PASS VANGVIENG AND ON TO VIENTIANE

Vangvieng, a small (even tiny) town on the way from much bigger touristy towns of Luang Prabang in the north and the capital Vientiane in the south, is surprisingly filled with tourists and way too many guesthouses for its population and territory. The major attraction?... TUBING! Tubing is basically getting drunk floating down the river sitting on a tube, once you got drunk enough there's an option to make it more exciting and jump, or rather be thrown into the river from the swings, some of them quite high I heard. Aside from that the town has really nothing to offer. It does have quite a few caves around, and you also can enjoy some water activities like kayaking, and go trekking of course. But since we've done all that already, we literally spent 2 full days there sleeping and watching movies in the cafe.

Maybe it's the age, but although the idea of tubing as "wow.. exciting.. cool" flickered a couple of times in my head. It was just that... flickering... Never it flamed itself into fire, the result would be - we didn't do it. Another reason is I guess, because both of us didn't feel all 100% well. Some stomack pain, some joint pain, some head pain... And in the day it was getting so hot, that the idea of sitting on the tube under scorching sun, getting drunk didn't appeal to neither of us. We did wanted to go and see people "tubing" and falling into the water from crazy swings, which apparently designed the way that make you do all kinds of unbelievable flip-flops and tumbles in the air. But it was just too hot, and comfortable cushions that we had under our backs, shoulders, heads and legs (hmm.. I rhyme ^^), a glass of fruitshake and a movie was just way too comfortable for us to get out and do something.

Katinka, as a much younger (but very mature indeed) soul, did go tubing and she enjoyed it very much so. So, at least she did it. She didn't do swings though, but apparently when you buy a beer they also give you a free shot of cheap Lao wiskey, or maybe they gave it to Katinka because she is young, cute and prety, who knows.. The fact is that if you're not careful you may end up very drunk; beyong the safety point in water. Urghh.. the old man speaking. Ha~

Anyhow, we arrived in Vang Vieng late at night, actually early in the morning, something past 2am. There's an old airstrip used for the planes to land between the bus station and a town. So, when we got off, we had no idea which direction to go. Wherever you look it just doesn't look like a town, even a small (tiny) one. After waking up a few people and asking we headed towards the town. Everyone was tired and hot. Becuase it was that time in the morning when the sleep is the deepest, all guesthouses were dark and closed. The only ones where we could get hold of people by quietly yelling "Sabaidee~" were expensive ones. We were walking through the night knocking on the doors with no positive result for about hour and a half, when one man passing by asked if we needed a room. Katy didn't like him from the first site and she let me know that in Korean. I thought he was the way he was because he woke up in the middle of the night. Anyway, we decided that I will follow him and look at the room and Katy with Katinka would wait me, where they were. We walked for about 7 minutes, on small hanging bridges and small alley until we got to the cafe-bar on the river, where they had 4 bungallows. Turned out they were full and when I was turning to go back he asked me if I wanted to see a room in his house. Apparently he had a spare one... Ha~ I probably looked like I was born yesterday to him. I politely declined and felt a soothing, calming coolness of a torch in my right pocket, and a foldable knive in my left pocket that I bought to peel the fruits. But at that moment, they were my killing machines... haha~ Anyway, I was probably getting paranoid, because he just said, Ok and turned away and went the other direction. I, still feeling the calming coolness of metal in both of my pockets, went back.

Anyways, by that time it was something past 4am. The girls were getting more tired and we decided that we will wait till the daylight comes and then look for a guesthouse. So we took our bags and went to sit on the bench of one restaurant. The girls started making themselves comfortable to try to get a few seconds of sleep. I couldn't sleep, so, I went back out to search for a place. After about 45 minutes walking I found one. The man was asleep, so I had to wake him up, but he said he had rooms and only for 50,000 kip (US$5). I said I'd be back and went back to get girls.

We got to the guest house at about half past 5 in the morning, got our rooms and finally could rest our tired souls on a not very comfortable bed. Still... it felt like heaven. To be clean and lying horizontally after 8 hours drive on the bus and 3 hours of walking.

That was all for us in Vang Vieng. Maybe it'd be good if we did go tubing, but no regrets on our side. We're now in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. And it is surprisingly small and quiet. BUT, it has good awesomely nice cafes. Good side of French colonialism, I guess... We arrived here, found a cheap guesthouseand went out to have something to eat. I felt so happy when they brought us our tuna salad, a really nice baguette sandvich and one ecleer (I don't know how to spell it) that latter felt like an idiot to be so happy over such things. But because we were so uncomfortable with our stomachs lately and I was really getting sick of fried rice and noodles, having something like this does make you happy. Tomorrow we're going back to that cafe to try other pastries. Yam.

I wanted to upload photos today, but the computer doesn't have a DVD-drive, so I guess it will have to wait till I find one that does. Till then...