People in Laos seem to like to drink. And that's not the backpackers, that's the locals. I went to see the Plain of Jars the other day (it's dull. I took a picture that I want to title "Everyone at the Plain of Jars wondering what the fuck to do") and our guide went on this impromptu spiel about prostitution (for some reason you go to BBQ places if you want to find the ladies in Laos) and how much he enjoys rice whiskey which is called LaoLao. It's not actually produced commercially. It's all just made moonshine style in these villages, which in between our visits to the three sites of jars, he took us too. It's just this covering with some oil barrels. Some of them are filled with rice and some of them are filled with fermenting LaoLao. The guide cracked himself up with a story about how a chicken ate some of the alcoholic rice and staggered around for awhile. I made some joke about drunk animals always being funny but no one else really seemed to think so. So, then he asks if we want to sample some of the whiskey and so we say "Sure." and he brings out a shot glass and a plastic water bottle full of it. He starts pouring shots for everyone and everyone has two until he pours one and we all say "For you!" and he smiled and said he'd already had some in the hut but he drank it anyway. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that he'd been telling us about his hangover all morning. He also told us that the way he drinks LaoLao is to mix it with BeerLao, pepsi, and milk. This sounds horrible. I wanted to try it but no one else would so it didn't really happen. So, before we went to the third jars site we stopped at this roadside place for lunch and in the back everyone, the guide and our driver plus the people that worked at the restaurant, were all getting WASTED. Yelling and drinking and generally carrying on until the driver came back out, put on his pith helmet, and started up the van blaring Thai pop as loud as it would go. I was a little worried about his ability to drive but he seemed to handle it pretty well. He didn't wreck or anything.



So, that night I went out with these two American guys I met from SF that were really cool and seemed the closest to people like my friends that I've met on the trip. I was with them, Lukas who is Polish ("Oh, you are going to Russia. Hmm. Well, uh, have fun. It will be very difficult. Cold? Oh yes, it will be very cold.") and this guy Kevin who just walked up to the Plain of Jars out of nowhere and who I've now run into three times so far on my trip. Twice in China and now in Laos. Anyway, we all went down to this place next door to the NGO that clears away land mines in Laos called "Craters" and settled in for some BeerLaos, which are pretty good by the way. Things were a little stilted at first but then everyone got kind of drunk and it started to get more fun. Then this guy Oz showed up who I'd ridden the bus to Phonsavanh with and he said, "Let's get some LaoLao!" which we did at the store next door. It was in a seltzer bottle. He told me that when he bought it a police officer was there and Oz asked if he wanted a shot and the officer said "Sure!", took one, and then got on his motorcycle and drove off. Anyway, we drank quite a bit of LaoLao until the place closed and then we headed down the street to some place the American guys had been which was pretty much a Laos roadhouse. We came in and there was music blaring and about five tables of Laos teenagers. We started to dance and then after a bit the teenagers started dancing too including one guy who started breakdancing! It was pretty awesome. So yeah, that was my birthday. The ten hour bus trip the next day was a little brutal but even that wasn't so bad. They did hand out barf bags to everyone though since the trip was going to be up and down some serious winding roads. I didn't have a problem but I did see some guys throwing bags of puke out the window. Also, there is a guy on the busses with an AK-47 in case we come across bandits or something. I wanted to take his picture but was a little too intimidated to ask.