"Laovely" Laos

The next morning everyone was up fairly early, except for me, as I wanted to catch up on a bit of sleep. I found I didn't really have much time to pack up, grab a shower, and eat breakfast, plus order something for lunch that day, so I was rushed as per usual. We checked out, and got down to the pier at the time that we had though we needed to be there, but of course things run on Lao time here, so we ended up waiting on the boat for a good 20 minutes before it even left. I should have picked a spot up near the front where the Irish people were sitting, but I decided to settle into the back area, but the chairs were few and far between. Also, because the chairs aren't bolted down on the boat, they tend to slide back at times, resulting in no leg room at all. I picked a spot that had zero leg room, so I just sprawled out, laying sideways with my feet out in the aisle. Shortly after I settled in, an American dude walked by and asked if he could sit beside me, and I had a good laugh at this, and said sure why not. I squeezed my legs in and wedged into the seat, and once he saw how little leg room was there, he just apologized and walked on. All the people in the area who saw this had a great laugh over the situation.

I just watched some Breaking Bad until my battery died (my computer battery is absolute rubbish and dies within an hour and a bit now). I ended up watching the episode called “The Fly” that Mike had told me to avoid watching, as every fan of the show thinks it's a terrible episode, but I somewhat enjoyed watching it to be honest. After watching that, I read for a bit, and then decided to meander up to the front to join the Irish people. We started having some beers again and just enjoying the sun. We found out that you can actually push back the roof of the boat a bit, and create a sun tanning area, so Mike opened that up and we enjoyed some nice sun since the weather was actually fairly cold in the morning. It was another pleasant and slow going day, floating down the Mekong, enjoying beers, listening to Mike serenade us with funny Irish tunes, and relaxing the day away. We arrived 8 hours later into Luang Prabang, and tried to coordinate everyone to go to the same guesthouse. The English people had a place at Mary 1 booked, so we all got into Tuktuks and headed there, but found they were full. Nick, Henrique, Mauro, and I just ended up heading over to a place called Mary 3. We arrived there, and found a room for $25 US which is quite pricy, but split 4 ways wasn't so bad. The place was fairly posh. We settled in there, and came downstairs to find the owner wanting to feed Henrique and I more shots of Lao Lao, so we obliged him with a few, and then wandered down to the night food market to get some cheap eats.

One of many slow boats on the Mekong

Some new slow boat friends

Henrique's new friend

Tough day on the river

Remote Laos village

Buddhist caves

One of the crazy speedboats on the river (1 in 6 crash!)

Love that Laos Laos

We found the market, and the prices were really cheap. We could get an all you could eat vegetarian buffet for 10,000 kip ($1.20 CAD), so we loaded up on that, and had a few beers. The sights and sounds of the market were also very invigorating, as there were numerous exotic and traditional Lao foods on display. You could even buy entire bbq'd pig heads. After eating a tasty meal there, we wandered over to the night market stalls and checked out some things there. We found a lady who was selling various liquor bottles that had scorpions, snakes, etc. inside the bottle and flavouring the alcohol. She offered us several free samples to try, so Henrique and I took advantage of that. I ended up chatting to an English fellow in the market, and asked him if he knew where a good place to go was, and he mentioned that Utopia was a fun place to be. We decided to wander down there, and found that it was actually quite close to our hotel, which was convenient. We settled in there, and had a few drinks, and found most of the people we had made friends with on the slow boat to be there, which was great. We had a huge table and just enjoyed an evening of chatting and enjoying some beers. The bar also had some Zubrovka vodka (Buffalo grass vodka from Poland that is really tasty) so I introduced Henrique to a cocktail of that, which he quite enjoyed. One interesting thing we later found out was that there's a night curfew all over Luang Prabang, and the establishments have to shut down by 11:30 pm, leaving lots of drunk and awake foreigners with not much to do except........bowling!

Another night on the lanes

Canadian Bowling Ball??!!

Yes, the bowling alley in Luang Prabang is the only late night spot, as it's open until 2 am or so, and has a bar as well. So a bunch of us piled into a van, and went off to bowling. Mauro and Nick decided to head home and sleep, as they weren't so much into the late nights. Upon arrival to the alley, I was a bit shocked to find our taxi driver get out and start offering to sell drugs to everyone. The one Aussie guy Clint ended up buying some Opium off him, crazy stuff! We all wandered into the alley, and found it to be packed, and loud and heaps of fun. I ended up bowling with the Irish lads, and even managed to get the high score the first round, beating Mike, who is extremely competitive according to his mates. Unfortunately, I started to mess with my technique a bit the next match, and the beers started to kick in a bit as well, so I had a fairly poor performance. All in all, it was a super fun time, as the alley even offered prizes for scoring a certain amount of points. If you scored 150, you received a free packet of cigarettes, and Brett, the Aussie ended up scoring that and getting his free pack. What he did with the free pack, was absolutely hilarious, as seen here.

Surgeon General's Warning: Smoking can cause cancer

Around 2 am, the lane was starting to empty out, so the few of us remaining grabbed a Tuktuk and headed back to our hotels for the night. The next day we woke up fairly early, to grab our complimentary breakfast, which was quite delicious, then get ready for the day. I went out to grab a bottle of water with Nick, and as we were walking back, I happened to spot a guy out riding an elephant in the street. Just a typical day in Luang Prabang, out for a morning stroll with your elephant.

We decided to head out and walk up to see the one temple. We first stopped at a mini cave thing, but had no torch, and there was a cat inside of it, so I didn't want to wander in there in case there it was feral or had rabies ha ha. Nick played a funny prank on me near the cave too, as Henrique had heard some wild animal run into some bushes, and I was looking into the bushes when Nick grabbed the back of my leg and made a growling noise.....well played Dr. Nick! After exiting the cave we ended up running into the two cute Canadian girls from the slow boat, and they were kind enough to give us their tickets so we could save the money for the entrance. They actually didn't even notice us when they walked past, so I gave them a little catcall whistle and grabbed their attention. I told them to come down to Utopia that night and meet up with us, since they were leaving the next day, so they agreed to that. We started walking up to the top, which was a bit of much needed exercise, and I found a lady selling small birds trapped in these tiny little bamboo cages, which seemed quite sad to me, I bought 2 of the birds, and set them free to try and obtain some good bird karma (we'll see how that goes).We got to the top, and enjoyed a nice panoramic view of Luang Prabang, and the two rivers that flow by it. We also ended up meeting a few Brazilians at the top, and I sat through a 10 minute Portuguese conversation that I knew nothing about. I have been taught one very good saying in Portuguese by the guys, which is “Eu gusto di paradeca” but it's not appropriate to say in front of a couple, even though I wanted to, but Henrique stopped me ha ha. After lingering around there, we hiked back down, and tried to decide what to do.

