Our guesthouse in Nong Khai, Mut Mee, was right on the banks of the Mekong overlooking Laos. The staff was very friendly and warm, and the restaurant was lovely. Also, they had free internet. For these reasons, Mut Mee was delightful. On the other hand, we had a tiny room (which is fine) with a squat toilet (which I can stand) and no sink (which is just icky).

The main problem with Mut Mee was that it appeared to be populated mostly by pretentious wanktards, creepy dirty hippies and drunken American sorority girls. Dirty hippies I can deal with—usually, I even like them, but there was one couple in particular that was constantly groping each other and the girlfriend got really drunk one night and started talking about 30 decibels too loudly, and I wanted to poke her in the eye. Drunken sorority sisters are much lower on my tolerance list than dirty hippies, especially the ones who were staying at the guest house. They were all like, you know, totally! And he’s super into you! And ohmygod, this wine is like, so good! Totally! at the top of their lungs. For hours. I wanted to set them on fire, and given the looks they were getting from the other visitors, I was not alone.

Lowest of all on my tolerance list, however, are pretentious wanktards. And oh mama, was there a doozy at Mut Mee. I first noticed him when we arrived and he swanned in, wearing nothing but black. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was just eurotrash, but then he started talking—he was either Canadian or an American trying to affect a British accent (which I suspect was the case). There was an older man staying at the guesthouse, some kind of writer or literary historian or something, and the Man in Black took to him immediately. As T and I were trying to eat our breakfast, MIB approached the historian and started telling him all about his linguistic studies and talking all about his “scholarly weight.” The historian responded by telling him stories about early 20th century writers (I’m not sure what this has to do with Pali studies), and the conversation worsened from there. It actually got to the point where the historian recommended a novel to MIB and MIB responded with “Oh, I only read nonfiction. It’s my literary myopia.” I swear to God, I threw up a little in my mouth.

Apart from the wanktards, the hippies and the Delta Delta Deltas, things were okay at Mut Mee. Nong Khai is an interesting town, in that it appears to have an inordinately high percentage of middle-aged, flabby white dudes hanging out with young Asian girls. Not in the Phuket kind of way, but in the all the pictures of couples in the local photography shop are of white guys and local girls way.

Most of the time we spent walking around town or using the internet while overlooking the river, but one day, we rented bikes and rode around town. We went down the riverbanks to a local wat, and then rode out into the country to look at a local sculpture park. We didnt realize until we got there that the sculpture park was clearly an important local attraction, full of tour buses and souvenir stalls. It was worth it, though—some of the sculptures were enormous, and there was a pretty rad one of giant snakes.

From Nong Khai, we left Thailand for Laos. This meant we took a tuktuk to the border, then went through Thai immigration and customs, then waited for a bus to take us across the Friendship Bridge, then went through Lao immigration. Going through Lao immigration means you hand in your forms and photos at one window for the visa; then wait for ages for them to appear in another window; then you go through immigration, during which they ask you no questions; then you go through customs and then you pay a 10 baht (30 cent) entry fee. Ah, southeast Asia. Thanks for making it simple.