A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Vientiane, Laos

Upon arrival in Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, I had dinner with Stee, did some internet (including adding a sitemeter and comments feature -- so cool!). That was the good part of the evening. The trouble started when I went to bed.

If you can beleive it, I decided to save serious money on my lodging here in Vientiane and stay in a dormitory-style hotel. This not generally my preference, as you can imagine, but guesthouses are surprisingly expensive here. Mind you, by "expensive" I mean $7-10 for a single room. With the amount of time I am travelling I could never sustain that level of daily expense, and I'm going to be in Vientiane for at least 5 days waiting for my Burmese visa.

So, the dormitory-style hotel was chosen. I've stayed in dorms before, in China where I had similar economic choices. Some are great -- clean, three or four beds to a room, sometimes not full, attached bath. Some, unfortunately, are not so good, the Sabaidy Guesthouse falling within the latter category. My room has eighteen beds. Yes, you read me correctly, eighteen. There's no air conditioning, of course, but in each curtain-separated section of the long room there are two oscillating fans, one on a cabinet to blow on the three people in the lower bunks, and one wall-mounted to blow on the three in the upper.

I was situated in what I would consider the absolute worst bed in the entire hotel, Bed #1, next to the constantly-opening door, upper level, the furthest possible location from the windows. Naturally, the wall-mounted fan was broken.

I knew I was in big trouble from the get-go. Despite being fairly acclimatized to Asian heat and humidity, I'm just not a hot weather kind of gal in general. And I'm totally not one of those people who grouse abuot how artificial and unpleasant air-conditioning is -- I consider it one of humankind's greatest inventions, along with the Swiss Army Knife, Cookie Dough ice cream, and the Mercedes SL-Class convertible. Because here's the thing -- I don't like to sweat at night. I mean, I really don't like it, adn find it nearly impossible to sleep if I'm too hot. Even in the winter I sleep with the window cracked open, and in Saigon I must go through three quarters of my landlord's electricity budget with the arctic setting I've got that thing on.

Last night, in my airless upper bunk in the Lao hot season, I didn't just politely glisten. Sweat dripped off my body, soaking my t-shire and requiring me to climb down off the decidedly shaky metal bunkbed twice in two hours to rehydrate. At 1:30 I took my pillow down to the lobby to see if there were any couches near a fan. The hotel guys, also sleeping in the lobby, thought I was insane, and there really wasn't a cool spot there either, but I eventually managed to doze off for an hour before some partying late-returners began to pound on the glass doors six feet from my head Clearly they hadn't read the notice that the doors lock at micnight and violators will have to sleep outside or pay a $10 penalty. When the passive (hotel guys) aggressive (drunks) battle appeared to have no end in sight, I got up, made apologetic shrugging motions to the drunks through the glass and took my pillow back upstairs.

By this time it was 3:30 am, and I was so exhausted and miserable that I managed to drop off for a couple of hours before the roommates taking early buses started using the door at six a.m.

All night long I was devising my plan for the next morning: 1. Shower. Maybe twice. 2. Breakfast. 3. Find Myanmar (Burma) Embassy and apply for visa. 4. Check out. 5. Find new hotel, no matter what the cost. Evidently, however, a night without sleep damaged my planning abilities, which I realized upon my return from the Embassy. I had just handed over my passport. The very passport that I would need to move into a new hotel, as socialist dictatorships are quite strict about keeping an eye on foreigners' every move. And although I have copies of the info and photo page, I had not yet made a photocopy of the Lao visa. I guess I'll learn to love the Sabaidy Guest House over the next five days.

I have improved my situation, however. Instead of Bed #1, I am now in Bed #18, lower level, closest to the window (it's fairly cool outside at night), with two operational fans. We'll see how it goes. If I can't sleep tonight, you may see a news story about a desperate American woman breaking into the Burmese Embassy.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 5:23 AM