last night we went to a random bar to watch the big lebowski. i saw a part of the movie earlier when i was in thailand, but was hoping to see the whole thing this time. no such luck. about 3/4 of the way thru the movie, the dvd they were playing died and we were left watching some *horrible* movie called “ants in the pants” about some guy who’s penis talks to him. ugh. also, while at the bar, we had some terrible food. it sucks, ever since we left luang prabang, all the food that we’ve had hasn’t been very good. it’s ranged from mediocre, to not very good, to disgusting. it’s such a disappointment, because up until then we’ve had so much great food, and when you’re paying to eat at restaurants 3 times a day, you really get sick of paying for bad food. oh well, what can you do?
after dinner we went to another bar and met up w/ these 2 israelis that were staying at our guesthouse. they were both hella cool, and we ended up spending many hours hanging out and talking w/ them. it was really interesting to hear how they felt about living in israel while it’s being bombed etc, how they feel about having to serve a mandatory 3 years in the army, and what they thought of americans etc. israelis it seems are really outspoken, and this guy didnt mince words… he had a lot of strong opinions about so many things and it was pretty cool to hear them.
today we finally did a bit of sight-seeing in the city (that is, after another disappointing meal). first we went to go see the Patuxai monument. it is a huge cement structure that looks like the arch de triomphe, except that it has 4 archways instead of just 2. it also has stairs inside of it that allow you to walk to the top of it (about 7 stories up) and check out some great views. after that we went to pha that luang. this is a huge golden stupa surrounded by all these golden jagged walls. hrm, actually it’s really hard to describe, but this thing looked really really cool. it was really huge, and the fact that all of it was in this bright gold color, added to the splendor.
later on in the afternoon we spent some time walking around the morning market. there were tons of different vendors there, but everyone sold pretty much the same thing: cd’s, little sculptures, t-shirts, and fabric.
the plan for tonight is the same as before: drink beer, watch movies, probably more bad food, heh.
-v
ps. thanks everybody who responded to my post yesterday!