Advertisement
Published: April 20th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Vang Vieng--View from Our Balcony
We stayed here for a week (the longest we had stayed put in one place for months!) and enjoyed the amazing scenery. The early morning mist added a magical feel to the whole scene. We mostly rested during our 2 weeks in Laos. We had done non-stop sight seeing and traveling in Viet Nam and needed some down time.
We traveled 4 hours North of the capital, Vientiane, to the city of Vang Vieng. It was the first time in months that we stayed in the same guest house for a week straight. Usually we only stay in the same guest house for 3-4 days. While fun, that can get quite taxing and you end up never feeling like you're "home" anywhere.
To open the photo album, double click on the first photo. We mostly read, enjoyed the backpacker scene, drank in the amazing view and did grounding things like go the same restaurants everyday.
The most active thing that we did while we were there was go mountain biking to see a cave. We rented our bikes really early to make the most of the cool morning, got a map and headed out. We had to cross a few makeshift bamboo bridges with tolls (applicable to tourists only, of course) to get on the right road. The dirt road took us over the river and through a few villages. These
villages were so charming. All the houses are on stilts and many have walls made of woven grass mats. The ride got a little hard as the sun got hotter and the road sloped uphill a bit. Once we got to the cave area, we saw this beautiful turquoise lagoon. We knew that would be great to swim in once we finished exploring the cave. We headed up the craggy trail to get to the mouth of the cave. There we were greeted by a guy we had met that morning at the bike rental shop. He was waiting for us so he wouldn’t have to go in the cave alone. The three of us headed in with 2 headlamps between us. Very close to the mouth of the cave was a Buddha altar. It felt like magic to feel the cool air of the cave and see the reclining Buddha in the light that filtered in through the cave entrance. We headed deeper into the cave and boy were we glad that we had Amnon’s company. It didn’t take us long to get into completely pitch black silence. For a while we stayed as quiet as we could and
Vang Vieng--Indiana Jones Style Bamboo Bridge
We went mountain biking out to a cave one day. We crossed about 4 bridges like this on our 7 km ride. It was really cute, each bridge had a toll of about $0.50! only head water dripping here and there. As we carefully picked our way through the cave we saw glittering formations all around us. Some were milky white and ribbon-y, some were black with diamond-y glittery bits and others looked like they were straight from the moon. We hiked about an hour into the cave. The coolest experience in the cave was Robin and Amnon drumming on some stalactites. We recorded some sound clips on our camera. We reached the end of the cave and headed back out. We took advantage of the ultra cool of the cave and rested a while inside before heading into the sun. Once out, Robin went swimming in the lagoon. I took a delicious nap. We decided to take a water taxi back rather than biking it. You can call us wimps, but in our defense it was seriously 102 degrees out AND the ride back was going to be uphill at times.
Other things we did in Vang Vieng? There is a totally bizarre phenomenon in this town where there are cafes that show entire seasons of TV shows non-stop. They're especially popular since most guest houses where backpackers stay don't have TV's
in the room. In the heat of the day, you have a seat, order a drink and some food and start watching. In no time at all you find yourself laying back in full on lounge position. And then poof, mysteriously, 3 hours of your life pass by and you leave the joint in a Simpsons daze. There were cafes that showed non-stop Family Guy, Friends, and of course, The Simpsons.
One day while strolling around, we found a temple that mentioned that they had English classes every evening and they were looking for volunteers. We thought we'd give it a shot. One of the guys who has been teaching there for the last month told us that the kids are particularly interested in learning restaurant English. So I went to the Simpsons Cafe (where we had spent a lot of time) to ask if I could borrow menus that were in Lao. I quickly noted the English translations. We had no idea that the classroom would be filled with kids ranging in age from 6-16. And we had no idea we'd be COMPLETELY on our own! To make it interesting Robin did some extremely memorable impressions of the
animals that appeared on the menu. Next time you see him ask him to show you one of them! Just when we were all proud of ourselves for making it through the 30 minute class, we discovered that the class was in fact 60 minutes long! DOH! So we improvised a whole restaurant scene and had the kids repeat phrases like "May I take your order please?" and "Just a moment." along with some other stuff. It all went really well.
We headed back to the capital and did a little shopping. Overall we loved Laos. It was super layed back and just the rest we needed after being so busy in Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.365s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 66; dbt: 0.2376s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Tomas
non-member comment
Did you use some SuperCamp Techniques?
Nice work on the classroom stuff. That is so funny. I would have totally done it as well. However here in europe all you have to do is give them three beers and everyone speaks perfect english. Till Then. Tom.