Luang Prabang from the South

and from above

Good use for old shells

My trapped birds that I bought and set free (good bird karma I hope)

Don't get too many opportunities to do some plane spotting

The beginning of a 10 minute Portuguese conversation that I had no clue about what was being spoken

We wandered down the main street, and found a small alleyway with some cheap local food and fruit shakes. I tried to order a dragonfruit/mango mix shake while waiting for my food, while Henrique and Nick ordered a dragonfruit and mango shake respectively. I waited and waited, and saw what appeared to be my shake given to a guy at a nearby table, and then a mango shake and a dragonfruit shake showed up at our table for the two guys. Thinking they mixed up my order, I went and reordered the shake, and the guy acted surprised that I hadn't received it yet. So I waited and waited, and then what appeared to again be my shake was delivered to a guy at the table next to us. He had a few sips, and said this really doesn't taste like a mango shake, so of course it was mine, but he already had a few sips, so I had to go back up and reorder one last time! Eventually I received the shake, and it was delicious, but took long enough. After lunch, Henrique and I were kind of wanting to go to a swimming pool bar to cool down, but then were coaxed into visiting the Luang Prabang museum for awhile. Henrique got into the one museum a bit before us, and I decided to have a little fun with him by hiding his shoesIt was an alright museum, but didn't really have a whole lot to see, mostly just artificats from the time that Laos had a king, including his throne, books, weapons, gifts received from other countries (The US of course went all out in their gifts, as per American standard, giving a piece of moon rock and a piece of a Lao flag that they took up into orbit during one of their moon landings, while Canada gave a simple decorative plate) etc. The one hall did have a fairly impressive gold trimmed seat used to transport a large buddha through the city during a few days of celebration per year, and I was tempted to climb up on it to see how much trouble one could really get for doing such a thing. We wrapped up the museum tour, by checking out the former King's fleet of vehicles, which were pretty disappointing considering he was a King and all (I think there were 3 Lincoln Continentals and nothing else more luxurious), and then went into a photograph gallery that included the floating Buddha, and several other Buddha photos from his meditative sessions.

Luang Prabang history museum

Holy Buddha throne used once per year during celebrations

Nice "Bu"bs

Part of the King's Royal fleet of vehicles

Walkway leaving the museum

After finishing up at the gallery and museum, we decided to head over to Utopia and get some beach volleyball action going, as we had arranged to play a game with the Irish people. It was a pretty great exercise session, as we ended up playing for about 2 hours with the Irish and the two Aussies. It was a pretty awful volleyball game from a rules standpoint, as the Irish didn't really have any volleyball experience, but I just shrugged it off and didn't bother being a stickler. Nick ended up being really really good at volleyball and he happened to be wearing a Brazilian Olympic jersey that we joked was for the volleyball team. We went back to the hotel cleaned up and wandered back down to the night food market for more cheap eats. After finishing up there, it was back to Utopia to meet up with the Canadian girls, even though we were over an hour late. We arrived to find that some Brazilian guys had pulled up at their table so we just hung out at another table for awhile, until the other guys left, and then popped down. Henrique had never tried a Shisha pipe, so I ordered one of those for us, and then Clint came and joined our table, as well. We hung out until closing time, as per usual, and then were off once again to go bowling.

Another night at the night market

Henrique's first time trying Sheesha

Henrique had met some Brazilian girls at the bar, so he went off with them, and I was meant to go to the alley with Clint and the Canadian girls, but then I lost them in the streets while talking to Nick and Mauro, thinking they were also going to come bowling, but they decided to call it an early night. By the time I realized that they weren't coming, I couldn't find Clint or the girls so I started wandering the streets trying to figure out where they were. Eventually I found Clint, who had lost the Canadian girls, but found two more and was trying to convince them to come, but they weren't having any of it. There was also no tuktuks or taxis in sight, so I had to go wandering the streets looking for one, until I finally spotted one that was mostly full, but I was able to squeeze into the cabin and drive around trying to find Clint who had again disappeared. We came around one corner and I finally spotted him, haggling with another tuktuk driver, so I flagged him to come hop onto the tuktuk I was in. There was a bunch of drunk girls and one British dude in the back of the one I was riding, and the girls were just going home, but the British dude was quite persistent on going with the girls even though they didn't want him to...so he just followed them into their hotel place...I guess persistence pays off!

It was just Clint and I heading to the alley, and we arrived to find most of our usual group there, having started bowling. Clint's friend Brett was surprisingly at the alley, as Clint had thought he was going to go back with an Aussie girl that he had hooked up with previously, but she had decided against it, so he was there hanging out, as were a few of the Irish, and of course Henrique. I ended up sitting with the Aussie boys for a bit, and then found some cute Dutch girls to join for some bowling. I was again wearing my orange framed sunglasses without lenses, and since Dutch love the colour orange, they took a liking to me, and I got Brett and I a few games with the girls. The one girl was actually quite good at bowling, and smoked us all pretty badly. Henrique was absolutely hammered by this point, and kept stopping by for a visit, and being a bit aggressive for some of the photos, putting me in headlocks and choking me a bit, but all in good fun. He was playing some drinking games with a big table of people, so I wandered over there for a bit, but not before stopping by the Irish table, where Darren had bought an entire bottle of whiskey with coke for $5 and was dishing out free drinks. He just poured me a straight glass of whiskey, and of course I sat at the drinking game table with that full glass which was foolish. They were playing a game that I had actually played in Denmark a few months earlier, where you have to tap your left or right shoulder and count upwards, and which ever shoulder you tap to, the person on that side of you has to continue the counting. In Denmark we would play up to 21, where you would then point at someone at the table and tell them to finish their drink, but this group would only play until 10, so being the new guy, one girl at the table kept picking on me and making me skull my drinks, which a full glass of whiskey is not very conducive towards!

Nice form

The Dutch women loved my glasses

After hanging at that table for awhile, I wandered back over to hang out with the Irish for a bit longer until it was closing time. By this point, Henrique told me he was leaving with the Brazilian girls, so I figured he was actually heading home with them, so I just found another tuktuk ride back into town with Clint, Brett, and a few others. The tuktuk was actually a bit too small to handle all our weight, and couldn't make it up the tiny hill leaving the alley, so we all had to get up while he drove the tuktuk up onto the highway before we could get back in. We arrived in town and everyone was all dropped off by their guesthouses, but the driver had no idea where mine was. I ended up just having him drop me off at some random intersection, and figured I could find my way back, but then realized I was actually quite lost. I wandered around for a good 20 minutes, not knowing where I was exactly, and spotted a few nice benches that I contemplated just sleeping on for the night, but then at last I realized where I was and was able to get back to the guesthouse. I came into the room, and was surprised to see Henrique there in bed sleeping, I guess he hadn't had any luck like I thought. While wandering home lost and alone, I had the idea to hide my belongings in my hidden pocket in my jacket, in the unlikely event that I was robbed or mugged (which actually doesn't really happen in Laos)

Upon waking up, I felt my pockets and couldn't find my wallet or camera, and began to think that I had lost it, thus adding to my collection of lost items. Fortunately, once I checked the jacket I found my remaining items, crisis averted! After lingering for a few hours, we decided to take in one of the waterfalls in the area. We had initially thought of renting bikes to go visit both of the falls, but once we learned that the one waterfall was 15 kms away, the thought of 30 kms of bike riding wasn't so appealing. We grabbed a tuk tuk, and took off for the smaller falls, with intentions of possibly heading to the bigger falls if time permitted. Our driver dropped us off at the small falls, and gave us a 1 hour time frame to visit them, if we wanted to make the bigger falls. We arrived at the river, paid for our boat ride across, and of course an entry fee to the falls area. It seems in Laos they charge for every single little thing, and it gets to be a bit tiresome, as there's really no need for a lot of the charges. We arrive in there, and wander around taking a few photos, when we lose Nick who went wandering down some paths. Mauro tried to follow him, and I tried to follow Mauro, but we lost Nick, so I just hung around the common area with Henrique.

