It didn't happen on purpose, and it sure didn't look like a whorehouse, but within an hour or so all the pieces started to come together and the puzzle was solved. Basically it started like this... Sander made a reservation at this hostel for the night that was close the airport, and a little off track from the main city centre of Vientiane. We were getting up at 430 and heading to the airport to catch a 6am flight to Siem Riep. Great idea- why waste money on a tuk tuk downtown and a more expensive guesthouse when were only there for a few hours sleep?! So he booked the room (not on my trusted hostelworld account with up to date user reviews; but some other place where he said he never read the reviews as there is no point-- I know hold my ground as to why there IS a point- but then again I would not have gotten this amazing story) and we get ready to leave Vang Vieng. We head out on the "VIP Bus" which is a 40 yr old bus with barely working AC vents and a terrible shock system and seems to only go 35-40 clicks an hour. It's fun and I enjoy the scenic route so I don't mind. The route from Vang Vieng to Vientiane is not nearly as hilly and awe inspiring than the route from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng- which was completely breathtaking every second and blew my mind. But I digress, the ride was easy enough- about 5 hours. Then the real fun happens, and we get dropped off at this shady "bus terminal". No one knows where we are, if we are even in Vientiane and the drivers speaks the worst English. Some people are heading to Hanoi, some to Bangkok, some to Pakse, and us just having a pit stop in Vientiane. We look at the GPS on Sanders phone and realize we are just outside the city centre, and I also notice a plane landing in the very near distance so we must be super close. When talking to the tuk tuk drivers we ask about the distance to the hostel, first they look at the address like they have no clue where it is asking each other... Which I don't buy for a second. Then they are all saying the name of the "hostel" to each other and laughing. This should have been my first hint as to where we were heading. Screw it, we saw a plane- we must be near the airport! We must be super close to our hostel! This will be super cheap! NO. It won't. Unless you are willing to argue, haggle, walk away, go back, leave the area, act like a mother scolding a bad child and basically have a meltdown inside your heart. All for a dollar. But it is the principle and I am BIG ON PRINCIPLE. Scam me once, shame on me- but scam me twice? NEVER! So here we are asking how much to get to our hostel, (which btw we didn't have a map-- mental note for next time-- but we're going by memory of a map we saw online the day before- which was a foggy memory at best) and they start at 60,000 kip which in CAD is 7.50$ Absolutely not! We do our thing. They do their thing. Now it's 40,000$ kip... Still not gonna happen. So we say fuck it- we saw the plane landing, we MUST be close. The walk begins... We get just off the street from the terminal and ask another tuk tuk guy, and this time we get it down to 5,000 kip each, $1.25. That's more like it! So we head to the hostel/brothel and once we get to the place, it looks nice enough, but slightly out of the way and on some side road in another little "village" away from the city. There is about 5 locals running the reception, which is just a desk outside in the parking lot. No one speaks English, no one knows about our reservation. That doesn't really matter though cause we never pre paid. So we just ask for a room, and they try to charge us more than we know we're supposed to pay- so once again were haggling with him, showing him the email with the correct price and finalize a deal. He takes us to the room. It's fine enough- bathroom, bed, table, shower, fan. We're only here for 10 hours or so. We drop off our bags and decide to eat. We are tired, hungry, slightly cranky and people have been trying to rip us off every three mins for the last 2 days. It's really hard in Laos, as there are great people with the best smiles in the world and such kind hearts, and then there are people who just see a rich tourist who they must try to make money off. Its super frustrating and even though it's only about .50- 2$ each time- like I previously stated- it's the principle. That's one or two meals for me, and if I was so rich- I wouldn't be staying in the places I am. I worked hard to get to this side of the planet, and while yes, maybe I have it easier- no one in Laos ever seems to be working. Just sitting at tables all day waiting to rip someone off. It's the people with the smiles and the kind hearts and the hardworking cooks who toil and sweat all day that deserve my tips and my money, and they certainly can change my aggravated attitude around quickly and remind me that there are always good and bad