Since arriving in my new home in Luang Prabang a few weeks ago, I seem to have become attractive to many local woman and female Asian tourists.
Most evenings, I eat in the night market, because there is a choice of healthy salads and the price is low (20,000 kip = 69 baht).
I've noticed more than few young Lao women smile at me in an apparently-friendly manner and say 'Sabai dee', whilst not pushing whatever they're hawking on me.
In the night market, everyone sits at communal tables. Japanese and Chinese women smile and say hello to me
I assumed that either I'd forgotten to zip up my jeans and was giving everyone a free eyeful. Or perhaps they assumed that I was some old guy suffering from dementia, and were smiling in sympathy.
Whatever, but it makes a nice change from Thai women, who stopped smiling at me around 2004....