Buddhas in the park and public displays of aerobics

We took some time out of city life to visit Buddha Park on the outskirts of Vientien. It is basically a sculpture garden full of amazing, strange and beautiful Buddhist/Hindu sculptures on the edge of the river. The first sculpture is a huge dome that you can climb into to see the whole park. An amazing place to sit and enjoy the day . . . that is unless you are swarmed, literally swarmed by 5-10 year olds who just want to stare at you, yell things, belch and then say 'money'. A rather odd experience because these kids were not street kids or trying to talk to us - just purely annoy. Anyway, we escaped them and continued to enjoy our morning in the park.
Later that evening, we attended the public aerobics session on the waterfront. Aerobics in Laos is a funny thing. The music is techno versions of bootlegged songs including Madonna, Rod Stewart and 'Yellow Polka dot Bikini'. Mostly attended by women and young girls. The outfit of choice was spandex leggings and long sleeved shirts with long athletic jerseys over the whole getup. I'm fairly certain the young woman leading the aerobics was making the moves up as she went, most originating from the aerobics of the mid to late 1980s. It was amazingly enjoyable.
Later that evening at a rooftop bar, we made some fellow traveling friends who were a bit of a disasterous troupe of guys. Let's just say that one of them called himself 'Big Al' and wore a pink hat. Another attempted a back flip off the bar; there was no blood but a bruised ego and forehead.