Happy in Vang Vieng, Laos

I was talking to my friend Mary one day about my postcard collection and this writing project when I voiced an unfounded observation that, "The only people to send postcards are women and gay men." Simply put, I don't think straight men send postcards. Mary immediately asked, "Do you know any straight men?" Well, yes - I think. And after some thought, - Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.

So, I won't delve too deep into this observation as Mary does have a point, but the current exception to the rule of my collection thus far is the above posty sent to me by my colleague and flatmate, Carl. I've been living with Carl since March of this year, and when I heard that he was going to Laos and Cambodia with his friend Bernd, I shameless asked for a postcard. To be honest, I was expecting a fail, but to my pleasant surprise, I got one in the mail!

The above posty is awesome on so many levels - like Inception. For starters, it's a postcard of the Plain of Jars, however, Carl and Bernd did not go to this archaeological marvel of megaliths. Instead, they went in search of waterfalls and adventure because word on the street is the jars are filled with hype. So instead, he found this moody and dramatic postcard and sent it to me from Vang Vieng. I like it a lot, but what I love is his message, "Hello Chen Chen. Postcard as promised. Off to catch a Giant Catfish now." For some reason, I imagine him doing this with his bare hands.

Which brings us to the next level of awesomeness - like Inception. While in Vang Vieng, a backpackers spot of sorts, they took advantage of the Happy Hour specials and ordered the "Happy Pizza." The pizza here is your typical French style bread-loaf sliced in half and toasted with pasta sauce, ham, cheese and mushrooms (of the genus Psilocybe Psychedelics). Now one of the benefits of living with the sender of the postcard is you get to hear about the trip, see pictures and ask questions - fresh - before anything is filtered and uploaded to onto Facebook. And yes, the pictures are amazing, to say the least. Come to think of it I'm kinda boring when I travel compared to Carl or my mother on vacation.

Anyway, the last and most subtle part of awesomeness for this postcard is the stamp placement on the lower right-hand corner. WTF? As this is Carl's first and only, he didn't save enough space for the postage in the traditional upper right-hand corner of the card due to his state of mind/inexperience - you decide. To make matters even funnier, he needed space for two stamps. Take a closer look. The two stamps are doubled up - one on top of the other on the advice of the postal clerk (so he says). Never have I seen this, but it is indeed awesome. And it only cost 5,000 Kip!

Now, as for whether or not there were any catfish at all, I will never know. Nevertheless, thanks so much Carlos, I got your postcard.

Get there!