out there everywhere you go. So deciding that heading out for food will change our attitudes, we stumble upon this side stall restaurant BBQ-ing pork tenderloin. It smells amazing. We ask how much it is, joking about the ridiculous price they will probably charge us. To our surprise (this is why I love people in the food industry) they say 15,000kip which is a mere 2$ for dinner. YAY! Honesty! Politeness! A smile! We don't think twice before sitting down and we order fried beef and sticky rice and pork veg noodle soup. The soup was massive and outstanding and so was the beef. We grabbed a big bottle of Beer Lao and enjoyed for the first time in a day or so, tranquil eating and happy people. They had English CDs playing Jonny Cash and Black Sabbath. We were the only farangs there, and I'm pretty sure in the whole town. The place was clearly loved by everyone as people kept pulling their cars over and jumping out to grab some bags full of meat, veggies and rice. The lady cooking was awesome, so quick and fast at her job. She would cut up the veg and spices and herbs so fast and throw them in the biggest mortar and pestle I have ever seen, mashing them up one handed while working the rice with the other. Once we chilled out there for a bit we decided to walk back to the hostel and sort out accommodation for Siem Reap. We get back and the wifi is not working in the rooms, I notice there is a balcony with fans overlooking the "lobby/reception/parking lot" and we sit there. This is where it starts to get weird. Within 5 mins a Laotian woman comes up to us both and sits in between us. She can barely speak English, yet asks if Sander is my boyfriend or just friend... I don't respond. Then she asks Sander what his job his. He replies he doesn't have a job. Then she is talking in Lao to us, I'm staring blankly at her laughing trying to understand, and Sander just decides to reply to everything in Dutch, since she is only speaking Lao. She gets up and leaves, and from what I could gather was that she was looking for Sander to support her. This was my second hint something was going on. We laugh it off and keep on searching for hostels. Then below I notice a couple of the young guys who are all still just hanging out at the desk get on motorbikes and drive away, returning minutes later with young girls on the backs of the bikes. They looked about 14-15 and either high on drugs or drunk. The girls are just standing there kind of swaying and the guys go back to the desk. Then one guy takes one girl upstairs, past the upstairs balcony we're on and into a room. Third hint. Then the swaying girl left downstairs follows one guy into a room on the bottom level. Now I'm interested. They could be young and just hanging out, they could be doing drugs, I don't yet jump to the whore house conclusion but it is most definitely a possibility on my mind. I tell Sander my thoughts and he is a bit wary at first. He hasn't been watching like me the craziness of what's happening downstairs and he couldn't understand the Lao lady who came out to see us or the tuk tuk drivers and their sneaky laughing about the hostel. But I could. And I knew something was weird. I wait and watch some more and before you know it, two more girls on the backs of bikes arrive and then two more 5 minutes after that. All going to separate rooms all around our balcony. Then men show up who are not the guys at the desk, and money exchanges are happening. They take a couple swaying foggy minded girls to more rooms. When the girls from earlier emerge from the rooms, they get back on the bikes and get driven away. This happens more times than I can count and I cannot believe that we somehow are in the middle of a sex trade operation! It's things like this that happen and you can't help but just laugh at the crazy shit that goes on in other parts of the world that you so easily can be involved in without even realizing it. We escaped the hotel at 4am and attempted to walk to the airport. We lasted about ten minutes before haggling with tuk tuks for 10 minutes over a matter of a dollar and got the FUCK out there. Let me just say, although unreal and totally ridiculous while happening- I couldn't have asked to be blessed with a better story and whenever I tell people this from now on, I have a feeling that their reply will be something along the lines of "Only you, Stefanie... Only you." Which seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life- but you know what? I wouldn't trade these crazy stories and amazing tales I have to share for anything else. If I was put here for a reason, it was to tell overly detailed, gregariously told, fully true but maybe just slightly exaggerated stories to the world. Anything worth hearing isn't always the truth. That's up to you to decide. Until the next tale, Stefanie #hendodoesasia out.
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