The act of doing nothing

(Written February 14)
There's only one way to explain how my time here in Vang Vieng has been: aaahhhhhhhhhh....It's day four of doing literally nothing worth mentioning (and yet, here I am telling you about it). On day one, I rented an inner tube with every other tourist in the town and spent a glorious 5 hours floating down the Mekong river. My bum was wet the whole time, but that's a small price to pay. Among the highlights is floating with an Irish girl who had the hilarious tendency to warn us of the impending "ass whooping" whenever there were shallow spots ahead (water level is low, so you'll knock your bum off if you don't pay attention).
You might be thinking to yourself, "Why, it sounds like you were doing something after all!". Not true. That was the first day. Since then, I've spent three days in a hammock on the very edge of the river reading, napping, and having food delivered to me. Seriously, I could step out of my little bungalow directly into the water's edge. And the best part is that it's free! How good is that?
There only two counterpoints to the last few days is that a) I rolled my left ankle last night and am dubious about my mobility at the moment (it's like the millionth time, and so that ankle is beyond full and rapid recovery) and, b)I made the erroneous mistake of letting a strange Thai guy share my guesthouse last night, figuring that the bed is huge so why not? At some point in the middle of the night, I had to knock his hand off my back (for the third time) and firmly explain to him that there are two sides to the bed: one for him and one for me. First thing in the morning, I packed up and - bad ankle or no - got the hell out of there!
I'm heading south to the capital city of Vientiene now, with the intent of getting down to Si Pahn Don (4,000 Islands) on the border with Cambodia for a few more days of lazing about in a hammock before my visa expires.