I stayed in a 4 person room the first night in Vientiane. It was a couple plus another person and myself. I met the couple, Pegite and Neela, the night before but all three of us had never met the fourth person. The couple said the only time they saw him was when he was passed out on the bed in the morning and had never seen him awake. I laughed at this statement, but woke up to find this mysterious fourth roommate passed out. I didn’t even hear him come in. Nor did I see him ever again.

The only tour I went on in this city was to Buddha Park. It’s exactly that… a park filled with Buddha statues. I thought it was an ancient site but no, it was made to attract tourists. Got me, damn it. I do not recommend going to the park. It’s not that interesting, unless you love Buddha statues. Then you should definitely go… maybe.

Anyways, since the middle of the night, my stomach was feeling a bit odd. I thought I’d be able to walk it off, but during the Buddha Park tour, I didn’t think this was something that’d be going away anytime soon. Thinking back, I did think that the watermelon drink did taste a bit odd. I remembered there was some type of milk that went into the shake. I should have just thrown it away after my first instinct of “huh, this tastes weird”, but instead drank it. Thus began my first real food poisoning experience while traveling. Normally, during stomach aches, I just drink a lot of gatorade, eat apple sauce and plain rice, take some medicine, watch TV, and pray to God to let this pain go away.

So I did exactly that, except I just drank water and ate plain white rice that I found at a local Asian Market. No apple sauce overseas, I guess. I holed up in my room and didn’t leave for the next 21 hours. Curse you watermelon drink, but stupid me for drinking it.