Week 4 - Laos

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Started week 4 with a 2 day slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in Laos. The boat was full of Westerners and quickly decended into a drinking/chatting party on a boat atmosphere. Had to take a few minutes out here and there to appreciate the limestone cliffs, rice fields, and spawling mountains the river was winding through. Stayed the night in a village who's name i forget but where the electricity goes off at 11, so if your not in your guest house there's a good chance you'll end up in the Mekong.

Luang Prabang is a nice little Colonial French town with colonial little streets and a lot of Baguetts (god bless the French!) It also has one of the most superb Waterfalls i've ever seen. Takes about 30 minutes to climb and about 20 meters from the top there is a fresh water pool you can swim in (if you get past the Danger No Entry Sign) with views over miles of mountain and Jungle, Suberb!

From here Peter and I went to Vang Vieng, which has to be one of the craziest places on Earth. The town exists around 'Tubing' which is basically throwing yourself down a massive river in a tractor tube, stopping off in makeshift bamboo bars along the way to drink free Wiskey and get unbelievably drunk, before getting (this is the clever part) back in the river to go to the next bar. Westerns being the clever folks they are have figured out that as renting a tube is expansive you might as well just chuck youself in the river without one, usually off an unbelievably high fast rope swing. I did this for 3 days in a row, i've never been so drunk and injured in my whole life. Vang Vieng is full of people i kind of reckognise from drunken conversations, and im sure there's one or 2 people i owe money to. Spent the fourth day with the most unbelivable hangover in the world lying in one of the many safo bars watching re-runs of Friends and eating Baguetts (again, god bless the French)...My rib hurts quite a lot from a river based incident which is a bit worrying.

Tomorrow i leave on a 33 hour bus journey for Hanoi, perfect hangover cure...

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Comments

[jane b]

Good to see that ......
....................you're lapping up the local culture and getting plenty of exercise! Have you treated your fellow travellers to any of your musical genius yet?