Traffic in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

I don’t get it. Why do all masculine products here include a whitening agent of some sort? Back in the States it’s GOOD to be a little tan (not a tanorexic though)  whereas here they all want to be white(er)… like me heh.  Everyone seems so intrigued by the way I look.

For example, Sunday we went to Taad Moun, a “waterfall”  outside of Vientiene.  It was our first unpaved rural road experience.  It was raining.  Wow, so much red mud. I was glad we didn’t get stuck because guess who would have been pushing had we have been.  Yep, us.  Anyway, there was this group of people across the water sitting under/on/around a tree playing guitar and singing songs.  I was standing in the sun on the other side trying to dry off a little, and randomly some of the women started to take pictures of me.  “Ok, that’s weird” I thought.  They tried to be discrete about it at first but discretion was *not* one of their strong points.  I thought it was funny so I did like the Romans. I started posing.  I did a traditional “I’m Asian and I’m taking a picture” pose.  They went crazy, and the guys started to improv a song. I think they said something like “you are so handsome, come hang out with us!”