Dealer gave us nothin'

14.9.2010 | Day 45 | 16 939 km | Vientiane, Laos

Poker is sometimes a frustrating game to play. You have fixed your poker face on - Thousand times better than Lady Gaga - and you think you’re cruising to the top prizes, until the dealer starts giving you crap and everything goes down the drain. Well, this is just what happened to us in Laos.

Hole cards: Queen of Hearts and Ace of Spades. Wow, a great start! We landed to Luang Prabang airport on a sunny afternoon, passed through the most friendliest customs process by far and got a cheap taxi to take us to the city. As it turned out, Lao people were celebrating the end of the rain season with boat racing and just basically getting drunk. We had a lot of luck coming to Laos on this specific day and it was a blast to watch these people enjoying themselves in a big way. Later on in the evening we did our own touring, but both climbed to the highest point of the city, which opened amazing views to the city.

A boat race, Lao style

The Flop: Two of Clubs, Six of Spades and Five of Diamonds. This is where it all crashed down massively. Totally useless set of cards. We woke up on the second day, having to run to the toilet with our stomachs completely upside down. A food poisoning for both of us, great! We dodged the bullet on our journey for about 40 days, but our luck was all used out. In the morning I couldn’t even stand on my feet for more than three seconds until I felt like passing out, so it was time to start eating antibiotics I picked up from a doctor before our trip. We lost two days completely as we just had to lay down and watch the ceiling fan go round and round, we had to cancel all activities we arranged in Luang Prabang and almost had a nervous breakdown just not doing anything.

Turn card: Nine of Clubs. A hand full of nothing to use in this game and Laos was going for the win. We left Luang Prabang in a minivan, a 5 hour, 220 km trip going south to Vang Vieng. But, it was far away for being a simple five hour trip. Our van driver stopped two times for a 45 minute break and once for a 10 minute break to buy groceries from a street market - while 10 passengers waited for him in the van. Lao time, it’s a completely different concept. Things happen, but not in the time frame you’d think or want. So, more than 7 hours later we arrived to Vang Vieng, but as the darkness was closing in quickly, there was not much to do except wait for next morning.

We were glad to get out of Vang Vieng the next morning though. It’s a small town in the middle of the jungle, shaped to be what it is because of ignorant tourism. Every second restaurant had Brits eating pizzas while watching an endless loop of Friends from TV sets. I mean seriously! You travel all the way to Laos, to eat Italian food and to watch US sitcoms? The exact things you’d be doing at home. I once saw a tourist village just the same in Kos, Greece but I never thought seeing one in Laos. For me, that is the most frustrating thing you can see while you’d want to see real cultures and cities.

River card: Ten of Hearts. Bus trip from Vang Vieng to our final stop in Laos, Vientiane was actually pretty much on time and we found a nice guesthouse to stay for two nights before our train to Bangkok. But, as the cards were already dealt and we were looking the dealer with fury, it just rained for the whole time in Vientiane. Not much to do except to play pool and as our surprise, do some bowling! Oh Laos, you promised a lot but things just didn’t go as planned, no sir. But one day I’ll return and demand a rematch since you can tell that without any hurry and no food poisonings, you have amazing things to offer.

Some day, Laos, some day…