A Shining and Blinking Disco Star

I think back to being in Vang Vieng, crossing the dirt road from the place we had dinner to the Disco Club across the street. I was there with a few people I'd been traveling with through Laos- a French guy, a German girl and an Austrian girl. That sounds a bit like the beginning of a joke. But it's not.

The disco in Vang Vieng looked somewhat like the basement of your friend from 6th grade, the one with the cool house who had a party -- with boys and girls. The walls were festooned with Christmas lights in a plastic tube. They were all twisted into excitingly simple shapes which, I guess, are supposed to make you feel like disco-ing when you are in Vang Vieng. There was a star. And another star, of a different color. And a big, bright shining rectangle that blinked on and off, all to your fave top forty hits! Throughout, I felt like a mild Asian woman would be coming down the stairs any minute to offer us sandwiches or kool-aid (but really to make sure no one was making out).

We all drank Beerlao and watched the locals do their own sixth-grade dancing. Then the French guy started dancing up a storm himself. I laughed and applaud him, glad that he was feeling the Laos-commotion (sorry, had to). He yelled over the Usher that was playing -- "The alcohol - it's improving my mood."

I enjoyed the rest of the night, watching the flickering and circumstances of a night out in small- town Laos. If this doesn't sound familiar to you, maybe you weren't invited to that party in sixth grade. Maybe I wasn't either. But you can imagine what it would've been like, right?