Laura's Year in Asia = Fun Stories

Did I mention in my last blog post that I loved Laos? Because J'adore it even more now. On my last day in Luang Prabang I hiked up the 300+ steps to the wat in the middle of the town - over looking the Mekong river and mountains...so beautiful. Then went to give blood at the local red cross - Not quite the same as Cambie street, but fun nonetheless. You get a free massage afterwards! That afternoon me and some of the slow boat people took a tuk-tuk out to the waterfalls around Luang Prabang. There are no words that can explain what they looked like. Even 'waterfall' sounds too ordinary. It was an amazing afternoon swimming in the crips clear water jumping off the multiple terraces and trees.

The next morning saw a few of us head down to Vang Viang, a town about 200km away, but on Lao roads that means at least 7 hours. Within the first 20 minutes on our bus 50% of the Lao passengers were sick and there was a moat of puke running down the centre isle of the bus. It was a disgusting ride to say the least. Unfortunate because the scenery was incredible. If you could forget how dangerous the actual road was, the limestone karst cliffs and lush rainforest valleys were incredible in the early morning mist. We arrived in the town of Vang Viang (or VV) late afternoon and proceeded straight to the first "friends bar" we could find. VV is full of these bar/restaurants that instead of chairs, have beds that all face 2-3 TV screens and play Friends episodes (or Simpsons) 22 hours a day. No joke. Its great for veging out - but doesn't do much for the conversations! There are a lot of travelers who hate VV for that reason, but as I discouvered there is SO much more to that town if you look past the travel agencies, seedy guesthouses and friends bars. It's an outdoor mecca where you can do anything from rock climbing, river tubing, kyaking, caving, trekking...sometimes all in the same day!

Of course everyone goes to VV mainly to do one thing. Tube down the Nam Son river. They've got the setup down pat for sure! You walk 10 meters down the road and rent a tractor tube for the day. Then you jump in a tuktuk and drive 20 minutes to the drop off point. You get in the crisp river and in less than 2 minutes you're at the first BEERLAO bar. The bars use long bamboo sticks with tubes attached to pull you in and if you buy a Beerlao or Laolao you get to use their "funpark" as much as you want. The Funparks start at the first bar as a bamboo platform about 5m in the air, and a zip line straight into the middle of the river. Its so fun!! And going down is only 1/2 the fun, when you surface you find yourself 20m down river and have to fight to get to the shore and climb up the sharp rocks...to go again!!! The same theme continues for the next 5 or so bars, with the fun parks getting bigger and bigger. The best is the third bar that has a 15m trapeze that swings you accross the river and its a matter of deciding to let go at the begining when you're going really fast or after a few swings when your fingers feel like they're giong to fall off. The 4th bar has a big swing that fits 4 people on it. The fifth bar is a surfboard (ok shack door) that you can surf the river current on, the sixth bar has a 10m diving board....You get the point. There are also caves that are a bit inland from the bars, and after a few jumps into the river exploring the caves is relaly exciting. Tubing down the river itself is supposed to take 1.5 hours, on our first day we spent 8 our there. I loved it so much that I went again the next day!!!! I could barely lift my full bottle of Beerlao though my muscles were so sore and legs so scratched up!

I also did a 2 day lead rock climbing course while I was there in the mornings before tubing. It was really fun as there were only 3 of us plus the guides, and th scenery was incredible. I learned the basics of lead climbing, and more importantly learned that I need to start working out some more if I want to do anymore climbing!!!

After 3 days of tubing you really get to know every traveler staying in VV, that combined with the rest of our slow boat crew ariving serisously ment that I couldn't walk 1m without running into someone at the Luang Prabang Bakery or Corner Cafe or Namlao Discotheque. Lots of long nights with Irish, British, American, Austrian, Canadian, Chilean, and South Africans drinking snake whiskey and beer lao. It was hard to leave, but that ticket to India is burning a hole in my backpack! I'm in Vietnane right now, and back to being in love with the incredible Lao cities. The cute little cafes mixed with dirt roads and torn up sidewalks with tuktuks and Beerlao signs everywhere. I just love it. With the teeny bit of Thai I speak combined with the teeny bit of French, I think I almost am considered fluent in Laos! Now if only I could find a use for my Afrikaans.....

I've only got 100,000 klip left and 24 hours to spend here in Vietiene - I'm pretty sure 99.9999% of it is going to be spent at the incredible bakeries here though!!! I'm staying at a really nice guesthouse right on the river, and got to eat some incredible meals at the little cafes that line the semi-paved streets here. I wandered to the Arc de Triumph that the Lao government built with concrete donated by the US to build roads...burn! They also built it 10cm bigger than the one in France just to spite their former colonial rulers...double burn!

(and I just put up all my Laos pics in a webshots album, check it out cuz it took me 2 hours!)

# posted by Laura Davies : 3:14 PM