Photophobia

After dinner, we went back to the hotel where Rick got a stomach ache and Da and he decided to stay in for the evening. That left Toom and me to ourselves. Toom wanted to go to her cousin's nightclub. (She has family in Ponsavan.) That sounded fine with me, so at about 8:30 her cousin picked us up in a nice new Toyota pickup and drove us over close to the airport to "Highway Karaoke".

I'm quite used to Thai nightspots, having done my share. Lao nightspots are no different: They are all the same level of annoying. If you know what to expect, it can be tolerated.

That is what I believed until I got to this place.

The music was loud. That's what I expected. No problem.

It was the lights. The lights were dimmed to the point where I could barely see my drink in front of me... for the 0.95 seconds out of every 1 second when the room wasn't lit by a blinding, single strobe light.

No: Think about it for a second. You want to define annoying? You can't do any better than that. Close your eyes? Nope... still there. No escaping it.

I begged Toom to have them turn off that light. She asked, and some waitress fiddled around with the strobe light controls, but couldn't turn it off (wouldn't turn it off, I think) and gave up. After 30 minutes, my eyes were throbbing and I had Toom take me home.

Maybe those deep dark Lao eyes can handle something like that, but my baby blues certainly can't. They, and thus I, indeed have a frustration level.