At 8.30 a.m. I jumped on a minivan to Phonsavan. The ride took about 7 hours (definitely too long!). I met some nice people on the bus though.
Phonsavan is a... hideous place. Really. The buildings could be described as ‘real communism meets South East Asia’. Just terrible.
I arrived at my guesthouse and it turned out they only had one room left. And I was actually supposed to stay there with two French girls I met on the way. Finally, we agreed that I will stay at “Nice” Guesthouse (that’s just the name, it doesn’t mean it was really nice...) and they move to another GH. When I entered the room, I thought it was basic but OK. However, then, I went to the bathroom... and I’ve noticed that the water was running directly through the sink to the floor (a problem with bathroom sink pipes which were in fact not connected at all to the sink ;). I tried to ask the stuff to take care of it. No chance! Well.. took me awhile to fix it. But finally I managed. That’s what you call the “Polish plumber skills” – we do have Ph.D. degrees and travel across the world to repair broken pipes in shabby hostels in development countries :P
;)
Then I decided to book my flight to Vientiane. I went to the local tourist office. The plane leaves on Friday at 2 p.m. I booked the ticket and asked “so guys, at what time will you pick me up to the airport then”. And the answer was “1.30 p.m.”... So, I expect another adventure ;)
Later on I went with the girls for dinner. But before dinner I wanted to book my tour for the next day. Wasn’t that easy though. Once again - people traveling solo are being discriminated. I wanted to see not only the famous Plain of Jars, but also the waterfalls nearby. All the tours were booked only for the Plain of Jars, and you could only arrange individual tours for all the spots I wanted to see. And as I was there on my own, I had basically to pay the price of three people! I did it anyways. Wasn’t actually that expensive. To hire a car for the whole day with a guide was about 400.000 kip.
At the 'travel agency' the guys were having a problem with their computer (better to say with Word ;) So, I helped them to fix the problem and format the text correctly (which was not that easy considering the software and the text itself were in Lao ;)
Then dinner. We wanted to check out the place people in Luang Prabang recommended. As we finally found it – it was closed! Luckily, the place was kind of off the main road so, we ended up in a local bar, with Lao people, no other tourists. Which was good. The Lao music was playing in the background, we ate, drank and out of sudden, I heard the first notes of a song that sounded familiar. It was... Simple Man. No joke! It was unbelievable. It was a Lao cover of that song, but nevertheless I found it pretty cool :) It was exactly the song I thought about when I was going to Laos. I even put it on my iPod. And there it was, totally unexpected. I guess my travels just have a good soundtrack. Wherever I go.
I was chatting with the girls, who have been already travelling for about 9 months in the region, listening to their stories. One of them has been before for 3 months in South America. When I asked her what was she doing there, she answered “I was just a tourist”. “Well, three months mean you were not a tourist. You were a traveler” I replied. And then I added “I am the only tourist at this table”. And then the other girl said “Well, you don’t act like a tourist. You’re simply a ‘short term traveler’”. I like that! :) But you know, whenever I meet all those amazing people who travel for months or years, I feel so small with what I’m doing. I wish I had guts to quit my job, sell the apartment and just go explore the world... One day I will definitely do that.
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