Globe Gallivanting- motorbiking across the world

In Vang Vieng, one is apt to scream ‘Frikkin Awe-some!’ while hurtling oneself  down a river, inebriated on rice whisky.  One is apt, apparently, to scrawl marker-pen slogans all over one’s semi-naked torso.  But only, luckily, if one happens to be a Spring-Break-aged US citizen with a healthy American zest for life. For the rest of us, Vang Vieng was a bit of a shock.  To deal with said shock, we helped numerous bottles of whisky to empty themselves, thereby possibly saving various unseasoned US drinkers from an untimely doom, and ensuring their further economic support of the local beverage industry.  The highway on the way there didn’t have signs screaming ‘This Way To East Tijuana’, or tequila-swigging donkeys swaggering to a latin beat.  It didn’t even have dodgy looking Gringos wearing inappropriate headgear … oh no, wait, it did have those.   So nothing had warned us.  In fact I thought it might be a nice place to unwind in...