Vang Vieng, Laos

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Vang Vieng is between Luang Prabang and Vientiane. The whole town
is centered around young drunk tourists. Nothing but guesthouses, bars
and open-air restaurants with loungers staring at the mounted flat-panel
TVs.

No joke, you could stand in one part of the street and see 4 separate
episodes of Friends simultaneously. It is essentially spring break
for most people there. Not my kind of thing. The landscape, however,
is really gorgeous. It reminded me quite a bit of the Peruvian Andes,
beautiful karst jagged mountains all around.

Kevin, Emily and I went tubing down the Nam Song river where they
have a exceedingly dangerous rope swings and zip lines at each of the
thirty bars that line that part of the river. All of these rope swings are
run by eight year old Lao kids. It was a lot of fun, although Kevin got
hurt on this insane slide. "Are my pupils dialated? Did I already ask that"

The next day, I rented a motorbike and headed out of town. It only
took about two minutes toget away from all of the tourists. Children
would wave as I passed through these small villages. It was really
one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

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