Vang Vien to Luang Prabang

Vang Vien, Vang Vien. . .what to say about Vang Vien? It is a small town between Vientiane and Luang Prabang which has in the last five years has blown up as a tourist "chill out" spot. I went online to look for some photos (because, as will be explained later, our camera is officially dead). The article I found from 2002 described Vang Vien as "off the beaten path" and said a lot about it's authenticity. In 2007, the town center has many more "falangs" than Laos, and there is a crazy number of restaurants (all serving the same pseudo-western food), countless TV bars(apparently a few years ago one restaurant started showing the TV show Friends and now there are about 5 in the one block main stretch doing the same), and any number of activities and locations for designed consumption of Beer Lao. That said, it is beautiful here, the people seem to be incredibly friendly, and once you get outside of the few main tourist blocks it is a lot more like the villages we saw with Chris in Thailand.As for it being a "chill out spot", it certainly was that for us. We stayed for five days, and have been taking everything at a VERY slow pace. Our activities have been hiking, biking, reading, cross word puzzles (thanks for the book Chris), caving, tubing, and swimming. Good times.
The first day we floated about 3 km down the river in inflated tractor tire inter tubes. It was very beautiful, but unfortunately the "dry bag" that we rented was not actually water tight. Our camera ended up completely drenched and dead, which is a great pity considering the beautiful places we have seen in the last few days (not to mention the fact that we will have to buy a new one).
Yesterday we took a "VIP" bus to Luang Prabang. I'm not sure can fully describe the experience. First of all, the distance is only 230 km (about 145 miles) but the trip took about 8 hours. This was in large part due to the very windy, narrow roads going over the mountains along the way. It was also in part due to the frequent, unscheduled stops along the way to pick up or drop off numerous Lao villagers who were crammed into the aisles (as all the seats were full with tourists). This is pretty much standard for regular buses here, but we had payed an extra 8 dollars between the two of us to get the "direct, A/C, VIP bus" (which ended up being true only in the sense that it WAS actually a bus). For most of the ride I was sharing my seat; the man on the floor next to me was using my arm rest, and the woman next to me was using my leg room for a sack of oranges and hanging on the the hand hold on the seat in front of me. To really top things off, apparently having not ridden in cars for most of their lives, Lao villagers are more prone to motion sickness; at least 3 of the 20 or so people crammed into the aisle way were vomiting throughout the trip. It was awesome.

But, we finally made it to Luang Prabang, which seems like a really interesting city. Just walking around last night we saw an incredibly vibrant night market, beautiful French architecture and Lao wats (temples). We also had a delicious dinner and a few glasses of wine to shake off our trip before heading back to the guest house for an early night.

No sooner had we laid down than an incredibly loud Karaoke party started up in the street behind us. This was followed by unknown animal scratching through the thin bamboo thatched roof (okay, it didn't actually make it through, but that is what it sounded like). This was followed by roosters crowing (at 2AM-- aren't they supposed to wait until morning?). So, we finally drifted off to sleep around 2AM. . . only to be awakened at 4AM by what sounded like a couple of kids playing on a base drum and some symbols. I waited in bed thinking that some Thai person would get fed up and go outside to yell at them. Eventually Andrew got up to see what was going on- it was monks in the temple right across the street (ironically one of the things that made us think it might be quiet) using the gongs. This pretty much ruled out the option of anyone yelling at them. And they kept going . . for about twenty minutes. . . at 4AM. . . and I think the gonging woke up the roosters. . . . Also, Andrew had an allergic reaction to something in the room and woke up congested and very irritated eyes.
It was quite a day! I guess our first "zany" travel adventure day. I actually feel pretty lucky (knock on wood) that we've made it this far without more similar days.
And it was all pretty funny. . . in retrospect.