When I read that there was a casino on the south shore of Nam Ngum reservoir, I knew that my final night in Laos would be spent close by and I'd be committing one of my many vices: gambling. Roulette, to be specific.
Got a room at the
Vansana Nam Ngum Resort - good value for a a quality room - only 25 km from the casino (there's rooms at the casino, but they're quite expensive), and a problem arose. A tropical storm was moving in off the South China Sea and the weather sattelite images I was looking at on the internet looked ominous... I didn't want to get caught in this!
Should I go? 25 km.. I could do that in 20 minutes... but arriving at an air-con casino, sopping wet, would it be worth it? The downpour hadn't arrived, and even though my rain gear was marginal, I decided to go for it. I made it with just a bit of a drizzle.
For not the first time on this journey, I arrived at a place that didn't get a lot of drive-up visitors. First off, Lao nationals aren't allowed to enter. I'd say the clientele was 90% Thai, 10% Chinese, and all of them had arrived via shuttle van. I had to park my motorbike a good quarter mile away in the employee parking - there's no visitor parking. I come in, quite wet, and look for the coat check. They don't have need for that, so it was quite a novel idea.
Eventually, I made my way to the game tables. Everyone was playing pai gow or baccarat, but as advertised, up on the mezzanine, there were a couple of lonely roulette wheels. The staff and pit bosses look bored, as none of the Thais or Chinese played this game. I got 3000 Baht (Thai Baht was the currency of the place, and as I'd brought USD, I was losing already on the exchange rate) worth of chips and started playing.
I won some. I lost some. In my opinion, the reason roulette is so great is that it both tests your ability to predict the future and also provides rushes of adrenaline, as the ball clickity clacks into its final resting place, and dopamine if you're lucky enough to win.
About 90 minutes into my play, I happened to win big. Along with being able to see into the future, winning at gambling is about knowing when to walk away from the table. Whether or not I was going to leave depended on the weather. I asked the pit boss if it was raining outside. He looked at me confusedly; surely no other gambler had ever asked such a question. There are no windows in a casino. You have no idea if it's night or day. The pit boss finally understands me and gets on his radio. I'm told it isn't raining. Time to cash in
I cash in with 12000 Baht, a 9000 Baht profit!
Minutes after I got back to my hotel, the deluge began. Absolutely perfect timing.
