Adventures in Laos (Part Three)

So this bus we took to Vang Vieng was the scariest thing ever. First of all, some idiots took our seats but it wasn't worth fighting over since there were still two next to each other in the back row of the bus. Thejourney started (after the best banana pancakes ever) and I quickly realized it was not going to be a comfortable trip what with the guy next to me sitting on my left leg for a majority of it. The guy initially laid down in the aisle to get more comfortable, but gave that up after about half an hour as sitting on me was the better option. He also fell on me and Laura twice when walking back to his seat.

The bus ride itself seemed like it was part of a wacky cartoon. It was literally twists and turns consistently for five hours. And I'm talking twisting around mountains with ravines that had drops thousands of feet deep, it was truly terrifying. The scenery was nothing like anything I'd ever seen before, but it was so scary to look at at the same time. There were also tons of bamboo huts constructed on the sides of these mountains, it's unbelievable how people can live hanging over a ravine (although you can just drive through Beverly Hills as Erica, Liz and I did and I was crapping myself just as much on that drive.)

We finally reached Vang Vieng which is known for it's water sports. It's a really cute, chilled out town, my favorite up to that point of the trip. There's only one main road to explore, which we did, followed by eating some chips at a bar while watching the uncovered terrorist plot at Heathrow last week. Later on we ate at one of the four "Friends' restaurants - these were literally restaurants with comfy seats and pillows you lay out on while eating and watching continuous episodes of Friends (in English but with funny subtitles.) We literally sat there and watched at least three hours of it on the first night which was necessary for relaxing.

The next day we slept late (finally!) till almost 1:00 pm as I woke up to ants crawling on my chest (only 4 but still, plus I found a little colony of them next to my head!!) and ate at the Luang Prabang Bakery (it's just called that even though we were in Vang Vieng) and then headed off to the tubing station.

VV is known for river tubing which was our afternoon activity. You basically get a black rubber tube and float down the river, just how it sounds. The first stop was about two minutes down from the starting point where Laura got off to do a zip line and I stayed in the water to watch whilst having spiders jump all over me. About five minutes down from there were got off the tubes (you are pulled in by guys who either extend bamboo sticks or throw tubes to you) and went up to the first bar. This place was so cool, basically it was tons of bamboo huts (instead of tables at a bar, it's your own hut) where we got drinks from the main hut and then drank in our private one wih two Israeli guys we'd met. There was a volleyball court (we didn't play cause it was raining) and they were playing techno/dance music which was cracking me up. They had a crazy zip cord back and forth thing called the Flying Fox which we both cringed at after seeing a girl accidentally belly flop off of it and bruise her whole thigh.

We headed on down about another ten minutes to the next bar which played reggae and rock music (we floated up to it playing 'Welcome to the Jungle'.) We sat with the two guys and three Israeli girls eating some noodle soup with Bob Marley playing in the background. We went to these water caves but I elected to not go in cause it was pitch black, so I just trekked back through the jungly area and got bitten about 29,469 times instead.

Back on the tubes we just continued floating the whole rest of the way down during which Laura and I had finally separated hands. I was the one at a disadvantage at first when I couldn't catch up to her (I remained about 30 feet behind and got stuck on a rock), but eventually 4 guys caught up to me so I had company for the last 20 minutes of the tubing. At the end (where my feet got completely stuck in the mud) this woman told us her bar there was open 24 hours, which was the same bar the Israelis had told us about so we decided we would come back later that night.

For dinner, Laura and I ate at the most popular Friends bar, devoured our Western food (yummy food in all of the town by the way) and watched about 4 hours of episodes again. The only crappy parts of this experience were spotting a mouse climbing up the wall near us, and the waiter ripping me off. Basically I counted out the money we owed a couple of times, gave it to him, and instead of leaving abruptly, waited around for him to count it without paying attention during which he slyly pocketed 20,000 kip then laughed at me claiming I owed him more. I counted three times and thought maybe it was my mistake (though I didn't think I made any), and after I left, I counted all of my money and the guy definitely stole from me. It's only $2 but come on, we were tipping him as well! I was really angry.

