Laos Laos, rao rao!

We just made it to Vientiane from Vangvieng! The past three days have seemed like an entire year, full of activities and being outdoors. In Luong Prabang, we stayed in a hostel called “Spicylaos”, which is currently managed by my friend from ISDSI (she was a Chiang Mai student working with ISDSI, same year). There is a Spicythai also in Chiang Mai, which I never saw but we may stay there when we go back to CM. Another CM graduate, who is an incredible guy, started the Spicy hostels. So I haven’t told you everything about Luong Phabang yet:

LP is supposed to be the ethnic center of Laos because it is situated right on the Mae Kong river, and it’s a smaller town. We were there for the end of Buddhist Lent, so there was a parade and ceremony of floating these boats and these little banana trunk flower floater things. The fireworks were out of control, literally. My friend, who was guiding everyone from the hostel around all night, got burned on her arm from one of those small exploding ones that people were just throwing into the street during the parade. My ears were ringing from a few going off near me. It was fun regardless. Good beer here. Beer Laos is the monopoly of brands in Laos, and it tastes much better than Thai beer. We all went to a waterfall outside of the city that was by far the prettiest waterfall I’ve ever been to. The limestone rocks make the normally muddy looking river water look crystal clear, and it formed some of the coolest shelves to explore, caves under the water fall, etc. Most tourists there went down to this jumping spot at the bottom, but three of us went to an upper waterfall jumping area where no one was because it’s hidden. I couldn’t take any pictures with Julia’s camera because you had to climb under a scarily gigantic waterfall to get there. So Luong Phabang was very nice and relaxing. Of the three whole days we spent there, one of them was spent walking around the city looking at these incredible temples built into rocks and caves and the National Museum, which is the old palace. We met a large group of English, Irish, and Australians who have been staying in the same hostels and when we went down to Vangvieng they were already at the hostel again.

J with her birthday Buddah (the one for the day she was born)

Banana trunk flower floater things. We attached sparklers and incense

Bravery from the one afraid of heights.

Spicylaos opened another hostel in Vangvieng the day before we got there, so their opening party was the night we arrived. A monk blessing ceremony for an hour and a half was followed by free food and drink. It’s weird how you somehow join these hostel communities, but it has been extremely entertaining so far. Yesterday everyone (about fifteen of us) went tubing down a river bordering Vangvieng, which is the main attraction for the town. I wasn’t such a big fan of the city just because there were more tourists than citizens it seemed, but the tubing was something out of a dream. The starting place is a bar that has a giant swing and you just go from one activity area to another activity area doing whatever activity they have if you want. These swings swung you by your hands thirty or forty yards out and you could drop whenever you wanted. There was mud volleyball at one place; mud up to your shins. That was the most painful thing of the day. Another place had a giant slide, the biggest swing, and an extremely long zipline. The slide may have been as painful because it launches you thirty or so feet into the water. The zipline was fast and dropped you about fifteen feet at fifteen miles per hour I’m guessing. The swing was amazing although we saw a girl hurt herself pretty bad because she didn’t know what she was doing and she dropped from the highest point possible instead of swinging two or three times to get lower.

This giant slide launches you too high, too far, and too fast, forcing perfect form. Though it appears so, I do not have said perfect form.

The first giant swing

So yesterday was a lot of fun but we are resting tonight. Today we traveled from Vangvieng to Vientiane by kayak half of the way through some rapids and calm parts of the river. We stopped for lunch of a baguette, fried rice, and chicken kabobs at a place with a “10” meter cliff jumping spot, although I think it was smaller than that.

Cliff jumping

Lunch spot kayaking from Vangvieng to Vientiane

Now we are thinking about what we’re going to do tomorrow in the city and whether we’ll stay for two nights or just one before heading South on the bus to Four Thousand Islands, which are islands on the MaeKong river on the border of Cambodia. We may or may not do this depending on how long it will take to get to Siem Riep for Ankor Wat.

Not too well written I know but we’re on a tight schedule! More to come, and more pictures to come too when we have faster internet!