namaste' my journey...

From Vientiane we travel by bus to vang vieng.  Mikey and I take the local bus while Luke and Magda take the vip tourist bus.  El and Mike are not joining us here but going straight to Luang Prabang we will meet them in  a few days.  Luke and Magda get there b4 us and get us a room so when we get there late night we don’t have to worry about finding one which is very nice since most places fill up around 2 when the last vip tourist bus comes in.  Vang Vieng is pretty much viewed by most as a party town for tourists, you can however do much more than that. It is known for its tubing down the river which is filled with a few bars on each side pulling you in to come drink, have “happy” shakes or jump off there rope swing etc.  I am sure you can imagine what the “scene” is like.  There are a ton of restaurants that play friends all day long and people just sit there fucked up and watch…not my scene.  While I am here we stay across the river in these bungalows away from everyone.  It is so peaceful where we stayed you would never know what was going on on the other side,  Funny enough our place is called “the other side”.  The 4 of us decide that we are going to kayaking down the river one afternoon.  We go thru this tour group called green discovery, which is a tour group that puts back into the community and protects the environment.  Our guide for the afternoon is Kong.  He is a really funny guy and guides us down river thru some fast moving water…it is so quiet and relaxing for a few hours we are loving it…..until…we come around a bend and all you can hear is the thumping of dance music and people yelling all wasted.  We do park the kayaks and join in for one beer and one jump off the rope swing.  I am glad that I did get to see this but I am really glad that I kayaked down and did not really join in.   We get back in our kayaks and head down river we stop at a cave, which Kong takes us thru, there are many caves here that are beautiful.  We continue down river and get out at our bungalows just in time to watch the sunset over the mountains behind us.  What a beautiful day.  The next day Mikey and I go rock climbing with Kong.  We climb 6 different crags, which are all in between or inside of the caves around the river.  It was the best climbing I have done thus far here in se asia.  After a long day of climbing we head back to the bungalows to meet Magda and Luke for dinner.  We end up eating at our bungalows restaurant and hanging with the owner who we found out from him that he fell off the small (small meaning width wise) wooden bridge with his scooter which ended up falling on his head.  Poor guy is in pain and has bruises all over.  He asks us late night while we are playing cards if we have and weed to smoke with him for his pain.  So needless to say we all sit around with the owner hanging out smoking.  He is so thankful…poor guy.  The next day we all take a local minivan to Luang Prabang.