Villa, Vientiane, velociraptors.

Villa's belly is a mount bore with pride. Halfway down the sun-dappled sidestreet, in army boots with undone laces, he leans against his pastel-blue tuk tuk with fireballs streaking its sides, like always. Tourists trickle by in flipflopping flipflops, uncertain eyes, and he nods to them, and they nod back, he grins to them, and they grin back, he yawns a sudden yawn and they're infected with the vibe of this place and they erupt into monumental, time-gobbling yawns too.

More come, looking for something to do, somewhere to go, anything to escape this abyss of stillness, and Villa could capitalise here, could drive them the long way to sights that'll commission him and, still then, overcharge the clients sans their knowledge. But he doesn't even pretend to exert effort in luring them aboard. Not to the airport, not to the disco, not even the 7 stop, all day, Vientiane and Onto Some Outta Town Place Life Affirming Tour. Moreso, unlike his shady counterpart at the end of the street, whose primetime operating hours are all else's forgotten ones, are the darkest and dingiest period of the night, Villa won't peddle marijuana, or speed, nor opium, and especially not square-jawed girls with voices like sandpaper and the odd contagious disease.

Somehow I have gotten talking to Villa- astounding English, this Villa- about Vientiane and Laos at large. He has many erudite things to say. He invites me aboard his tuk tuk and we lie head to toe on either side of the annex, two bellies bursting roofwards in beautiful harmonic synchrony, discussing priorities, the remarkably prejudice-free laymen opinion of Laos service girls, Hamas' victory, all this safeguarded against the midday sun that scorches every last morsel of grunt from those brave, or naive enough to bear it, like those sweat-doused Argentinians labouring past just now, Lao People's Republic singlets, and flip flops flipflopping.

I don't have much to say at this juncture, speaking seems too taxing an activity, but I do manage to force out word that at breakfast this morning I overheard a Frenchman speak of his encounter with a troupe of Australians touring Laos via unicycle. Crazy, those Australians. All Australians. Something surely in the water down under.

He tells me he is purchasing a tuk tuk tomorrow, second-hand, for $1800 US, which should be fun, but only mildly fun. Certainly not worth bouncing around in excitement over. And no, he says before I can think to ask, you cannot have a drive of my new tuk tuk tomorrow. It is the unwritten law, okay?, The Tuk Tuker's Manifesto. Nothing personal.

I tell him:

I had lunch with a fifty-something year old German yesterday, our biking advisor pre-departure, grey shoulder length hair, nose like a witch's, and recounted our recent biking odyssey to receptive ears and insightful inquiries. He returned fire with recounts of his own recent biking odyssey with an Italian freelance journalist investigating a controversial damn project in the farflung east. Though punctuating each anecdote, I say, the German would glance around at the bevy of local beauties dining beside us and wink, then nudge me on the shoulder saying Whaddya think?, and These girls are porcelain dolls, and: I've been in Laos six years now, and the only thing I spend more time on than motorbikes, is chasing girls. I asked Villa how it were possible one of these people, a sex tourist, could be so charming and intelligent and good in the company of males, and morph into such a pheromonal trainwreck the moment female presence precipitates. He can't really answer that one. It's a difficult question to answer.

"Sorry. Waiting for a mechanic. I think the heat's gotten to the engine." Villa directs a few people to the next tuk tuk in plain view down the street. The next tuk tuk's driver is recuperating in a hammock strung from one end of the back frame to the other.

And we sit up. And we're silent. And we lie down. And he tells me I remind him of a young Isaac Newton- no really! And I inform him that it's the second time I've heard that this week- really! And that I like it, least a lot more than being told by the guest house staff, whom are a delightful melange of age and gender and card-playing credentials, that I look beautiful. Just like a woman. And am I, in fact, a woman? We're floating in the tuk tuk, it feels, floating in a languid waist-deep river. I'll be in town for a week still, I spout. Just some downtime to digest the past four-odd months. His bulge is oscillating up and down artfully. What a proud stomach. What a life. He is asleep.

Here I gaze through the laze filming my eyes down to the end of the street, toward the swaying palm trees, wondering what I'll do with the rest of this day, so excitingly young and pregnant with possibility. My gaze drifts eons onward toward a water-starved Mekong and it hits me with a whipneck jolt- I'll buy a bottle of water. Drink it. Guzzle. Spill on the ground, my pants. Hell I'm water-starved at the moment; water's exactly what I need. Right there is what I'll do with the rest of my day, you see.