Life on the river

Henrique the professional photographer of the group

Elephant riding in the lagoon

After watching some elephants wandering through the water, carrying people, we wandered up towards the top part of the falls, where there's some zip line rides, but I don't really trust 3^rd world country safety standards, so I wasn't too keen on trying the zip line out. We watched a few people zipping through, and then Henrique and I decided to go for a little swim in the waterpool to cool down a bit. I figured my cool party watch that I had bought in Bangkok was water resistant and fine to be in the water, so I jumped in with it on, and disaster struck. The watch was not water resistant, and the screen went blank and the light was stuck on....very sad times, as I really loved that watch. Party watch was no longer in the hooooooouuuuuuuse tonight!

The small waterfalls

Enjoying the refreshing water, that lead to party watch death

Hey there fella!

After swimming around for awhile, and hanging in the sun, we met some German girls, who had rented bikes and found that they had bad brakes and no gears, which was a bit of a nightmare with the large hills that they had to ride through to get to the waterfalls. They asked if it would be possible to hop into our tuktuk and put the bikes on the roof for the ride back, and since we had enough room, we let them join us. We were back in town and were meant to meet the Irish people for some volleyball around 6:30 pm, as I had made an arrangement with them and a few others to play at that time, the previous night at bowling.

Boat ride with a bunch of tourists!

Fishing on the river

We grabbed some dinner at the night market again, and by the time we arrived at Utopia, we were already 35 minutes late, and found no one to be playing any volleyball, so we just decided to hang out with the Brazilian couple that Henrique had met at the top of the temple the previous day, and have some hookah pipe. We ended up hanging out there until closing time as per usual, and finding the Irish people, some of whom were keen for bowling again. This night was a bit quieter at the alley than usual, but still just as much fun. After several more hours enjoying beers and cheap Laos whiskey, it was back to the hotel for another night.

Bbq'd Pig Heads

Henrique's bowling wounds, it's dangerous!

an Irish/Canadian party!

The next day we decided we wanted to go check out the big waterfalls, and were going to head off early in the morning, and try and make it back to town to catch a 4 pm bus to Vang Vieng. However, the Canadian girls we had met in Chiang Mai got ahold of Henrique, and said they were in town and were interested in coming to the falls with us, but not until closer to noon. We decided we would wait for them and spend one more night in town, and take an early bus the next day, but when we asked our guesthouse if we could get one more night, we found out they were full for the night, so we just left our bags there and figured we would sort it out later on. The girls came and met us, and then we hired a tuktuk, and were on our way. It was about a 40 minute ride to the falls, and we were able to see some more of the Laos countryside, from a slow moving vehicle instead of a bus. I had always imaagined Laos to be quite wet and tropical, but the more I see the countryside, the more you notice how really dry and hot it is.

We arrived at the falls, and of course had to pay another entry fee, then found there to be a bear conservation facility on location. After watching the bears play around a bit, we wandered up to the first stop of the falls, took some nice pictures and then continued wandering up further. It was another really hot day, and the next stop on the walk had a deeper pool of water with a rope swing, so we took a few turns at swinging on there and goofing around. It was at this time that my camera suddenly started having some issues where the lens cover wouldn't close properly when I turned it off, which created a real pain in the ass. Also, when I would take photos there was this little blur on the bottom of the photos, which might have been water or something, I'm not too sure. I've had a fair bit of problems with Olympus cameras, and this just added to my list of issues...needless to say, I'll probably move on to a Cannon for my next camera purchase. After chilling by the rope swing, we continued to wander up towards the real big waterfalls, which included a fairly steep and slippery slope to get up to the top. Needless to say, my flip flops (thongs, jandals depending on where you're from) weren't really geared towards hiking up safely, but i made a go at it anyways. Before hiking to the very top, we had seen a few people way up near the edge of one of the fall cliffs, but it was definitely not the one that we arrived at.

B..b..b...b...bear!

Entering the area of the "big waterfalls"

Nick launching off the rope swing with great form

Henrique gingerly climbing up to swing

waterfall jumping

The big waterfall

Being a cheesy tourist

We were a bit curious how to get to the area where the other people had been earlier, well at least Nick, Henrique, and I were; the girls couldn't really care less, and were more than content to just hang out at the top of the falls and swim a bit in the water pools. Nick set out to find his way down, and I could see him from up top finding his way to the area I wanted to get to, so I went wandering to try and figure out what path he went on. I ended up veering off the main path, onto some slippery rocks and thought it probably wasn't the best idea to be hiking through the area alone in case something did happen, but I went for it anyways. I thought I was getting close to the area where Nick was, but then I came across a particular patch of rocks that I couldn't really see a way to climb up, so I turned around determined to find another spot, when Henrique came wandering towards me and continued past me. I told him I didn't think there was a path to get to where Nick was along this route, but then 5 minutes later Nick came wandering towards us and said there was in fact a path, so he showed us the way and we continued onwards.

We ended up in a spectacular area that afforded us some amazing photos. Henrique has a much higher quality camera and spends a lot more time playing with the functions on it than I do, but his photos were truly awesome. I grabbed a few decent one myself, even with that damn blur. We hung out in the area for about 20 minutes, exploring a little bit, and then I was ready to go, but Henrique took forever to get the perfect photos, he's such a perfectionist! After lingering around for another 15 minutes or so waiting for him to finish up, since the terrain was a bit slippery and dangerous, and I figured leaving in pairs would be a better option. We finished up, and began wandering back when we came across a stairway, which we weren't sure where it would lead us to. Henrique decided to take the stairway down, but I had left my thongs up top of the hill, so I had to go back up and around, which ended up actually being the longer more treacherous way to get back. I ended up slipping a few times since my thongs weren't very good, and took a little dirt spill, but eventually made my way back down, and found Henrique taking more photos, so I continued on down and found the rest of the crew, where we hung out rope swinging a bit more, until we were all quite hungry and ready to head back to town. We were waiting and waiting on Henrique, so I went up and hassled him a bit to hurry up, and we were finally on our way back to the tuk tuk, but the girls couldn't wait to get back to town to eat, so they stopped at a local restaurant. After hanging out there for awhile, and enjoying an amazing oreo-coffee milkshake, we were on our way back to town.

Getting off the beaten track leads one to some incredible areas

more of Henrique the professional snapping photos

We arrived back in town, and had made some more volleyball arrangements with a few people, so wandered down to Utopia to have a wicked session of volleyball. I think we ended up playing for about 2.5 hours at least, and really worked up a sweat, especially when myself and an Argentine fellow took on the Brazilians in some 2 on 2, which lead to a lot of running, as well as some beers and chest bumps of course. We also ended up eating dinner there, where I had my most favourite meal of my Lao trip, which was a Chicken Laap. It's sort of a salad, and is wicked spicy and flavourful, very good! It was getting pretty late and we still had to shower, not to mention find a place, so we went back to our guesthouse, arriving at like 10 pm to grab our bags, and head over to where the girls were staying, as there were many guesthouses on their street. We began popping in several of them, and places were wanting up to $35 a night for a small crappy room, which is way too much for Laos. Eventually we just asked at the guesthouse where the girls were staying, and found a room there for $10 a night, which was perfect. We got cleaned up a bit, and were almost ready to head back to Utopia, but then realized it was getting pretty late. I also had to run around trying to find an ATM machine that would take my card, which ended up being impossible....I was seriously ready to flip out on my bank once again, and call and close all my accounts, as I've been going throught this shit way too many times on my trip. Henrique offered to spot me money until I could get my bank stuff sorted out.

