Peace Out: Loving Laos!

I was in Vientiane when you last heard from me. I spent one more day seeing temples, roaming around town and sitting by the Mekong eating dinner listening to Rhinestone Cowboy and Islands in the Stream before catching the bus to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng...Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. Let me explain. Dr. Jekyll...the nature/scenery around Vang Vieng is stunning. Beautiful limestone mountains veiled in mist and the Nam Song River running right beside them. Mr. Hyde...a 24 hour frat party where reruns of Friends is played on every restaurant/bar TV in town and hung-over lobotomized zombies stare at it just waiting for Rachael or Monica to give them a command. It's truly bizarre. I heard there was tubing down the river and was really interested until I saw everyone come back with all kinds of crazy shit written all over them in black marker and learned that all the way down the river were bars (I know it sounds good, but there's a catch) pumping really load techno music. Needless to say I headed 7km out of town for a little authenticity. I met Lily (hi buddy) and Rami, a couple from NYC who are traveling before moving to South Africa, and Gunter and Brigita, a retired German couple (they are very young at heart and much more active than me), on the bus to Vang Vieng. Well, long story short, we all ended up at the Vang Vieng Eco Lodge. We ate breakfast and dinner together and did our own thing during the day. My own thing was to walk around the grounds and chill on my porch with a Beerlao taking in the stunning view. Let's just say their "own thing" was much more active. Our location on the river was the hub of village river activity. It was a crossing point where a small wooden boat shuttled locals and their wares from one side to the other, people bathed, caught their dinner, weaved rattan, etc. Much more interesting than the alternative in town. Nature seems to be haunting me. I went to my porch to chill after having breakfast with everyone, I stretched out in my chair, got all settled in and I see something hanging from the ceiling of my porch...a five foot long snake skin that some nice snake decided on shed at my house! Why am I being haunted by animals? Gunter thinks maybe they feel safe because I don't eat meat. When he and Brigita came back from their day out I had him come over to take a look, he was thrilled. He removed the skin from the ceiling, folded it up nicely, placed it in an empty sunglass case and intends to take it back to Germany. I did end up staying in town one night because I had to go in to decide where I was going next, buy my onward ticket and use the internet. I ran into a couple different people I knew (Khalid and Faith) and met a few new people so it wasn't so bad. From Vang Vieng it was on to Luang Prabang; a beautiful UNESCO World Heritage City. I took the seven hour bus trip during the day and ended up sitting next to Gunter where we sweated profusely in the back seat of the bus with the sun beating down on us (no air-con) as it wound up and down the twisting mountain road. Some poor local man was throwing up the entire time. I arrived in Luang Prabang that evening and had to look for a place to stay. I went in the tuk tuk to a hotel with Gunter and Brigita but when we got there we learned that the Lonely Planet was horribly out of date and instead of $15 the rooms were now $30, out of my budget. They stayed, I left. I managed to get myself all turned around and headed through the night market to a different part of town than I intended but it worked out great. I found a nice home at the Mekong Moon Inn for a whooping $9.41 per night including private bath and TV with HBO, excellent. I got showered and went to the night market food stalls for dinner. I was sitting there drinking a beer and having delicious fresh spring rolls when up walked Rami and Lily. We hung there for awhile and then headed to Hive Bar for a quick beer and listened to bluegrass/country music by what turned out to be a guy from Arkansas and one from Colorado who had just met in Luang Prabang and did a couple gigs together (I know this because I had drinks with the one from Arkansas the next night). I made plans with Rami and Lily to meet the next night for dinner and headed home to bed before the midnight curfew. We still aren't sure how strictly they enforce it but since everything closes at 11:30 you don't have much choice but to head home anyway. The curfew is outlined in a memo posted in all the hotels outlining a number of government rules which include no sex with anyone who isn't your spouse and no making pornographic movies in your room. The next day I went to a boat load of temples including Wat Tham Phu Si which is 328 steps up Mount Phusi! The temples here are beautiful; they are covered in murals, mosaics and reliefs. That night I met Rami and Lily as planned and they had emailed Gunter and Brigita so they joined us for dinner at the night market. An entire meal at the market including a huge beer will probably set you back about $3. We hooked up with a couple people they met traveling and some of their friends and went out for one more Beerlao before racing home just in time to meet curfew. The next morning I went to one more temple and then took a mini-van out to the Kwang Si waterfall...stunning, refreshing, excellent. After unnecessarily climbing a rough rocky trail and stairs practically to the top of the multi-tiered waterfall I realized that you couldn't get to the top pools to swim unless you were willing (and able) to climb up the rapids so I dragged my ass back to the bottom and found an easily accessible pool and dove in. That night it was back to the night market where I ran into some of the people from the previous night along with Pablo and Frank from Vang Vieng and hung with them for dinner. The next day I was lazy and just chilled around town, of course meeting up with the same group for dinner that evening. This morning I was up early to see the monks getting alms at 6:00 am. Now I'm posting this blog entry and killing time before my 12 hour (which probably means 14) overnight bus journey to Huay Xai. Huay Xai is the border town in Laos across the Mekong from Chiang Khong Thailand. I'm slowly making my way to Chiang Mai to meet Vania and Nate on the 21st. Now you can picture me winding down a dark Laos road (probably not getting much sleep) on a never ending bus journey to the border. Peace out...Jan