After this we attempted to find this Rainbow Island bar from earlier on. As the bar wasn't too close to our hotel, we crossed some random bamboo bridge which was deserted and found ourselves at this hotel made of individual huts with a tiny bar that had just 2 patrons. We asked some Lao guy who was randomly hanging around the huts where the bar was and we trusted him (which in retrospect was probably dumb) to take us to it. It turns out the guy was actually the bartender or whatever you'd call it for our place. The bar was literally a hut with 4 bar stools that was dark - he went inside, turned on blinking lights and started blasting Red Hot Chili Peppers!?! He had a Beer Lao with us as he offered us the marijuana/opium/mushroom menu (thanks but no thanks.) We couldn't stop talking about how random it was (especially when he started playing Arctic Monkeys) and I became obsessed with staring at these weird animals behind us which looked like skunks but I think in the end were actually some species of bird.

We must have been under some spell (or a drugged noodle soup perhaps) as one of the Israeli guys had put an idea into our heads earlier that rather than taking the bus to Vientiane, we should kayak there instead - which of course is exactly what we did. We drove in a pick up truck for about an hour to the river; Laura and I were so nervous because even though we had helmets and lifejackets (dorky photos to follow) there were going to be low grade rapids, but they were still rapids after all. The two of us paddled in a rubber boat (said to be untippable) but we were going too slow so they made us change into a plastic (very tippable) boat until we reached the rapids. At that point we each got into plastic boats with a guide and another tour person which turned out to be easy when gliding throug them. We stopped for lunch and had a yummy barbequed meal of god knows what kind of meat (said to be chicken but still lovely nonetheless) and kayaked a bit more (with Laura and I doing two whole rapids by ourselves!) The only problem for me on the whole kayaking journey was at the end when we swam to the exit point of the river. As I'm a pretty bad swimmer, even in a lifejacket, the current kept taking me away. I couldn't even hold onto the rocks I was banging into and I simply just waved goodbye as I thought I'd meet up with everyone again somewhere in Cambodia. Luckily one of the tour guides came out to save me but it was scary!! Afterwards we drove about another hour and a half picking up random hitchhikers along the way who paid the driver when they got off.

At Vientiane we decided to live it up after checking out one hostel with a hole for a toilet (I don't do holes in hostels, just everywhere else) and as it was pouring we settled for a nice room for $12 (okay considering all our rooms in Laos were $2 per person the whole time (NOT KIDDING.)) It was Laura's birthday so after a battle with an ATM, we had a nice dinner in Chinatown.

The tuk tuk driver then took us to a club called Soradith (like Meredith - same same but different) which was hopping with Lao locals. A bit strange as the staff seemed to outnumber the patrons (they all had black shirts with white numbers on the backs which was so funny when they all stood next to each other at the bar.) The DJ played hip hop and dance music and the people in the club were so friendly, maybe even a bit over friendly as the cheers-ed you literally every 30 seconds with their drinks. I was a bit skeeved by the end of the night thoguh when one of the security guys was whispering in my ear in Lao and then telling me he loved me. It was overdue our time to go!!

Next day in Vientiane (sketchy city with humongous rectangular shaped potholes that you could easily fall into) we went to the cenral market that contained the city's department store (basically Tri-County Flea Market with lots of silk stuff) and then took a tiny public bus to a Buddha Park. The park was really cool; it basically contained dozens of big and little buddhas in different positions including one where you can cluimb into its mouth (again photos to follow.)

We tuk tuked it to the airport where we didn't realize there was a $10 departure fee per person. This was a bit of a problem as we literally didn't have enough money to pay for it! We were scraping up kip, baht, and pounds, and there was no ATM so we thought we'd be stuck on Laos forever (not such a bad thing but I'd prefer it to have been in Luang Prabang or Vang Vieng.) Luckily some important airport guy let Laura get money from an emergency debit thingy at the duty free shop and we were saved.

Current Location: Saigon, hot and sweaty.