It was kind of funny when Henrique came into our hotel and asked what Jamie's name was, since he had forgotten, even though they had kind of had a fling over a few days, too funny. We had talked the girls into going bowling with us that night, and since it was a bit too late to go back to Utopia, we just tracked down a tuktuk. Before we could do that, we had to actually argue with the guesthouse to keep the door open, since we were going to be returning late that night, and they said they had a curfew at 12 am, which was a bit ridiculous. Finally, we just told them that we were paying for a room, and would return when we wanted to, and left it at that. We bartered with a few tuktuk drivers before we finally got a decent price and were off to the alley, which ended up being a bit of a scary ride, as all of a sudden our tuktuk slammed on the brakes and swerved near the alley, and we looked outside to see some guy on the pavement and a crashed motorbike, with 2 people helping him. Being Doctors, Nick and Henrique felt compelled to go back to the scene to check up on the guy, so one we arrived at the alley, they had the driver take them back to the location, but found that the guy was okay, just really drunk and a bit of a nosebleed, but not too worse for the wear.

Meanwhile, myself and Hannah and Jamie wandered into the alley and I figured it was cheaper to buy the Lao whiskey and coke than the beers, so I picked up one of those. While waiting in line, Laura, the English girl came up to speak to me a bit, and made me laugh when she said there was a rumour going around that I had some lenses in my orange sunglasses that had no lenses (I had another pair of orange sunnies that did actually have lenses in them)....I figure things are quite hilarious when other travellers start hearing rumours about my glasses! So we grabbed a lane and bowled for a few games, which I absolutely sucked at, since I've been trying to figure out the proper technique, with spin and position....definitely a work in progress! After a few hours of bowling, it was back to the guesthouse for the night, since we had an early morning to catch the bus.

I set my alarm and it's a good thing I did, as the other guys didn't realize we were being picked up at 9 am, they thought they had to get up at 9 am and were going to be picked up at 10 am, so I was all packed up and sorted out a few things and had to come into the room and wake them up to tell them that our ride was going to be arriving soon. Upon finding out that we had to leave right away, they panicked a bit, since they really didn't have much time to pack! They threw all their things together and came running out in time to catch the tuk tuk, but no time to grab any food or water for the bus ride. Fortunately, at the bus terminal there were several vendors, so we were able to load up, and found that most of the group that we had been out partying and hanging around with the past few days were also on the same bus. The bus ride was rather bumpy and not too eventful, other than some Laos couple coming onto the bus and sitting in the aisle, and then the woman's child became motion sick and vomited all over her, which lead to her vomiting all over the aisle, and then moving away and refusing to clean it up! Our Australian friend Clint, was sitting right next to the lady, and said she smelled like shit when she got on the bus, and then when she started vomiting in his direction, he was trying to avoid the spray back, and narrowly missed it, but it was absolutely awful. Then, since they took so long to get it cleaned up, it started to trickle down the aisle and all the way to the back where we were all seated...eww! Eventually, some staff members came and cleaned it up, and all was good.

We had one pit stop for food and toilets, where Andrei had bought a tuna sandwich and asked me to hold it while she went to the toilet, and being the joker that I am, I decided to tear it in half and pretend like I ate the other half while she was gone. When she returned, she didn't actually care at all, so the joke was pointless, plus I looked down on my hoodie, and found that while tearing the sandwich apart, the tuna juices had leaked all over it, so it was a double fail! We boarded back up, and were back on the road, arriving in Vang Vieng a few hours later. We were immediately surrounded by tuktuk drivers unsurprisingly, and managed to get our group together and head into the town, on the terrible bumpy unpaved and dusty roads. We had been recommended a place by some other people in Luang Prabang, so we tried heading to the Banana Bungalows first, but they only had one room available, and we had a group of 6 at the time, so we needed at least two rooms. At this point, instead of one or two people looking around and the others staying in the tuktuk, everyone just kind of decided to wander off on their own looking for a place for the group, which just lead to a big headache really, as we couldn't find everyone and get us all together to head to a place that our driver knew that had rooms for sure for us. Eventually, we got everyone together, after not finding a place anywhere near the Banana Bungalows, and we were off to some other guesthouse. Vang Vieng is actually a really small place, and there isn't a whole lot of streets, so you're never really far from the action. We ended up finding a decent place called Shanti Guesthouse (recommended for sure if you're ever in Vang Vieng), as they had a really nice facility, with comfy beds, good tv, clean bathrooms, and an overall clean location.

We all settled in there, and went and grabbed something to eat, and then spotted the Irish people at a bar right next to our guesthouse, called the Q Bar. We had a few beers outside the place, as they were a bit cheaper, and wandered inside for a bit to hang out with them, while the girls went off dancing. I was pretty tired from the last few days in Luang Prabang, and wanted to have a pretty quiet night, so after 2 beers, I called it a relatively early night, although I did end up watching some Breaking Bad (seriously, if you haven't watched that show, you have to check it out, so good!)

The next day was a proper party day, and we were getting pumped up! We wandered over to a cafe near our guesthouse, and met the Irish group and the Dutchies and the Aussies for some breakfast and a few beers to start off the day. Several days earlier, Hannah had discussed with me the idea of wearing capes to go tubing, and since I happened to have a massive Albanian flag in my bag, I figured that would make a perfectly sweet and awesome cape, so I rocked that look, plus of course the orange lenseless frames, and we wandered down to rent our tubes. The actual rental rates were a bit steep, as you also had to pay for a deposit for the tubes, but I didn't think much of it though, figuring we would be back by 5 or 6 pm for sure to return our tubes.... So we grabbed the tubes and a tuktuk, and as luck would have it, the two cute Toronto girls, Alli and Kayla just happened to jump onto our tuktuk, and come along with us to the river. They had been tubing for a few days already, and were finding it hard to leave. We drove down to the river, and were greeted by a man with a whole bunch of Laos whiskey, and offering us all free shots to start our day....and this was the beginning of some of the most wildest and amazing times ever. We wandered across the bridge to the first bar, where we were met by some very cute girls who were offering us more free shots! So we all had a few of those, and proceeded to join some of the most legendary partying I've ever seen. I didn't have my camera for any of the days since it wasn't waterproof, but if you wander onto www.youtube.com and search for tubing Vang Vieng, treat yourself to a few videos to get an idea of how wild it is!

party crew day 1

It's basically comparable to a spring break party in Cancun, Mexico, with scantily clad women, lots of booze, crazy party music, dirty river water, and awesome weather! We partied pretty hard at the first place, and eventually decided to tube over to the next bar, but not before I showed Henrique how to Motorboat a girl, as one of the girls working there had “Motorboat these puppies” written over her breasts, so I had to explain to Henrique what it meant, by showing him visually of course! This was quite delightful to him, and he would talk about this for the next day or two. We went over to the next bar over, thinking the rest of our group had moved there, but found none of them there, although one of the staff members pulled us aside, and made sure we did the obligatory free shots. He asked if we wanted to do them the easy way, the hard way, or the really hard way. At this point, Henrique went for the hard way, and I chose the really hard way. Henrique's way consisted of the guy pouring the shot, and putting it on the tray, and Henrique having to grab it with his mouth, and tilt his head back and do the shot. Meanwhile, mine consisted of the guy putting the shot glass on the ground, and me having to do a pushup over it, grab it with my mouth, and then tilt my head sideways to drink the shot, which is very very difficult in fact!

