Vang Vieng
Trip Start
Dec 09, 2007
1
24
52
Trip End
Jul 07, 2008
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Vang Vieng,
Vang Vieng,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Monday, March 17, 2008
In Vang Viene in Mid Northern Laos. Today wenttubing on Nam Souk with Virginie (French girl I traveled with) and Colleen and Doug (Toronto importers, couple). Had a great time even though got a bit cold. Came in yesterday to chill at Bamboo on the island hammock, gorgeous kids frolicking in the river, and sun setting over the majestic limestone cliff faces and mountains as I sipped my Lao margarita. Nice...Then last night did the Smile with DJ Martin (older guy who works here than ibiza 6 mo. switch) and Irish Erol. Great house music dancing with crazy Brit Rob, sexy dutch mover Julia, and fun Colleen after a couple vodka buckets I was into the full
movements and expressions my tiny frame could put out. Super fun and much appreciated by the body soul heart.
-Break-
few days later
Vang Vienne was amazing. After Virginie and I ditched each other I hooked up with some mad Canadians and their posse (Joel, Trevor, Darren (the canadian boyz) and Dave, Lily, Pablo) to have a raucous good ol' boys time tubin' down the nam song and hitting every bar, beer Lao, and swing we could...and not once, but twice. The first time I did a gentle cruise down the river with Virginie, Doug and Coleen, which was delightful but the belly laughs that came pouring out of me with the boys fun flirtations with the girls were truly welcome and missed. I'm
not getting younger. Tons of volleyball and even some ping pong put a nice capper on the debauchery even if for a week later my muscles and all were paying some kind of price for it.
every night at smile bar
Lot's of Friends, some good movies, great western omelette's and baguette sandwiches. Remixed my hard water song with locals saying Sa Bai Dee(Lao for "Hello") and my vocals about my experience in vang viene and got Erol from Smile bar and another Dj at Sunset bar to play it. Got into chocolate crepes in a big way, missing my dark chocolate I started to settle for delicious second options and liking it.
LESSONS OF THE ROAD: the world is inside me. what i experience externally is a manifestation of what I'm experiencing internally. I've been spending too much time looking for others to satisfy me when in fact
satisfaction comes so easily from reaching out and satisfying others. There was a moment in the midst of dance debauchery at Smile bar when i released my desire to be intimate with a girl and opened to this kind
of brotherly almost fatherly protective love and support; a kind of safe and authentic unconditional joy that I was offering and helping to facilitate for the youth there, when open to flow and release longing. (Ok maybe the 2nd whiskey bucket was kicking in.)
Accepting more of my age and role and that I am indeed different and older and potentially wiser than many of the young adults I've been meeting and partying with along they way (though it may not look it in the photos.
But I have some pride in developing a wiser interior while maintaining a young and foolish exterior). I'm not really connecting with them cause I'm really in a different place than them and need to accept that. Put my cherished hawk necklace around the neck of Kasane (see above pic.) who turned 18 that evening and who enjoyed dancing and
laughing with me. As I placed the hawk necklace around her I told her, "may you always have the ability to reach the sky while being focused on the ground."
I saw her at an Internet cafe the next day and I think she may have lost it in the evenings boisterous chaos, but that's OK it's not about having a thing (though items as symbols can have meaning) it was about having a moment and even if that moment meant more to me than to her it still meant bringing meaning into the world which is always better than bringing more meaninglessness into a world already hem-ridging from it.
