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Published: December 22nd 2010
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This morning we woke up and were at the Wonderful Tours office at 8:40 as planned. We were told we'd leave at 9:00, so we went to the cafe across the street to get breakfast. Unfortunately, when 9 rolled around, they hadn't even started making our sandwiches yet. So off with no breakfast. On our tour was: a Hungarian couple, an Australian couple, a Korean girl, a Swedish man, and an Australian guy. Our tuk tuk truck took us up to the Elephant Cave Temple first. This was basically a tiny cave with a few buddhas inside and one rock that sorta looked like an elephant. Sort of a waste of time if you ask me, but then we were back in the tuk tuk to go to the water cave. There was a restaurant oh-so-conveniently located just outside the mouth of the cave...we'll come back to that later.
Ronald and I went first. We sat on top of tubes and pulled ourselves down the rope lines through the cave. After a while we got to a part that didn't have any rope, so we walked to the next rope and then went along that for a while before having
Bell
made from an American bomb to paddle ourselves to the far nook of the cave. I thought this was pretty fun because it was dark, full of water, and not too touristy feeling. I mean, it was definitely for tourists, but the cave was still intact, which I appreciated. After this we came back out of the cave and went to this open-air restaurant and had lunch. Lunch was delicious. We had each: two shish kebabs, a baguette, and fried rice. There was also fresh fruit for us to all share. Most of us couldn't finish all the food, so we ended up feeding the farm animals there (chickens, roosters, guinea fowl, ducks...).
After this we went back to the tuk tuk to go to our next place where we would start our kayaking. As for the kayak prep talk, I think we were all thinking two things: 1. what is he saying and how is this going to help me if I can't understand? 2. why does he not stop talking, it's been 10 minutes.
Anyways, once the lecture was over we went to the kayaks and I hopped in first in the front and Ronald was getting in the back and
Lunch!
so yummy the guide pushed him, but this made him lose his balance and tump over our kayak. I didn't know any of this was going on, but found myself thrown into the rocky water, hitting my knee and drawing blood. Now it feels sore and there's a big bruise, but ce la vie.
We start kayaking and passed the beginning of the tubing bars a bit later, stopping at an empty one. Ronald and I bought two buckets of rum/coke and chatted with the Swede while watching people take turns on the tarzan swing. Some of this was pretty entertaining because there was an Argentinian who seemed to be afraid of heights, but tried to do it like 4 times before his girlfriend switched places with him and went on the first try, him taking pictures of her from the other side. I wish we had done our days reversed -- this tour yesterday and tubing today because then we would have known about all the bars. After about an hour there, we headed back out in our kayaks. I had realized within the first minute after setting off this afternoon that Ronald had never kayaked before, so we switched
places, me in the back as captain now. We paddled on down to the end and the weather was perfect and I didn't even get sunburned!
We came back, showered, and when to eat at B&P restaurant, one of the few without a television. The garlic bread was fantastic, the hamburger was alright, the club sandwich was good I think, and the french fries not so much. So we walked around for a while, but ended up at the Steakhouse. We shared a pepper steak and it was really yummy.
After this, I was stuffed, so we just walked back to the guest house, bought our ticket to Vientiane (50,000), and watched The Social Network. Not that great of a movie I have to say.
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