After this, we wandered through the rest of the bar, but couldn't see anyone, and then we spotted Nick waving at us from across the river at another bar, so we hopped in our tubes and floated over there. This was our first stop on the river that actually had any rides, as there was a decent sized zipline to ride on there. Nick had been going on it several times, and since I was already a bit buzzed, I figured it looked pretty fun, so I gave it a whirl. It had a stopper point so that you couldn't go any further, and risk landing in rocks, but if you hit this stopper, your forward motion would actually carry you into a bit of a rotation, so we started doing backflips to dismount from the zipline. This was actually pretty fun, and I guess with my cape, it looked pretty sweet to be ziplining through the air. After a few zips, and the subsequent blistering of my hand, it was time to stop with the flying through the air, and continue with the partying! We all hung out dancing, laughing, playing beer pong, and meeting new people, until it was time to move to the next bar, the bucket bar. By this point, our one Canadian girl Kayla was so smashed drunk, and I happened to look over and laugh at Henrique making out with her for a bit, and then him realizing how really drunk she was, and leaving her to lay on the table and fall asleep. Eventually, Alli also realized how bad she was, and arranged to have her taken back to their place, at around 3:45 pm or so....one bites the dust!

We continued partying there at the Bucket Bar, until we apparently tubed across to the 4^th bar on the river, where we ended the night...I was pretty foggy by this point, and do vaguely recall trying to find my tube, and finding there to be no tubes left at the place. I think I ended up chatting up an English girl for quite sometime, and flirting a fair bit, so it was getting a bit late and the places on the river were closing down, so we decided to head into town together, along with a French Canadian guy named Pat and his friend, at least I think, wow what a blur! Just glad I didn't take my camera, otherwise it would have been for sure lost, as I couldn't even keep track of a tube. I later found out that Andrei and Hannah at least made it all the way down the river to some other places, but they were all quite dead, so maybe I didn't miss much! We wandered back to find some tuktuks, and headed into town. I was walking with this girl and we were pretty flirty with each other, but then I had to stop at a cash machine to grab some money, and when I came back to rejoin the people, I found that this Pat guy had his arm draped around this girl and was steering her off with him, so I had some choice words with him in French, and wandered back to my guesthouse to cool down. After lingering there for a bit, and showering and cleaning up, I decided to head back out with Andrei, Hannah, and Nick for some dinner.

I was wandering with them when somehow I came across the English folks, including Laura from the boat, who were also heading somewhere for dinner, and I think I just kind of joined their group and disappeared from my group. I think we ended up heading down to the Bucket Bar for awhile after eating something, where we ran into Paul, the English teacher living in Vietnam, and hung out with him for quite awhile. Eventually, I wandered onto the dance floor with Laura, which ended up in some making out, while Paul kind of just sat nearby watching, almost creepily... After hangin out there for awhile, he convinced us to head to some other bar along the river, where we had kind of a weird 3 person date I think? I was getting kind of bored though and pretty tired, and was pretty much ready to go home soon. Paul ended up getting a bit ill and vomiting in the nearby motorbike parking lot, which provided a good enough reason for all of us to start leaving. We started wandering down the streets, and he kept offering Laura a bed in his room, while I was walking with them, but she kept turning him down.

Finally, we were just in front of his place, and he gave up, and said goodnight, so we continued walking, and found a tuktuk and a late night street vendor sandwich (which ended up being pretty bad tasting and lead to stomach aches), and we were back to her place which was a bit out from where I was staying or so I thought. We arrived back, and I spent a night in Britain ha ha.

The next day I woke up feeling fairly tired and a fair bit of a stomach ache, and of course a bit of a hangover, but not too bad. I actually thought I had made it back to our guesthouse, and reached over to grab my iPod to check my emails, thinking I was in my own bed, and then upon grabbing Laura, realized I hadn't actually made it home ha ha. I got up and said goodbye, figuring she would be out on the river that day to meet again, but alas she never made it, as she came down with some food poisoning and ended up spending two days bedridden! I left the place, not knowing exactly where I was and had the walk of shame back to the guesthouse, without any shoes of course, since I had left them back at the guesthouse, figuring I would lose them out on the river somewhere. I ended up walking along the airstrip, with a giant Albanian flag cape, bright pink party shorts, and no shoes, hobbling along...it was probably one of the funniest looking walks of shame ever, and even the locals were having quite a laugh at me as I was stumbling around trying to figure out where I was.....eventually I made it all the way back to the main street, and was able to find my guesthouse, and stumble in.

I got cleaned up quickly, and we were all off to grab some breakfast (where we found Clint and Brett, the Australians, who had bought some ridiculously small women's party shorts that were awesome), and head out for another day on the river, this time with the goal of at least making it past the 4^th bar, but also making sure I didn't rent a tube and waste my money (also thinking I could just take someone else's tube, for karmic revenge). This day was much more of the same, basically grab a tuktuk down to the river, be greeted by some guy with free shots, walk across the bridge to the first bar, get some more free shots, and party there for quite sometime, enjoying the scenery of beautiful women, crazy partiers, and drunk ridiculousness! Henrique and I stuck around together for most of the day, moving from bar to bar, meeting lots of cool new people. We ended up meeting the Toronto girls again, and Clint was chasing after the one pretty hard all day, and she kept talking to me about advice on guys there, so I kept pulling her away or telling her she could do better when she was talking to dudes I didn't know, and I kept trying to steer her towards Clint, as I'm a good guy that way (it later on worked out, as they ended up going home together)

party crew day 2! all Canadians

We got back to the Mojito Bar where the one fun zip line was, and I went off that one a few more times. Jamie happened to be watching one of my attempts, when I went on the line, with my cape flying behind me, and when I hit the end I tried to do a backflip, but landed upside down, and the cape got wet and stuck over top of my face. I surfaced from the water with it stuck to me, and not being able to see, and was flailing around trying to get it off my face so I could see where I needed to swim to....I guess Jamie said it was one of the funniest things she had seen, and was crying from laughing so hard, too bad it wasn't on camera! After hanging out there and partying, we then wandered up to the Bucket Bar, where things got really crazy. They had a massive rope swing, and a few of the lads started going off that naked, while we would be throwing our ice cubes at them in mid air trying to hit them. It also got to the point where people in our group were just throwing ice cubes at anyone in the river that happened to be floating by, and I felt bad for one poor Asian girl who got plunked on the head, not knowing where it came from.....damn buckets! After partying pretty hard, it was already getting a bit dark, and I still wanted to move down the river a bit more, so Jamie and I swam across to the next bar, while everyone else walked over there, taking the long way. We arrived there, and found it to be super quiet, with just a little fire going and not very many people.

