Guide seeking guidee; likes long walks through the jungles of Laos at night, drinking lao lao, and freaking the hell out of foreigners.

Dear SFTFTHOO, having you as my guide was an experience I'll not soon forget.

Honestly when you offered to take me with you to the local village to "get" some sticky rice I assumed you meant "get" as in "acquire and return to my lovely resort with" to enjoy the lush jungle setting in comfort. I did not realize you meant take the boat (board with motor on it) to a local village to make sticky rice at your friends house, then enjoy said sticky rice with friend and his house chickens (chickens that are allowed in the house and try to steal the sticky rice), to then consume buffalo soup (tasty), buffalo salad (raw meat?) and lao lao (paint thinner sold as a beverage in Laos) and to play tic-tac-toe until it was dark.

The romance of being in a foreign country, in an unknown location, with near strangers has so much mystery and romance ... in books. Since it was dark I again ass-out-of-u-and-me'd that we would take the boat back, imagine my surprise when you suggested we walk and led me off the road onto that little jungle path. Those steep hills flowing down to the river must look so pretty in the light I remember thinking to myself while slipping and sliding through the mud almost losing my shoes. Oh and the leeches! My gracious how I shrieked when I saw that first one on my ankle (you know, I thought it was a bit of leaf because I'd never even seen a leech before), and then I kept thinking I felt them on my ankles, though really it was just the two, ha ha ha! Oh, and the snakes (dangerous), and spiders (not, but huge), and the slippery little bridge made of three sticks of bamboo with the sheerest coating of mud, and me clinging to your hand the whole time (except for when you tromped ahead) because you had the flashlight and I couldn't see a thing and had no idea where we were going.

You were so assured that I followed you without too many protests. Though honestly when after a half hour of flailing through the mud you confessed that you were lost, I was vindicated, I mean, relieved. Luckily we were able to walk back to the village and take the main road (which was substantially less dramatic being even and leech free) all of the three kilometers back to the resort where I collapsed on my bed breathless from the excitement.

I have never experienced any thing like it.

Don't call me.

Yours truly,

Freaked-out Foreigner