Vang Vieng. Oh my.

What a strange bubble in the middle of Laos. Vang Vieng is a town completely geared to young backpackers, offering a slew of beach bars that are alive at all time of the day and night. During the day, you go tubing, which means: renting a tube (or simply swimming) a short distance between 4 or 5 bars. When you arrive to each bar you are usually greeted by a shot of lao whiskey. You follow-up with a mixed drink, served in a bucket with 4 or 5 straws. Drink up! Needless to say, its a long day of drinking, guaranteeed to leave you somewhere on the spectrum of minor inconvenience to total disaster. Here were our results:
- Me: Lost sunglasses and flip flops. Ink on my back for the next three days, hopefully faded enough to obscure lewd phrases...
- Dave: Broken toe and bruised tailbone from sliding in the mud bath. Yeah.
- Sep, a friend we met earlier in the day: Disapperaed by the 5th bar, woke up in the Lao hospitaal with stitches on his forehead.

In all, not bad, even for Sep. About 50% of the people in Vang Vieng are walking around with bandages or limping and I dont even want to know how many end up worse. The culprit is usually the ziplines and slides that are attached to each bar. It's not a far fall to the rocks esp after a few buckets.

Well, after one day of tubing and the drama along with it, we chilled out the second day. I met some friends: Drew fom Canada and Tabby from Jersey (UK Jersey not US :). We partied with them that second night. We decided to explore the "happy" bars - a certain select group of bars that offers an array of illegal substances. You must at least visit one of these places, apparently, so visit we did. :)

Between all the partying (and really, we were quite tame), we didnt have the energy to explore much of the natural surroundings. But even from the view of the town, the nature really was stunning. One day I did venture out with Drew and Tabby to visit an organic farm (my idea of course :-). The farm iself wasnt much to see, but the food (fresh goat cheese and mulberry shakes) were wonderful, and we also got to take in more mountain views, including a sunset on the way back.

I was glad when we left Van Vieng. Unfortunately, the escape route was a 5 hour bus ride through the mountains. All the locals on the bus were puking. I guess they arent as acclimated to traveling by car/bus. Pretty unpleasant.

We are currently in Vientiane which isnt much of a reprieve. It's a dusty city, not as tourist-oriented as Luang Prabang, but I guess at least more authentic. It 's so hot - we paid $7.50 yesterday to use one of the hotel pools, which is a fortune, about the cost of a hotel room for the night. But it was great - the last thing I wanted to do on such a hot day was go sightseeing. The longer you travel the less inclined you feel to "see the sights", maybe thats a bad thing. That night we ate at a nice French restaurant, La Central. $20 a person - another complete indulgence, but it was nice eating "regular food" and the DESSERT - True French style molten chocolate cake. You know I loved every bite.

Thankfully, we are rocking out of this joint tomorrow. More later!