Day 10 – September 27 –Vientiane

Wat, Stupa, Wat, Stupa. Really, I’m kind of templed-out at this point, but I’m willing to give Vientiane a shot. We asked the concierge for directions, but his English was about as useful as my Laos… nonexistent. So we started walking. After 30 minutes or so, we got to the old quarter of Vientiane which had a good amount of French colonial architecture. It was actually quite impressive. The design was vaguely Haussmanian, with high ground floors and balconies just above that level. It was very quaint. As we wandered around that part of town, we found another Scandinavian Bakery. Impressive, it is a chain now. Good for them.

We got to Patuxay gate, which is a large concrete arch modeled after the Arc de’ Triomphe. It was constructed with cement donated by the US army to build an airport runway, explaining its modern nickname as the Vertical Runway. It took them a little longer to build that runway. The Stupa was impressive, no matter how much I wanted it to be terrible. It was massive and gold, but nothing really else. So we said, screw it, let’s go bowling.

A taxi took us out of town to a local megaplex/cinema/bowling alley/convention center around 2:00pm. It appeared to be a clothing sale, filled wall to wall with stalls selling all types of clothes. After Robin bought a t-shirt (It had his initials, “RBM,” and an awesome if not coherent collection of words beneath it) we walked upstairs to the bowling alley. It was a modern, clean bowling alley with a service desk in the middle and alleys on either side. It was huge! They also had blacklight bowling down, turning the lights low, pumping in the strobes, and blasting American hip hop. After the girl at the front desk turned us away initially, we talked our ways in, got a lane, two Beer Laos, and started bowling. It was really fun. After making a spectacle of ourselves by fistbumping and high-fiving at every spare or strike, our neighbors started to get amused. When one of our two friends next to us bowled a strike, we started giving them high-fives, too. It was fun. We were making friends, breaking 100 on the lane, and enjoying our Laos-brand bugle and prawn chips. Life is good. After four games, we were about to call it a day, when our friends next to us invited us to bowl with them. Turns out, one of the guys next to us had just graduated from university in Paris and spoke a decent amount of English. He and I spoke in French to each other and we all joined for a game on the same lane. (Note: I know what some of you might think, Kevin spoke French? Yes, as much as that nation wanted me deported, humiliated or even pushed to insanity by torturous French waiters, I did learn enough of the language to converse with a Laos national. Yes, I’m a tiny bit impressed with myself, even if it was French. And, yes, I know you might be surprised that I even acknowledge this.) Eventually, we used both lanes since more of their local friends joined us. Robin and I ended up bowling well, probably about 8 or 9 games. We both had personal bests: Robin with an impressive 158 and me with a fine 126.

At the end, we had become good friends with the local Vientiane public, and even the hard faced girl at the front desk melted and laughed with us. By that point, we were well into drunk territory. If I was being generous, I would say we were very very buzzed. We left the bowling alley around 8:00pm. 6 hours of bowling, making local friends and drinking ourselves silly was an excellent way to spend the day. We went up and paid for our bill and our friends. Total: $34. You cannot get two games of bowling, shoes and drinks for three people in New York for less than $125, so this was a friggin steal. Our friends were floored when they were told that we had paid for their games, food and drinks, also. As luck would have it, one of the guys we had been bowling with had a girlfriend who worked at the multiplex in the same center, so we all got a discount. They were so flabbergasted that we paid, that they decided to drive us through town and drop us off at our hotel. We invited them for dinner at Three Stars, but they unfortunately could not join us. After a fun ride, where we were peppered with random questions in broken English about America, New York and California, we got to our hotel and went directly to Three Stars, the restaurant from last night. Now, the place was not nearly as full or boisterous as the previous evening. The restaurant was about half full. But we got a table in the middle of the restaurant this time, and immediately ordered a number 7 and two BeerLaos. What came to us was not the same number 7 we had last night. No, instead we had what the kid next to us called, “The Spicy Plate.” He said even Lao people have issues with this dish. We were both strong and put down a considerable amount of the spicy beef with onions, peppers and noodles, enough to impress the kid next to us.

Damn, I really wanted that BBQ Beef plate from the night before. I resigned myself to finding our waiter from last night and making him tell me what we had. Remember, He spoke next to no English. I walked around the restaurant, looking for our friend, who I’ll call Our Buddy. I did find him, sitting at a table in civilian clothes with two friends. Tact was not possible tonight, as I was drunker than I’ve been in a while. I grabbed him, started to motion to our table, and convinced him and one of his friends to join us. Using sign language, I was able to get him to order the dish we had the night before, albeit seafood and not beef. Still, really really good. We bought a round for all our friends and talked to them as best we could. I was trying to tell Our Buddy that I liked the song that was playing, so I broke out my iPod and pointed with thumbs up. He pointed to that and then to me and said “LA!” I said yeah, LA! He then said, “You DJ.” What the hell, I went with it. I told Our Buddy that I was a dj in LA, and he thought it was incredibly cool. He grabbed the proprietor or the shift manager or someone and he took me, Robin and Our Buddy’s friend to another room in the restaurant. It was their nightclub/karaoke lounge. He puts on the strobe lights and colored lights and started pumping an Akon song, giving me a microphone. So I started shouting the song into the mic, drawing a bit of a crowd (not for good reasons). I imagine it sounded similar to cats repeatedly being run over by a train.

So, after making some Lao friends, posting a personal bowling best, drinking myself silly and rocking the hippest club in Vientiane, we retired for the evening. It was probably the most eventful non-event I can remember. We had an amazing time and I don’t think our new friends will forget us anytime soon.

Tomorrow, Phnom Penh and, most definitely, a hangover.