Water, oh water...and I'm propositioned for sex!

I sat down and cried when I first saw the Mekong river. I'm not sure why.

She slips silently through the Lao countryside, even wider than I thought. She is indeed a lifeline, with people fishing in her, bathing, and using her for travel.

She is also rather dirty. And she is beautiful.

My second day here in Laos, a sweet girl Rachel and I, who I met on the plane (first cute and cool girl I've sat next to on a plane since 1985 despite probably 100 flights logged since then) chartered a boat to take us down the Mekong.

Ett, our driver, is 28, and he and I conversed in broken English, Lao and Thai. He didn't know Hebrew. What?!

He lives on the 7-foot wide by 30-foot long boat with his wife and and two small children. The thing is pretty loud and spews diesel smoke. Wow, what a different life.



Ett piloted us close to an hour downriver, past villages and villagers and rice paddies and hillsides and fisherman. It was divine. I had to bring a coconut, mainly for effect! Plus playing the Star Wars theme song as we pushed off - that was great as always.

20 miles or so downriver, we docked, walked through a small village, smiled with a super cute little girl (Lao children are incredibly adorable), and hopped in the back of a pick up. We were driven 10 miles to the most stunning series of waterfalls I have ever seen. It was magestic.

I rented a motorbike today and returned to the falls. At the base, I bought a grilled Mekong fish and sticky rice. I swam and ogled and climbed and perched on a branch high above the biggest fall. Mmm...

Then I sat alone in a meadow, where a Lao guy with a coy smile on his face who was maybe in his early 20s (it's pretty impossible to tell the age of South East Asians, I think. If they are young they are far younger than they look. I think it's the other way around once they cross a certina age threshold. In any case he was about as old as the girl I hooked up with at Burning Man, I hope, on both fronts) suddenly comes up to me, looks at me, sticks up his middle finger and wiggles it and sort of motions to the shrubbery. I'm like, "Ex-squeeze me?!" Actually, please don't. "No thanks." Again. "NO thanks." He walks off and looks back at me with that coy smile, still motioning. Can someone say, awkward?!

So my first time getting propositioned in South East Asia, besides hookers. I'm all for it, provided next time it's a cute woman who wants to take it maybe 3 times slower.

Much Love,
Roni