We didn't hang out there for too long since it was dead, but one interesting thing did occur, as Henrique and Jamie snuck off to fool around a bit, and some Laos guys spotted them and started getting angry with them (as public displays of affection aren't allowed in Laos and considered offensive), so they got into a shoving match and almost lead to a big fight. Fortunately, we were able to cool Henrique down and just rounded everyone up to go find a tuktuk and head back into town. We got back, got cleaned up, and headed out for dinner, and then wandered down to the bucket bar. It happened to be Nick's birthday this day, but since he doesn't drink, he didn't want to come out tubing with us, but did actually come to the bucket bar. We hung out there for awhile, meeting up with mostly everyone from our group. Apparently I ended up chatting with some Irish girl and some French girls, but I didn't recall this until a few nights later when I would meet the same Irish girl. I did end up meeting some cute French girl and was speaking with her for quite a bit, and went to grab a drink, but then she met some other friends, and I kind of got distracted by Jamie, and ended up just hanging out with her for the rest of the night. Eventually it was getting to be pretty late, well maybe only 12 or 1 am, but when you've been out on the river all day partying, it takes its toll on you, so we stumbled back to the guesthouse, and called it a night.

The next day I was greeted by the feeling of exhaustion and the feeling that I needed a day off, and so that was the plan. We just grabbed some lunch, watched some television at one of the nearby cafes for awhile, then I wandered around Vang Vieng a bit to see what it's actually like during the day, which there really isn't much to it! After wandering around a bit, I just hung out with the guys in the room most of the day, watching movies and relaxing for a change. We talked to the Irish and they had decided to book some kayaking the next day, so we contemplated doing that as well, but I just ended up staying up really late watching Breaking Bad, and wasn't able to get up the next day for 8 am to go join their trip. I really needed one day off to relax a bit, and catch up on some sleep and let my body heal!

The next day I awoke feeling refreshed, and ready to go. We had contemplated leaving this day, but were having way too much fun tubing, so we figured we would stick around for at least one extra day to tube! After going with the cape look a few days, I decided it was a good day to switch it up, so I decided to wear my purple onesie suit out for the day. Everytime I wear that thing out in public, it always makes people smile and approach me, asking me where I got it from, since others want to buy one. So I showed up at lunch wearing it, and the guys and girls were laughing, as were a few people on the streets. After having some lunch and a beer, we were ready to head on down to the river again.

We arrived at the first bar, and right away one of the girls working there was laughing and smiling, so I gave her a wink and walked up to the bar with Henrique to get our first drinks. We hung out in the first bar for probably 2 hours, meeting a whole bunch of people, many of whom were in love with the onesie. I also happened to be playing wizards that day, albeit by myself, and met one of the guys working at the bar who was absolutely nuts. There were two of them, both from Australia, and they would basically just dress up in ridiculous costumes and dance and drink to entertain people. I didn't actually know the one guy worked there, and when he saw me playing, he wanted in on the game, so I gave him my tape so he could start making his staff. Then he asked if I wanted some beers, and thinking he was just being a good guy about me lending him tape and wanted to buy me a beer, I said sure, then to my surprise he went behind the bar and grabbed some beers from the fridge. Nice deal for me! After hanging with him for a bit, I went to join the rest of the group over by this waterfountain, and got soaked a bit since the onesie was getting pretty hot. Shortly after this, some Aussie girl really wanted to get in on the onesie action, and unzipped me and just started climbing in! Unfortunately, the material wasn't the strongest, and once she got into the suit, it started to rip!

party crew day 3!

Epic!!

So she got fully in, and the onesie was basically torn to pieces, although the legs remained intact, and our balance wasn't so good, so someone pushed us and we fell over into a big heap, much to everyone's laughter. Unfortunately, no one from my group actually grabbed a photo of this whole event, which is really too bad, cause it was absolutely hilarious, although the fact that the onesie is now destroyed is a bit sad. C'est la vie I guess! After hanging out at that bar for awhile, we moved on over to the Mojito bar for a bit, where the party continued on some more. It was basically more of the same shenanigans as the previous days, just ziplining, beer ponging, dancing, and being ridiculous. After hanging there, a few of us decided to steal some tubes since they aren't too closely guarded, and float down to the next bar to party some more. After getting there, and dropping off our tubes, we partied a bit more there, but then I lost most of the group, so I was just ready to head back and sleep a bit. I managed to find a tuktuk with a bunch of Kiwi girls, one of whom had been pushed into a fire, and had badly burned her hands, so they were in a rush to get into town to get a treated. We made it into town fairly quickly, dropped them off, and I was back to the guesthouse, and walked in to find Nick, who had to laugh at my destroyed onesie. I rested a little bit, and cleaned up, then met the rest of the group, went for a bite to eat, and then ended up in some Opium bar. I'm not into trying things like that, but a few others from our group were all for it. We ended up hanging out there for quite awhile, and Laura the English girl ended up showing up, so we just hung out for a few hours in the bar, having some beers, while others snuck off into the back to try the opium. Apparently it wasn't all that great though. After that bar, a few of us decided to head down to the bucket bar for a few drinks, but by that point I was feeling pretty tired, and not really into it. Since Laura was with us, I asked if she just wanted to head back to her place, and she was up for it, so we just snuck away from the group quietly, and wandered back to her place, to spend the night.

The next day I awoke fairly early, did the walk of shame again, got back to the guesthouse, and got cleaned up a bit and ready to go. It was Australia Day, and since I'm friends with so many Aussies, and want to move there some day, I figured I may as well celebrate the day like one. I donned my Aussie singlet, and got ready to meet up with Clint and Brett, and head to the Aussie bar for some Triple J Top 100 (an Aussie radio show), and some beers before tubing. I wasn't feeling the greatest due to lack of sleep and numerous drinks, but hair of the dog right?! The boys weren't actually ready yet, so we just stopped into the Irish Bar to meet the Irish group and English Sam and Kirsty and Laura for some breakfast. The English were all leaving that day for Vientiane, so we said our goodbyes, and then Henrique, Nick and I went over to the Aussie bar to meet up with a few of the boys and start having some beers. We hung out there for maybe an hour, as it was actually pretty dead, and it was already 1:30 pm, so it was time to wander down to the tubing place.

We found a tuktuk, and started driving down towards the river, when we spotted the Canadian girls walking near our guesthouse. We told them we were picking up the Irish, but they said they were just going to get in our tuktuk and that the Irish could take their own one, so they just hopped in and we were on our way to the river once again. We arrived and went to Q Bar, which is the first bar on the river that we always stopped on, grabbed our free shots, and started chatting with numerous Aussies who had come out for the celebration. The two guys who worked there were dressed as convicts this day, entertaining everyone as per usual, and being a great time. We hung out there, doing the same as every day, although the place was a bit more dead than the previous days, so we didn't stay for long before venturing over to the Mojito Bar where things were a bit more lively.....and for the next 3.5 hours, I didn't make it any further. We ended up playing some volleyball there on their dodgy gravel pit court with a shitty net, and made some new friends. I ended up meeting some pretty cool Danish and Swedish chicks there, and would actually run into the Danes later on in the trip. We hung out having drinks and goofing around for several hours, when it was starting to get dark, so it was time to head back. I had ended up meeting a pretty cute Candian girl from Calgary as well, and invited her along to join us on the ride into town, and for the rest of the night on the town, so she joined.

