Greetings from Vang Vieng

Hello all.

There's quite a lot thats happened since my last post so I'll try to keep this light so as to not go on forever. I left Hoi An at about two in the afternoon a few days ago on a coach to get up to Hanoi. It's a seventeen hour ride to get to there which means out of the last three days, two full days would be spent on buses. Make no mistake about it, Vietnam is really, really long. After about an hour on the road we were driving through the Central Highlands region of Vietnam which was beautiful. When we switched to the sleeper bus before dinner I ended meeting an American and Australian guy who had been traveling together for the last few weeks. Right before Hoi An they were in Nga Trang, a touristy city in the south. During the week they were there the Miss Universe pagent happened to be going on. One day they found out what hotel the girls were at then walked in like they were residents to get past security. They went to the pool and met a good portion of the girls. They then rented suits and went to a few of the Miss Universe parties throughout the week. I didn't believe them till I saw their pictures of them drunk wearing sashes with country names from all over the world. Well played men.

Alright, Hanoi has one place everybody tries to get to. It's called "Hanoi Backpacker's Hostel" and is the only hostel I've seen in Asia so far. I was able to get a bed there since I arrived in Hanoi so early. My plan has been to get to Laos as soon as possible so I just book for one night then talked to the front desk about tickets to Luang Prabang, Laos for the next day. It was a twenty-two hour bus ride or an hour flight. By this point I'd pay anything to stay out of another bus so book the flight for the next afternoon. With business done I walked around the city. My first stop was to the "Hanoi Hilton", the POW prison where the American pilots were taken to. First off, only one third of the prison remains. The rest has been replaced by, get this, a huge mall. What kind of communists are these? Before the Vietnam War the place was used by the French for holding/torturing revolutionary Vietnamese. I completely understand why the bulk of the museum is dedicated to them. It makes sense seeing as what country it is. However, only the very last section was the part dedicated to the American pilots. The whole thing was over the top ridiculous. It had pictures of them playing backetball, painting, reading letters from home and eating nice fat Christmas dinners. Every sentence goes on about how wonderfully they were treated and how much they loved it. It seemed more like a club med than a prison. It even suggested the "Hanoi Hilton" name came from affection from the prisoners rather than being a sarcastic jab. Ah yes, propaganda, still alive and well.

I one-upped myself after the prison and went to the "revolution museum" or something like that next. It was more of the same over the top propaganda. Don't get me wrong, I learned a ton about Vietnam's history while walking around. There's just not a drive for multiple viewpoints or a "both sides of the story" approach to museums in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was made to be like a divine god in that place. After I left I spent an hour eating luch at a quite rooftop restaurant then went straight back to the Backpacker's Hostel to escape the punishing heat outside.

At the hostel I grabbed a beer from their bar and sat down in a chair near the front steps. Groups were already forming and ended up talking for an hour with about ten other travellers (one who did CGI work for the latest Batman movie) from around the world. Five o'clock was happy hour (buy two get one free!) so then once someone would finish a drink they'd come back with two to give away. We all went to the rooftop bar after happy hour finished then left for the one place in the area that still served drinks after eleven. There was about fifteen in the group by this time. Good times.

My flight for Laos wasn't till 6 so I spent the first part of the next day walking around the shops before taking a shuttle to the airport. Flew into Luang Prabang at 7 and spent another hour getting through customs. When I got to town I picked a nice place for two nights that only cost around $6/night.

The next day I walked up to a temple on the hill that's right in the middle of town and took some great pictures. When I walked down I booked a ride leaving in ten minutes out to the Kouang Si waterfalls about a half hour away. It had rained early in the day so it was really rushing. A few of the parts you're allowed to swim so I took advantage of that. One of the pools has a tree that perfectly hangs over a ten foot waterfall area and makes for great fun to use as a diving off point. The top of the falls were just incredible though. I walked to the top of it which probably wasn't a good idea. See, it was overflowing so much that you were basically walking over a slick rock on a two foot pathway that had water gushing down over it and you. There was a little bambo rail though to save you so I guess that's safe...

That night was spent at a bar with more travellers I met at the waterfalls. Our group doubled in size in about an hour. About half the new, large group ended up going to an Englishman's guesthouse for some more drinks on his porch. I attempted to convince everyone there (I was the only American here) that American football is way better than soccer. When they go home they were supposed to convince their countries to then give up on soccer and instead play/watch football. I don't think they will.

I got up a six this morning after the night out since I had yet another day of travelling. Vang Vieng is a small town filled with practically all travellers. It has virtually no cultural experiences here but has some amazing tubing down a river and is overlooked by lush mountains. I got a horrible guesthouse away from everything since I was mapless and trying to find the good places. Eventually I just ended up picking this bad one out of the need to drop my things. Tomorrow I'll be tubing down the Namkong, stopping off at the river bars along the way and flying off the many rope swings into the river. Should be good.

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