My stubbornness and refusal to settle on the first option paid off when we went hotel shopping in Luang Prabang. We paid about three dollars a piece per night for air conditioning and sometimes-working internet and it was wonderful to settle into a place for more than a night or two. It actually felt like a vacation.
Our first full day in "LP", we visited the famous waterfall. We (being Clara the Dutch we befriended, Kady and me) shared a tuktuk with three Canadian boys who kept accidentally putting their foot in their mouth.
I was lamenting some speeding tickets and how I made it through my teens and early twenties with no tickets but got three in four months when I was 25 or 26 and was never going more than 40mph for all three of them.
The tall one says, "So, you're what?... like in the mid thirties?"
I whipped my face to him and gave him the most horrified and accusatory look I've ever sincerely given someone.
It turns out he was not asking me me if
I was in my mid thirties but, rather, if the speed limit in the states was in the thirties (trying to wrap his mind around the km/mile conversion).
As Clara gave details about her career as an ethics counselor, one asked her if she had been doing that particular job for "decades".
The water fall was everything everyone said it would be.
I explored the upper region of the falls and snapped somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty photos. I couldn't stop. Every frame captured the water in a different light or had some different exotic flower in it. Upon returning to meet Clara and Kady by one of the lower ponds, I informed them that the brief hike was well worth the effort. They left me in charge of our two bags and I continued snapping photos. And snapping photos and snapping photos.
A local guy appeared with large retro-looking scuba goggles. I noted the oddness of it as he jumped in the water and went about his business. Then another local guy with goggles came along. They politely acknowledge my existence and I had a private philosophical conversation in my head about why I was feeling uneasy. They had as much right to be here as me if not more. I wrapped my camera chord around my wrist. Then felt stupid. No one wanted my stupid camera. So I unwrapped. Then wrapped it back up. Then I put it in my bag. Then felt another wave of odd paranoia so I took it back out of my bag. I snapped some more photos. I put the chord back around my wrist. I felt like a big jerky American for being so suspicious. I watched the bags like a hawk then tried to fool myself into thinking I wasn't watching the bags like a hawk. I checked my camera again. Still wrapped around my wrist. I scolded myself: a)ok this is stupid and b)why are those stupid girls taking so long?
I picked up the bags and walked over to a nearby picnic bench. I pulled out my book and just barely opened it when Kady and Clara appeared. I put the book back in the bag, zipped up, stood up and we started walking back towards the lower falls. We had walked for perhaps ninety seconds when I realize my camera is no longer wrapped around my wrist. I rip my bag open. It's not there. I race back to the falls. No camera. No local divers.
Ugh
Ugh
Ugh
I don't know what the moral of the story is because I don't know how it could have possibly happened. It defied physics. It was... magic. PLUS!-Bad stuff never happens when you're thinking it might happen. When you're driving and thinking- oh man, I hope I don't get into a car accident- you NEVER get into a car accident. When you're walking back to your car late at night thinking- man, I hope nobody jumps me- you NEVER get jumped!
How did it happen?!
I wanted to cry. I was merely half way into my travels at this point (yes, I've been back in the states for six weeks and I'm only a little over halfway into the posts ha). When my stuff got ripped off in Malaysia or Vietnam, the one thing- THE ONE THING- I bothered replacing was my camera charger. Because you can't be in Asia and NOT have a camera.
It was painful to lose the photos from that day. Thankfully I had regularly made a habit of uploading photos about every other day and best of all, Clara had an extra camera and let me use it a few times when we did other photo-worthy things. Also Kady and Clara were both kind enough to share their waterfall and other Laos photos with me.
And the "Look at that gorgeous thing... let me just grab my camera.... waaaaah" sad face joke never got old.