We found a tuktuk, and absolutely packed it full to the point where people had to ride on the roof rack, and we didn't even know if everyone was actually in the tuktuk or not. I remember at one point someone asked if Sean was on the roof, so I climbed out the side of the carriage and up to the roof to check if he was up there, while the tuktuk was driving, and we were spotted by the police and subsequently stopped for being over capacity. Oops! We ended up having to ditch a few people from the tuktuk and catch the next one driving by, so that we could get into town.

After arriving in town, our whole group wandered into our guesthouse, and had a massive pillow fight in the hallway, where we destroyed a pillow on Brett's back, leaving feathers everywhere...hilarious (a few days later when the Canadian girls went to check out, we found out there was a camera in the hallway and they tried to charge the girls for the destroyed pillow). After the big pillow fight, we got cleaned up, and headed out for a bite to eat, some more beers, and then wandered down to Bucket Bar. After grabbing a drink there, the hot Canadian girl named Shannon pulled me over to the fire for a bit to chat, and we hung out there for awhile, then she told me she really wanted to have some absinth. I had been at a bar a few nights earlier with Paul and Laura that had some absinth, so we wandered over there and tried to get some, but they were sold out. We had a few shots there, and I figured I would try making a move since she was pretty good looking, but she shut me down, saying she wasn't looking for anything, just wanted to make friends. So that was a bit awkward and we just walked back to the Bucket Bar to meet back up with the rest of our group.

Australia Day pileon

Brett beaten and battered after the pillow fight

Things get messy!

After ordering a drink and chatting with the group a bit, some Irish girl stopped me and started chatting me up. Apparently, it was an Irish girl from a few nights earlier named Edel (pronounced like the singer), and she remembered my name and talking with me, but I had no recollection. Anyways, after a bit of a chat, she wanted to steal me away from the group for some dancing which lead to some making out for a bit, and then wandered over to chat in a bit of a quieter area. We were chatting there, when Scott, the English dude I had met in Thailand a few months earlier happened to walk by and start chatting us up. It was kind of a weird and awkward conversation between the two of them, and after he left, she told me that he had tried to make a move on her but she had shut him down ha ha.

After hanging out there chatting for awhile, we wandered over to the next bar nearby, as the Bucket Bar was shutting down, so we went and sat by the fire at the next place, and watched some people do the limbo under a flaming limbo bar. We hung out there for awhile, and then as luck would have it, that Shannon girl was sitting next to us with some guy, who was also trying to make a move on her, but she kept shutting him down....tough one to crack I guess! Edel and I just hung out there for quite awhile, and met a few of her random friends, then wandered over to a different bar that was the last one open. I was already pretty drunk and tired, but figured I would head there anyways with her. We were sitting by the fire there, just making out and meeting some new people for about 15 minutes, when the place was closing down. We were just on our way back towards the town when I walked by a small group of 4 people sitting by a fire that was still going...and I heard a very familari voice, and looked over and saw it was Birte from Koh Phangan! So we sat down and chatted for about 10 minutes, and agreed to meet up the next day for lunch, as I had a 1:30 pm bus, and had some time to kill in the morning.

Canadian/Irish connection

I wasn't too sure where it was going with the Edel girl, but as we were leaving, she was pretty adamant about me coming to her place, so that worked out pretty damn well. We got back to her place, and had a pretty good night, and I got my first Irish flag ;) The next morning was a pretty early one, as I still had to go back to my place and pack and check out, plus we were up until about 5:30 am, so I only had about 4.5 hours of sleep at most. I said my goodbye and did another walk of shame back to the hotel. Upon arrival, 3 of the Irish were sitting outside, hanging out, and were curious if I ended up with Edel or not. Upon telling them, Sean congratulated me on getting my first “colaign” or something...apparently it's the word for a woman in Irish ha ha. After receiving my round of applause from the group, I stumbled into our room upstairs, much to Nick and Henrique's laughter, as they had become accustomed to my disappearing at night. Nick told me he hated me, since he has a serious g/f back home and it's been a very long and lonely 4.5 months for him so far ha ha. After cleaning up quickly and packing up, I wandered down to meet Birte for lunch.

I was a few minutes late, and she was a no show, so I figured she had forgotten since she was pretty drunk the previous night, but she ended up showing up, about 15 minutes late. I sat down with her and her friends, and found out that she had been hitch hiking with a French girl and were picked up by two Dutch guys a few days earlier on motorbikes, and were now travelling around with them, crazy girl! She was complaining a fair bit about the terrible job the Dutch people did at rolling a joint for her as well ha ha. After having some lunch and catching up a bit, we said our goodbyes again, and I wandered back to grab my bags and go sit at the stop, waiting for our bus. And that was about the time the lack of sleep and rough past couple of days kicked in, leading to me just sleeping on the sidewalk for awhile...this basically sums up what one looks like after 6 days of Vang Vieng!

Birte very confused about the poor construction of her joint

What 6 days of Vang Vieng does to a guy

After our bus arrived, we crammed into it, and found it to be extremely tightly packed, and filled with probably about 100 mosquitoes in the backseat to keep us occupled with. We packed in there and were on our way to Vientiane for a terrible 5 hour bus ride. The highways in Laos are pretty terrible, and sitting in the backseat of the bus is really bad, as every large bump, the suspension didn't cushion too well, and we would actually all end up airborne. After a very long bus ride, we were in Vientiane, and were told of a place that Laura and her English friends were staying. We took a tuktuk from the bus station, and arrived in the city centre, and wandered around a bit asking people if they knew where the guesthouse was that we were looking for, but no one could come up with an answer. We just grabbed some really tasty food at a French Restaurant, and then wandered downa nearby street, finding that pretty much all guesthouses were full for the night, until we found one at the very end. We were pretty tired and didn't want to wander around for too much longer, so we just took that room, and settled in for the night. Henrique and I were pretty sore from the tubing as well, so we went and found some Laos massage parlour, which was pretty swanky. The massage was pretty rough like a Thai massage, and then they did some aromatherapy things with this sort of hot water bag thing, that they would soak on a steamer and smack you with. Truth be told, it wasn't really all that comfortable, especially because the girl would let the thing get too hot sometimes and scald my skin.

After the 1.5 hour massage, which still only cost $5, we wandered by the store to pickup some water and head back to the room to sleep. I noticed a super giant tin of Danish butter cookies, and since Nick is always eating cookies, I decided to buy him a tin of them for his birthday present, albeit a bit belated of a present. We just got back to the room and crashed for the night.

The next day we were contemplating renting motorbikes or else bicycles and going to the Buddha park that was 25 kms away, but because of the distance, we weren't really too keen on that. We did end up renting bicycles and going for a drive along the Mekong river, although the road kind of suddenly ended and we ended up going a bit offroad, which our super crappy bicycles weren't really prepared for...it was a bit of a treacherous drive for awhile, until we found some decent road again. We biked around for probably 1 hour or so, but ended up in some unscenic areas of town, and weren't really seeing much, so we turned around and ended up finding a shopping centre, where we hung out for awhile. I was pretty keen on finding a new party watch to replace my broken one, but every watch store there didn't have what I was looking for. After spending an hour there, enjoying the A/C and bartering with people over useless junk, we grabbed our bikes and continued on, getting fairly lost. After a few wrong turns, and ending up in some dodgy traffic and construction zones, we finally found our way back to our place. We also ended up finding the Irish randomly, who had decided to go for a luxurious 4.5 star place that was costing about $80 US a night, gotta love SE Asia!

