Vang Vieng: Falang mao

Vang Vieng, over 8 hours away from Phonsaven by bus and full of falang. These tourists are here to party, and party hard. I find it amusing that this entails getting as drunk as possible, often as naked as possible, either in public (for the girls) or probably private for the guys. Having spent about an hour or so with some Lao people downstairs, which was interesting but sometimes slightly disturbing as a few of the men seemed to think that I was interested in having sex with them, I decided to go with some other travelers to a traveler bar. There were bright lights, western music (MGMT and some other hits hit the soundwaves) and lots of foreigners getting drunk much as they would at home, expect here there are less boundaries. Women take part in wet t-shirt competitions as though it defends the honour of their family. Funnily enough, if that was the motivation you'd give them they probably wouldn't do it. I wonder what it is about us westerners that we believe that the more liberated we are, the more we are willing to let go of our physical selves, not in denunciation or control, but to revel in the letting go.
I don't mean that there is anything inherently wrong with this, just that we, in general, seem to view this as a freedom when in fact it is not. In my mind, it is more that we become slave to it than master. Yes, getting naked in front of a load of people and giving yourself to whomever you choose (oh and what a choice hahaha) may be the most liberating experience of your life, but what have you freed from within you?
I am not sure that what I want to say is really coming out. I've had a lot of Beer Laos and some Lao-Lao (potent rice whisky) on top of a +6 hour bus journey which I had to wait over 6 hours for. All I really want is to talk to people I know, have fun with friends then cuddle up in bed with my boyfriend. I hate that people judge me, I hate that they think I am judging them. Sometimes I wonder if we all suffer from some sort of inbuilt guilt complex where we see others but feel bad for having an opinion of them as this then involves some sort of judgment, however surface-level that may be. The thing is, a component of human nature is to evaluate ourselves against what we are not in order to know what we are. I know that these people around me are a lot younger than me and having fun in the way they know how and are comfortable with, I wonder, for a moment, if this is the evolution of the species; a road towards having less discernible differences so we all become very similar on the outside and more able to communicate from deeper within,

Now, I know, this is all sounding a bit sci-fi. So I stop.
I want to be held. I would like to know it is okay to be like me..sometimes, in this sea of difference, I seek some sort of reassurance to stop myself feeling like I might go mad. Rarely you meet people who feel the same. Like gems amidst the mud and dust and straw of everything else, they stand out as something different. I wonder if I shine like them or look like some odd thing left behind from some far away place. This is my big-headedness coming out, but also this awareness that (maybe in large part due to age difference, something I never really thought mattered that much) I AM different.

In my small concrete room with fan whirring I look up at lumpy tangerine-blancmange ceiling, listen to the whirrrr of the fan and just want to get out of here. The travelers' idea of fun is to get drunk with a bunch of other travelers, possibly take your clothes off and act out all those same insecurities and power games as you would at home. What do you learn, what do you see that is different from your country? Maybe you feel more free as your friends are not there to see, record and maybe judge. Maybe you think this is what you are meant to do. And anyway, in another 5 years, will you really give a shit about the video of you dancing topless next to some random man who wants to get in your pants?
Probably not.

I feel like I come from another planet.