Day 21 & 22: Ventiane

Day 21: Ventiane, the capital of Laos, is actually the slowest moving city I have ever been to, there are absolutely no traffic jams, I can't believe I am in the capital of Laos. Today I met a nice lady from Vancouver named Gayda. Gayda was the oldest world traveler I had met she is '80' years old and still sharp as a whistle and looks like she is about 65, her secret ladies is 'oli of olay'! We had breakfast together and then I headed off to the local market to do some shopping and then headed ot the 'Patuxai', which is Ventiane's 'Arc de Triomphe', similar to the one in France, but this one has designs of buddha and other buddhist figure on the walls. I guess it represents the blend of French and Asia. Then met Gayda for dinner that night. Gayda had a hard life. She got divorced when she was in her early 20's, which was back in the 50's and ended up raising a son on her own. Her ex-husband and her son were both schiophrenic and shot themselves. Gayda now alone as her son and her sister had died was building a house close to Ventiane. She wanted to live here, because it was cheaper and most of her friends back in Vancover had moved away. She wanted to also come and teach the young poor village kids English. That night Gayda and I had wine, cheese, and crackers in the courthouse in our guesthouse...

Day 22:
Today I left for Vang Vieng, which is a couple hours north of Ventiane. It has beautiful limestone mountains similar to Halong Bay, but the moutains are not in the water. Interesting they have quite a few places that show reruns of 'Friends' and I found one place that did reruns of 'Simpson's.