the hippie trail

the season is living up to its official qualification as humid and wet. it's been raining ever since I arrived in Vanvieng, a place famous for its outdoor trips,especially tubing: floating down the river in a tube and stopping at bars along the river until youre wasted. the first night it was pouring down like crazy and I got stopped by four guys in two hours - one who drunkenly halfheartedly tried to hit on me but mentioned his ex-girlfriend, two who tried to lure me into a bar when they apparently seemed to work (independent of each other, and a Lao guy whose intentions I plainly did not get: hit on me? steal from me? practice his english? a ladyboy? "it's not nice to walk alone / how old are you / do you have a husband / where do you live / do you want to go to the disco" That happens a lot more often here than in Thailand and the guys look more blatanly too.)
Anyway, yesterday I went kayaking and it was amazing! we went tubing into caves, got sunburnt, jumped from a high swing - I involuntarily screamed like in a horror movie, and found it both scarier and lot more fun that I thought - and kayaked till I was really really exhausted (I was in the back and had to steer through the rapids while my - very sweet - new zealand girl in the front said after five minutes that she was tired and did not really have muscles in her arms), and we got into rain at the end, soaked through and through.
Today it's raining again and I decided against the binge drinking but to quit this weird place: there's the same menu everywhere: generic thai, lao and english dishes, pancake and "sandwich lao" stands and about six places that play "Friends" nonstop (which is kind of nice, exhausted from a kayaking day, rainy outside and you lumber on their cushions) and more whiteys than locals, I fear. So I'm heading for the capital, Vientiene. as the roads are a bumpy nightmare I hope there won't be too many alcohol-steaming brits in my bus...