You are never to old.

A few days ago I joined the crowds of backpackers in Vang Vieng to engage in the ritual of floating down the local river on an inflated tractor tube and jumping of things.
That's when I met Mike from England. Mike will celebrate his eighty first birthday this week and decided that floating down the river with a bunch of twenty somethings and one middle aged man, me, was just the thing to do.
Now the actual floating is just a minor part of the entertainment. At various parts along the river bars have been set up with attractions like diving platforms and flying foxes that allow you to show your skill in splashing into the water from great height all for the price of a bottle of beer.
Where I shy away from anything over five meters high Mike has no such qualms and even jumped of a trapeze swing that was about fifteen meters above the river.
I hope that I can do things like that by the time that I am eighty.

Haircut

It's a lovely morning out here in Vientiane and after having had some breakfast and drinking a few coffees while reading the newspaper I went for a stroll through town. I came across a fairly decent looking hair salon and decide to try my luck. Now it's not that I have suddenly overcome male pattern baldness but the hair on the back of my neck started to look unruly.
When I go to Tony the barber in Whangarei it takes him about three minutes and a number two razor to get me looking fine again, not so in Vientiane. First they washed my hair, all two strands of it, then there were hot towels, cold towels and a head massage. I've never figured out what the purpose of a cranial manipulation is I find it neither pleasant nor have I noticed ever any benefit from it. But on with the show. The cutting using a combination of three different razors and a pair of scissors takes half an hour and then I look just like coming out of Tony's shop.

The quiet country

After a week in Laos the thing that strikes me most is the relaxed way in which everything occurs. Even the busses drive slow. I have added some pictures below to show you what it is like.

A Budha statue near Champasak

Laotian and Communist flags in Savanakhet

Fishermen on the Mekong checking their catch

Slowly crumbling building in Savanakhet

Norry

A Norry also known as a bamboo train is a form of transport that I haven't come across before. Basically it's a timber platform on top of a set of railway wheels this "cart" gets powered by a small petrol engine connected via a V-belt to one of the axles.
As long as you know what the train schedule is so you don't run into a real train you're Ok.

When you run into a Norry that comes from the opposition direction you simply stop and decides which one gets dismantled and stacked on the side of the line while the other one goes by.

As far as I am aware these contraptions only run near Battambang in Cambodia and even their days might be numbered as they are technically illegal and the government might decide to enforce the law any day soon now.

Beggar

I always thought the following story was an urban myth.
While I was having dinner in one of the backpacker restaurants here a crippled man came shuffling in on his bum begging for money. Nothing unusual so far. He looked pretty down and out in torn pants and shirt and as he was quite persistent got quite a few people to part with their cash. When he had finished his round he shuffled out of the restaurant, counted his haul, picked up his flip flops from behind a rubbish can, stood up and walked away!