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Luang Prabang was great but journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was boring and everything in South East Asia was turning about to be lukewarm! Then God ventured in. At Vang Vieng while all the passengers on the tourist mini-bus got on the tuk-tuk at “whatever you quote” price of the tuk-tuk driver, Valerie and Andrew were the only ones who with a copy of “South East on a Shoestring” decided to walk it to the town. “Well, we don’t know where we want to go so we can’t get on the tuk-tuk”, Andrew said sounding hesitant. The truth was nobody who was on the tuk-tuk knew where they wanted to go and it was past 10 in the night. “Well, if they can walk it, so can we,” thought the budget traveler in us and we got off the tuk-tuk. Just as we got off, we saw the girl with the aviators (Valerie) and the unusually tall and awkward guy (Andrew) returning to the tuk-tuk. We thought they were returning to take us with them. That would be very friendly. (In hindsight, we think they returned because they realized to walk alone in an unknown town at night when you don’t know where you want to go was a stupid idea and that is why no one else was doing it so they decided to take the tuk-tuk. But the fact that we were off the tuk-tuk following their lead gave them some strength.)
Our first question to them was, “Do you know where we need to go?” and their response “errrm…no.” Was that the life changing moment of our life or what. Neither of us knew where we were headed (but we got someplace beautiful alright.)
What followed later was a tuk-tuk ride to the town at discounted price, bargain hunting for accommodation in all of Vang Vieng, food hunting that went beyond Vang Vieng and two weeks of incessant chattering where we found it hard to pull ourselves away from these guys to go to sleep and found ourselves eagerly waiting at the breakfast table each morning to meet them again. We never planned a time or decided on a place, we just kept bumping into each other intuitively day after day.The truth is we always went around the town looking for them.
Those days when we sat by the Nam Song river watching drunk people glide by on tubes cracking silly jokes with them, laughing incessantly at stupidest comments and reading each other’s books all day long is one of the most unforgettable time of our South East Asia travel. Yes, we did some caving, tubing, kayaking as well but mostly we waited to get back to our spot by the river and talk about ourselves and behave like we have known each other forever. How is it that people so different connect with each other so easily…like they say sometimes its meant to be. For all the time in Vang Vieng and Vientiane we were next door neighbors and the first question I asked Vikram every morning after I woke up was, “Are they up yet?” So the day left for Vietnam made us hate Vietnam all the more.
We were hoping to meet them but had to return home due to an incident in the family and two days ago they went back home as well after three months in South East Asia. Here is sending them a big love for all the great times
we spent together almost like a family even brushing our teeth together in the shared basin of our hostel and wishing anyone reading this happy travels and great friends on those travels. Because without new friends, new adventures are incomplete. Valerie and Andrew thanks for making our adventure complete.
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