5 Hours after crossing the border with the insufferable bus driver(s), who by the way put on the Aqua's (I'm a Barbie Girl) Greatest Hits video disc at full volume upon leaving the border just to be that guy we arrived in Vientienne the capital city. The Irish lasses ran to an ATM to pay me back the 40 USD they borrowed to get their visa's and bailed, in fact they payed me back 500,000 Kip, which was well over 50 USD, i even tried to give them 100k back and they balked, at least something good is happening to my karma. We managed to hook up with 7 germans who were looking to go to the same place we were Viang Vien. We managed to hire a private minibus for 50,000 kip a person (1:8652), and because their was now nine of us we had much more bargaining power for a 9 passenger minibus. The drive took 4.5 hours and was hell, the road was very comparable to the one to Siem Reap, filled with potholes and very dangerous, as this one was winding up and down mountains. The kicker was that the driver was feeling ill and continually rolled his window down, thus increasing the tempeture in the back of the minibus by 10 degress making everyone miserable, it only took 5 times each time he rolled it down for him to roll it back up. We arrived in Vang Vien shortly after 9 and it was pitch black out. We wandered around town, the germans with their lonely planet guides, and James and I just following not really wanting to get involved in the decision making process they were debating in German. Finally after looking at 3 guest houses the germans sent the two ladies of the group out to find the guest house as they were the ones vetoing each one we came across. We finally settled on one in the center of town, for a whopping 30K Kip a night (less than 4 dollars). To boot several of the germans thought they were paying too much. The room was complete with a bed, bathroom (no flushing toliet), and a table, what more could we ask for.
The purpose of going to Vang Vien was the tubing. What this involves as many can guess is floating down a river in an inflated innertube...the kicker is that their are 15 bars along the river that you can stop at as you go along, each complete with either a rope swing, or zip line that you can take out into the water. While tubing the first day (yes I went more than once) we ran into several English guys who liked to have a good time, they had brought with them several bottles of vodka and 16 bottles of red bull, the good times were a going!!! As the day went on the courage, albeit liquid, increased in many of the tubers whom where taking more and more risks on the swings. These swings were probably 30 feet above the water and at their pinnacle you were probably 40-50 feet above the water when you let go. I got brave on the first swing, made it to the top and nearly barfed from how high up I was....i did however try the zip line at the second bar, and decided that that was my adventure on the swings and lines for the tubing adventure as when i hit the water my feet touched the bottom, I'm all for excitement, but that was a little too real for me.
The second day in Vang Vien was essentially much of the same, we started tubing around 11 and made it back around 6:30 thus losing 20K Kip from our deposit, for those that could still walk (from the alcohol not injury) i'm not sure they even noticed. We relaxed in the evening heading off to Bucket Bar where you could get about a pint of whiskey and coke in a bucket for 20K kip and sit in a hammock and people watch. A good end to a two hard days of floating down the river.
Day three we were packed and ready to get back to Thailand, James flight home is on the 23rd, and he still has friends that he travelled to Thailand their. One of the deals we made while trekking was that we were to be back in Pattaya by the 19th, and low and behold at 9:02 our taxi from Bangkok pulled into the hotel where we were going to stay!
One thing about Laos is that the natural beauty is everywhere, the mountains the rivers, the people. Not much commercialism their, its one of the few places (countries) to not have any major fast food chain, not even a KFC. Vang Vien wasn't really experiencing Laos though, as the towns people were probably outnumbered by tourist, you definitely saw more white faces than asian faces walking the streets at any given time of the day. I would go back to Laos, its very laid back, and very serene, a good place to go if you need to get your head on straight and work shit out. next time it will be for more than 3 days!
Next stop after Thailand is still to be determined, a trip to South Korea may be making its way back into the itenerary, which means that my trip will more than likely be extended by 2 weeks, to the middle of October. Aside from South Korea, its looking like New Zealand or Australia (which ever comes in Cheaper and its a dead heat right now), Brunei, probably a quick stopover in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore to get out to any of the places listed above, and then back to the Philippines to come home.
For those actually following this back home, this takes me to where I am currently at in my trip sitting in an Internet Cafe in Pattaya Thailand!!!
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