Shopping Bikes...

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After our kayaking, a group of about 8 of us congregate for dinner. It takes a good 30 minutes to place our order. About 20 minutes later 2 meals emerge. Unable to decipher what they actually are we ask for help....to cut a long story short: Someone else unknowingly eats my chicken meal, an hour later I end up with someone else’s pork meal, a further hour later 2 people still await their meals. The waitress appears and declares they do not have any fish. A small detail they might have told us a good 2 hrs ago. I get back to the room and throw the entire pork meal up......down to the last little green bean.
I laugh............. If only I'd got my chicken!

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As I bump across the dry rice field in the sweltering midday sun, why I chose a shopping bike over a mountain bike baffles me.

I pause for a drink, in the quiet I hear the golden straw crackle as it dries upon the ground. Awkward mountains poke out of the Earth like tombstones beneath the blue sky.
The caves are a good 6kms from town, about 2 km of that is actually some sort of a road.
I ride on, sitting proud and tall on my red bike with my big basket shaking ridiculously.
Bamboo poles with hessian sacks atop lead the way. Eventually I arrive at the “Parking Spot” and lock up my little red caboose.
The fish-farm lakes mirror the landscape. I pay my 10,000kip entry to a shirtless man fixing a loo. He hands me a torch motions me to walk on.
I cross a bamboo bridge which is clearly signed to not take more than 1 person at once. Two small boys smile at me, I climb a wooden ladder over an old fence. On the other side are more boys. Past banana trees and into the shade of the mountain they follow me to the caves. I know they are trying to lead me so they can ask for money at the end. I tell them I do not need them, that they should go back.
The torch the guy gave me is useless, it shines like....well nothing actually. Miraculously one of the kids happens to have a headlamp and attempts to lead me into the small, dark, musty cave. All part of the plan, me thinks! But I have my own torch in my bag, I climb inside for a few minutes before my claustrophobia grabs a hold and I bolt out of there. Big skinny-legged spiders watch me as I scramble.
The kids ask for money and I decline.
Despite not actually seeing the caves, I have a ball, and the only thing funnier than watching me bounce across those fields is the red, blotchy face I am sporting afterward.
Later that day I overhear other travellers saying they got charged amounts raging between 20,000 and 50,000kip by the boys.

Being New Years Eve, I shower and head across to “The Island” and drink multiple buckets of vodka, dance to the most random selection of tunes, wait in a very long line for a filthy squat toilet and grab something resembling a burger from a street vendor at around 3am.

The next day I watch snippets of T.V in moments of consciousness, eat food and rehydrate.

Finally on the 2nd, my time in Vang Vieng is up and I board a mini bus to the capital, Vientiane.

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Photos

One of the caves,
The only one I attempted.

Comments

[Debbie]

You are my daughter!
Drinking out of a bucket with a staw.....you are my soul daughter for sure. Have a great trip and be secure in the knowledge you have a great man waiting for you at home.