in
cafes. It was also a struggle to get email access. The government is
quite strict on the social websites so I think that is why we
struggled to get the access. I'm glad I created this blog and decided
to limit facebook because there is a temporary ban on facebook in
site to disguise your actions (I'm not going to bother). Anyway I
think I left off where we arrived in Vang Vieng.
I was excited about our trip there because of what I had been
hearing about the town through other backpackers. On our bus, there
were excited passengers that had spent a decent amount of time there on
previous occasions so now, I was excited too.
When we finally arrived, by the looks of it, I was disappointed.
Most of the roads weren't paved and the ones that were, were half
assed. You would drive 100 yards on pavement then 50 yards of
dirt and rocks, basically it was off-roading. The buildings were tin
roofed shanties and even the newer buildings including the ones being
built were not impressive. So I guess the town was filled with charm,
maybe some good food, I don't know, something to understand why
everyone loved this place so much.
Through tripadvisor.com we researched a guesthouse and made that
our home for the next few days. They were very helpful and although
the room wasn't too impressive the staff is why we assume everyone
gave it a good rating. We got settled in and tried to do some more
research about the town. The buzz going around town and we had heard
about this long before we decided to come here, was the rafting down
the river. What happens is you rent an innertube and they drive you three
miles away along this river. You then float down the river that runs
along side the beautiful limestone cliffs and along the river banks
there are bars that offer free shots of rice whiskey upon arrival. You
could try out their different concoctions that launch you into the
river including ziplines, rope swings and water slides. It sounded
pretty cool. So it was definitely on our to-do list there. The other
interesting activity was exploring the caves. We didn't know too much
about them but we were more than willing to give it a try.
The funny thing about Vang Vieng was their obsession with the
sitcom "Friends". While Annie and I were trying to find a place for
dinner, it was difficult to find a place where "Friends" were not on
TV. Most of the restaurants had a pretty cool arrangement going on.
You kind of get your own personal lounge made of bamboo and covered
with cushions. They did a great job at trying to make you feel at home
by offering a casual dinner with some TV. The only problem was the
food. The food there was horrific and all the restaurants must get
their food from the same distributor because it was all the same.
Nothing was authentic or fresh. If anything, it felt like 7-11 was in
charge of our diets for the time. We were there for 3 days and not
once did we have something decent to eat. The closest thing seemed to
be pizza and "Ellio's" blew their pizza out of the water. Getting back
to the crew on the bus that was so excited to get here. I don't know
how they could have stayed there for any amount of time (one of them
stayed for a month).
Day number two, we got off to a late start but still decided to
go for the tubing trip. We got our tubes, jumped into the Tuk-Tuk
and headed upstream to the start the journey. I finally figured out
why everyone loved this place so much. They were a few years younger
than I and this was a "spring break" kind of place. We crossed over a
wooden walking bridge to the first bar and there was a crew of kids in
their early 20's, a drunken mess of college kids. Pop dance music
blared from across the river as they played all different kinds of
drinking games. It was pretty comical. Annie and I did our best to
have a good time and not get involved with all the shinadagans going
on. After a couple of beers there, we jumped in our rafts and traveled
to the next bar. They
had a diving board that rose about 20 feet above the water so we had a
beer and tried it out. Then continued to our next spot that sported a
trapeze. It was a ton of fun and the farther you get down the river
the crowds got thinner, older and more tolerable. I guess the young-ins
can't handle their booze like us veterans and boy, did they miss out
The final bar we stopped at had a massive slide. A cement structure
covered in tile. You could probably fit four people across and I know
what your probably thinking. Tiles? Wouldn't that hurt? Surprisingly
enough, it didn't hurt at all. The cool part about this slide was at
the end it had a lip that shoot you up in the air while launching you
into the
water. I saw a couple of people go and I was ready. Annie wasn't
so sure. I got to the top, equipped with my waterproof recorder and
away I went. You build up an incredible amount of speed and then you
hit the lip about 10 feet before the end. It launches you through the
air and then dropped right into the water. It was awesome. Annie was
still not convinced so I had to get others try to convince her and
finally... she went down and loved it. We then had to hightail it out
of there cause it was getting late and we had to return our tubes in
order to get our deposits back. We then had some shitty pizza and went
to bed to get ready for the caves the next morning.
The cave (not "caves" as we learned) was very, very cool. We
rented a motorbike and traveled out of town toward the limestones. It
was nice to get out of town and drive past the small villages and
farms. The scenery was beautiful and when we finally arrived to cave I
was surprised to see some of the most beautiful blue waters I have
ever seen. A large tree hung over the small river and a cute little
bridge. From there you could see schools of fish swimming around. We
then headed up a steep mountain side which took about 10 minutes to
reach the mouth of this enormous cave. It was gorgeous. I don’t have
much experience with caves in my life but this was wide open and you
were able to explore at free will. We took our time exploring the
different paths that wrapped around large rocks. There weren’t any
tunnels to speak of unless we missed them. There are no guides for
this tour so its on your own accord, which was nice but its possible
we missed some good “nooks and crannies” of the cave.
It was getting pretty hot in there so we took of and had a dip in
the crystal blue water at the base of the mountain. The water felt
amazing. The perfect temperature to cool you off and allowed you to
take your time and explore some of the wildlife it had to offer.
The next day we traveled in another bus trip to
nations capital. It was a cool city but if you remember (in my
previous blogs) I visited a psychic. Well she was right. She called
it. I didn’t really doubt it and tried to be careful but it didn’t
work. It wasn’t so bad though. We toured the city a bit but couldn’t
stray too far from our guesthouse. So I don’t have much of anything to
write about our visit there.
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