Hue-> Lao

2/24/2011
-early bus from Hue to Savannakhet, left around 8 AM, arrived at the border around 2:30 PM, supposed to be in savannakhet around 4, yeah right...
-bus ride was uneventful, cool to watch the landscape change at the border, and finally saw the sun.
-bordercrossing was a clusterfuck, no lines, just lots of shoving, cost $45, i thought it was only going to be thirty, but as with most places its pricier with an american passport. got a thirty day lao visa...
-showed up in savannakhet around 6:40 pm, took a Tuk-tuk from the bust station to the supposed center of town, took forever to find a guest house that wasn't full but wound up with a nice room with AC for 70,000 kip ($1=8,000 kp)
-had a nice dinner with a dutch girl i met on the bus, and met a crazy french guy who has a thai wife and kids, but has to visit savannakhet every two months so that he can renew his visa, had a warm beer lao with ice on the river with him, then to bed.
2/25/2011
-walked around town, sat on the river a while and saw some remarkable buddhist temples.

-sat on the river a while, then back to the guesthouse with some dark beer lao, which is an excellent black lager...
-wound up talking to these Finnish guys who were staying across from me, and sharing music with them for a while, i had Finnish music they had never heard, funny.
-tasty dinner, then to the hotel balcony for drinks, had a really nice view of the street...
-wound up meeting some Swedish guys who were up to no good with the local ladies in Savannakhet, the Lao people are so culturally innocent, it was really foul to hear the way they talked about the local people and their scummy sexual exploits, my first and i'm sure not last encounter with a truly fucked western attitude.
-the Finnish guys went out to the club with the Swedes but i refused to participate in their foul game. stayed on the balcony and chilled until late.



more to come soon, more pictures and more on how much i'm loving Lao, but i have a low battery and i'm paying too much for wifi right now, plus there are ants all over my feet. so update soon, including the crazy ass blood sausage i had for breakfast the next day, which was suprisingly tasty. i know i'm falling behind on the log...
also look for really cool recordings of frogs from the 4,000 islands as soon as i have a fast enough connection to put them up on earsphere