Moving Through Laos

Two days ago Becca and I hopped on an uncomfortable mini-bus ride for about 5 hours to arrive in Vien Tieng, Laos.

The tuk tuk driver dropped us off on the airstrip in front of this guest house and we were greeted by a sweet Lao man asking us all to stay in his guest house, and that he'd pay the tuk tuk driver. While I had wanted Becca and I to stay in a nicer place, now that it was just the two of us, we just decided on this place because it was closest (we weren't sure how far the "center" of town was, and w/ our backpacks and the heat we didn't want to journey far) and because he was so nice...he explained his parents gave him the place as a wedding gift.

So we dropped our stuff and mosied into town. At first I was bummed out because it was NOTHING like Luang Prabang; not beautiful, not charming, it seemed deserted. But as we walked towards the main strip and more people arrived it started bustling and winning me over. It's not as nice as Luang Prabang; but it's still cool. The main strip is lined with restaurants and guest houses and they are filled with tables and benches that you lay back in, and with TVs playing episodes of FRIENDS, or Family Guy. :) It's very relaxed. Everything here is slow.

So once we got in, we sat down, had some dinner and decided to go out that night.

We wandered down to "the island." It is an area of bars that are along the water that you cross a little bridge to. All our friends from the slowboat were there plus tons of other people. I danced my heart out all night because they played music from like last summer back home. And Becca took off on a walk. While everything here closes at curfew, they don't kick you out: so I remained at one of the bars, with everyone else, until about 3am and then I decided to head home and get sleep for the next day.

Becca and I signed up to check out some caves and go kayaking in the river and had to be there by 9am. At 8am Becca finally shows up and tells me that she was mugged last night walking! She was walking with a guy friend and two Lao boys on a motor bike drove by and cut her purse off of her and took off with it. Her purse w/ her cc, and camera! With all the pictures of me getting my hand held at the trek by Bond and loads of others! :( Along with money and her license. We came down to the internet so she could tell her parents: apparently they arleady made a $525.00 charge to her CC.

Then because we couldn't do anything else, we went on our trip we already paid for. It was fun! We went to some caves and then got in intertubes with nothing more than a huge battery and head torch (like the miners wear) and floated into this cave. It was unreal! I felt like I was in The Goonies!!! You could only see where your flashlight was and the cave if you looked up just went so high, and there were so many formatoins and it was so slimy looking and just the coolest thing!!! We explored the cave by tube for a bit, all of us in the group (4 of us) had to link our feet to the others tube and paddle together. This is the cave we went in:

Then we had some lunch and hopped in kayaks that took us down the river. It was beautiful. There were some rapids, but not crazy ones.

Then we looked ahead and saw why most people come to this town: tubers. People get in intertubes and ride down the river, and there are make shift bars all along the river. So people ride their tubes down and get roped into these bars and drink and then continue on down the river to the other bars. The one we stopped at had a HUGE swing, about 20 feet in the air you climb up, then you hold on to a bar with your hands and swing all the way out and drop into the river. Becca went and loved it and these older couples that were partying and jumping in got me to climb up, and after a few minutes of being terrified I did it too!



After a while of hanging at this bar, since we weren't drinking and wanted to kayak our group got back in our kayaks and headed down the river some more. Oh but before that! One woman asked me to go with her to the swing and jump again, because it was fun. :) haha I didn'dt want to but went up anyway and after like 10 minutes and countless people going before me and telling me just to do it, I climbed down the stairs. :) As while it wasn't scary once I did it, and I did do it already, I was too scared. Once was brave enough for me!
Here I am kayaking down the river:



So then we continued on until reaching the end and got out and wandered into town. On our way we found a police station so Becca made a report of the theft and they told her to come back today at 9am.

We found a guest house for the two of us that I had liked when we got here (where we ate and watched Friends the first night) as Jordan hadn't written us back saying for sure he was coming or not, and we showered and then found Jordan.
The three of us met up with two other travelers we met on the van, and coincidentally Jordan worked with in Taho, Kylie and Nathan. Sage, who was on our slow boat, joined us and we went to dinner.
And apparently every place here has a regular menu, and then they hand you an extra one called the "Happy Menu" which consists of shakes and pizza and bread you can order that is either made with marijuana or mushrooms! Nuts, right?

So we ate our, non happy, food and I was EXHAUSTED as I had gone to bed at 3 and woken up early for kayking so I walked with them down to the bars, and then after about 15 minutes-I waited because we met two guys in Luang Prabang: one that was a bartender for a bar and one that owned it-so we wanted to say hi to them, then I came home and went to sleep.

Woke up this morning and Becca said that the police said she had to have a witness and they didn't believe her. :(

Today she doesn't feel like tubing, so we're just gonna hang out and watch a bit of TV outside then head to the bars because they have hammoks on the river so we're just gonna lay out in the heat and relax. Maybe finally get a tan! :)
I'm relieved because I didn't really want to go tubing...I'm not a big drinker and I have this infected wound on my leg thta won't heal because it's so hott here and moist out that my body is never really dry and in order for it to heal, it needs to be dry so I'd rather stay out of the water today.

I know Jordan is gonna love this place and it is really awesome and relaxed so I think I will now be missing out on Bali because of time. Cambodia I will still get to go to, though!

Miss all of you at home! Miss home! :)
XOXOXOXOXOOOXOXOXO LOVE YOU!