Alas, we made it to Laos. Such a funny place. It was fun! But strange. Kaitlen, Angee, and I went to a water park for our first exposure to Laos. The disappointment when we arrived was laughable. There were slides, but no water. We did however find a "lazy river." Only not so much lazy as stagnant. You know you have been out of America a long time when this conversation ensues: 

"Is that a band-aid or a fish?"

"Dunno."

"Ah well."

And proceed to get in the water. Picture us walking in this "lazy river," feeling the slime on the bottom. Then some guy yells, "GET. OUT." Turns out the thing wasn't workign. Haha he was probably wondering why we would ever want to get in it in the first place. Lucky for us, they turned the water on and happiness was brought back to the earth. 

We saw a lot of cool things in Laos. Like this arch:

And this temple:

And this statue:

But I want to fast forward to the fountain. We saw this fountain, nothing too special. I mean it was cool, it changed colors. But its what happened at the fountain that I want to share with you. So occasionally we ask a passerby to take our group photo. We use Dianna's camera because it's the nicest, but you have to look through the camera instead of having a little screen. This confuses people to no end. Particularly the lady at the fountain. We all pose together waiting for her to take it. First her problem was not being able to find the right button to push. It took about five tries for her to find the right button. Then her next issue was knowing where to look. Dianna explained to her she needed to look through it. If only I had a picture of what her idea of looking through it meant. So instead I drew you a crude sketch of what I saw:

As you can see (more or less) She was looking through the space between the pop up flash and the top of the camera. So we just see her confused, blinking eye staring at us. The poor girl. We are all in hysterics over her inability to work a camera. I was buckled over with laughter. In the end, we got a good photo. 

One of the downsides of Laos: Humanity. We had to wait in line to get our visas so we went about an hour and a half early so that we could get in and get out. Well apparently people don't have any concept of a line. They just moseyed on to the front of the gate, totally aware that there was a line but quote, "didn't want to wait that long." It was astounding how many people cut in front of us. Not only were they butting, but it was the type of people who were committing such an act. The type of people I am talking about? Old, old, old men (did I mention they were OLD) with their young floosy Lao wives. That's right, they use their money to buy these loose women. It. Was. Sick. Some things cannot be unseen. 

Other than losing my faith in the human race, Laos was a great vacation! The ride home was not as bumpy, thank goodness. But I did have a self realization. You can't say Dumbledore in a serious conversation more than five times and expect to still sound like a mature adult. Learned that one the hard way. 

Well friends and fellow stalkers, hope you enjoyed my adventurous, be it long, story of my travels to Laos! Until next time, Peace and Love :)