Luang Prabang

Usually when I imagine myself traveling when I'm not traveling, I like to imagine sitting in some small exotic city, comfortably wasting time in a shady cafe while life goes by in the cool breeze, thinking profound thoughts and being content.

I can't say I've had any profound thoughts. I have resolved to actually go through with my plan to try and hitchhike to India on a boat from Thailand, mainly because the prospect of absolute failure has suddenly and strangely begun to appeal to me.

I've also been reading another Haruki Murakami book. There's plenty of profound thoughts in there which save me from coming up with my own.

But the city of Luang Prabang has every other aspect of my disembodied travel fantasies. It's tiny, in the middle of nowhere, it occupies a thin river peninsula and is full of colonial French architecture. Cafes, boutiques, white-washed cement with dark wood and awnings. It should be in an issue of Martha Stewart's magazine.

It's remarkably quiet, especially after the boozy circus that was Vang Vieng. For two days Adam and I have done nothing but wander around and drink beer on riverside decks, make friends and lounge on mattresses on shaded platforms on hills across bamboo bridges, and relax on our massive balcony.

I left my passport at the Indian embassy in Vientiane, and that's another thing I always imagined while traveling: taking it slow while you get visas for places even more exotic than the one you're in. I also kinda imagined myself reading newspapers and having coffee, but I hate coffee and haven't read a newspaper for ages.

That's okay. I'll settle for wading in turquoise waterfall pools and strolling down quiet streets past orange-robed monks coming in and out of the the temples which are hidden among the trees and villas.