Statue where Henrique was later caught making out and forced to bribe the military officers

Nick couldn't figure out how to unlock his bike

Anna braiding Nick's gross beard 

We made some plans to try and meet up with them later on, and then were on our way back to our place when we spotted Anna, a German girl that Henrique and Nick had met in Jerusalem and then again in Vang Vieng, and she was coming to travel with us for awhile. We showed her to our place, got her sorted, and then waited for the Canadian girls to show up an hour later. After everyone arrived and got all sorted, we all went down to an English pub for some food and drinks, and to watch some English Premier League football. Michael, the one Irishman was a pretty die hard Liverpool fan, and they happened to be playing Manchester United that night, so it was a pretty big deal for him. I don't really watch much football, but have gotten more into it on this trip, as the time zone differences for North American sports makes it a lot more difficult to keep track and watch the games, but EPL is carried everywhere. Anyways, it ended up being a pretty good match, and it was a mostly pro United house, but Liverpool managed to win the game leaving Mike quite happy.

After the game we decided to head to the bowling alley, since again, that was pretty much the only thing open late, so we went off there, had some more drinks, bowled a few games, and then played some pool as well. After hanging out there for a few hours, we all made our way back to our respective guesthouses, although I just went back to Laura's place for another night. We woke up the next morning fairly early, as I still had to run back to our other guesthouse, pack up, and check out, plus we were meant to be going to the 4000 Islands that night, and had to pick up bus tickets. I ran back to the place, and found no one to be around, so I just popped in, packed up and showered, then found Henrique who told me he had already bought me a bus ticket. Laura had said she wanted to come along, since her two friends were off to China next, and she didn't really feel like going with them, so I invited her along with us.

Unfortunately, when I went to buy her a ticket to join our bus ride, they were sold out, so I just grabbed her one for the next day, and broke the news to her that she wouldn't be joining us for another day. I also found out from Henrique that he was kissing Anna the previous night by the statue we drove past on our bikes, and 2 Laos military officers came up to him pointing their guns and saying they were going to take him to the police!! In Laos, public displays of affection are really frowned upon, but he was able to bribe his way out of that, but still a bit scary! After the tickets were all sorted out, we had contemplated renting out motorbikes and heading off to the Buddha park, but figured out that tuktuks would be cheaper, plus driving a motorbike in a big Asian city isn't something I was terrible comfortable with, and they were only standards. So we hired a tuktuk, and were on our way to the park. The ride was pretty bump and terrible, but it was still good fun. We arrived at the Buddha park, and of course had to pay an entrance fee, plus they wanted us to pay to take in cameras, but I just hid mine and avoided that cost. Here's some pics from the day.

Inside one of the buildings at the Buddha park

View of the park from above

Mailman on the Laying Buddha

After hanging out for an hour and a bit, seeing all the statues and discussing the significance of some of the placements of statues, in a humourous way of course, we found our tuktuk dude, and were back to Vientiane. On the way there, some crazy Laos guy riding a bike came up beside us and grabbed the tuktuk handles to drag him and the bike along, and had a nice little chat with us. We arrived back in Vientiane and just hung out for the next few hours, killing time until our nightbus. It was a bit tough to say goodbye to Jamie and Hannah, especially for Andrei, as they had been travelling together since the day Andrei had arrived in SE Asia. Jamie and Hannah were off to Vietnam, while the Brazilians, Andrei and I, Laura, and the Irish were all heading to the 4000 Islands. We said our goodbyes, and were off in the tuktuk to the bus station.

This was our first sleeping bus experience, and we got on board, and found that Nick, Andrei, and I plus some random dude (who Nick thought was a lady boy) in the very back area on a huge open area. It seemed like it would be a pretty comfortable sleeping ride, so we got all settled in, chatted for awhile, and then tried to sleep. Well, being in the very back, ended up not being so comfortable at all. Andrei likes to be left alone when she sleeps, so I couldn't get too close to her, and Nick kept getting closer and closer to me during the sleep because he was freaked out by the lady boy, so I ended up getting kind of squeezed. Not to mention the engine is in the back and directly below us, so it was quite hot from that, and the bumpy roads would cause me to be bumped up frequently. Needless to say, when we arrived in Pahkse to change buses at 7 am, I had maybe slept 1.5 hours at most....damn. We didn't know exactly what was going on, but were kicked off there, and told to wait for another bus, so we hung out there for an hour or so.

Eventually a mini bus showed up and picked us up, and we were on our way to get new tickets from the ticket agency in town. Everyone didn't want to pile off the van, so we just started giving all our tickets to Nick to go exchange them all for us, and he willingly did that. He came back on the bus shortly after, telling us that there was issues and that he was only able to exchange the tickets for our group, and that everyone else had to get off the bus and go inside and do it themselves. After waiting for the unorganized chaos, we were again on our way and ended up in the 4000 Islands. Upon arrival, there was a guy offering to sell us tickets to our next destination, Siem Riep for a decent price, and telling us that it would be more expensive to buy our tickets once we were across and on Don Det, which was the island we were going to be staying on, so we bought our open tickets, grabbed a small rickety boat over to Don Dep, and found some extremely basic accomodations. It was about $5 a night for a room with one bed, fan, and outdoor toilet and shower, and when split three ways, made for a very basic but great deal.

Our accomodations

Lazy days in Don Det

                                                                                     

Don Det is definitely a very chilled out and relaxed place to go, especially to get away and relax after some crazy nights in Vang Vieng or Viantiane (but mostly the former of course). The first day we were pretty tired after the long bus ride, so we just lounged around our bungalow for awhile, and then decided to go rent some tubes and float along the river. The tubes were so much cheaper compared to the rip off in Vang Vieng, so it was nice to get some cheap ones. Henrique and I grabbed a beer each for the float, and we all got into the water. We weren't in the water for very long when I spotted a snake swimming towards me, and made a remark about it and started swimming away from it. At this point Henrique started laughing at me and saying there's no way there was a snake, but then he saw the snake swimming towards him, and he started flailing about and screeching a bit, trying to get away. Henrique is a big man, he's probably about 6'2 and 200 lbs, and the sight of this big macho looking guy getting all worked up over a snake was quite priceless! He scared the snake enough that it actually submerged itself, so that no one knew where it was going to emerge, scaring the girls a bit of course.

After the snake scare, we got stuck into a current that was sort of taking us the wrong direction, but after a little while of floating, we were grabbed into another current. Andrei and I ended up getting pulled fairly far away from the others, and taking a bit of a different path, which was quite difficult to get out of. Eventually we were able to fight out way out of it and get back towards the others. Floating down the river was nice except for the fact that all the guesthouses on the river have a blue pipe running out of them and into the river...and I'm pretty sure you can guess what that's for. So while floating, all of a sudden you get the whiff of sewage, and hope that you are floating far enough away from it so it doesn't get all over you. Compared to tubing in Vang Vieng though, this tubing was very very relaxed, as there aren't bars along the river, and no music playing. We just floated on down for about an hour and a bit, and eventually made our way out, and met up with some Kiwis that Andrei knew from Laos. We chatted with them a bit, and they told us about a place having a bbq that night, so we agreed to try and meet up with them for the bbq later on. We just chilled in the hammocks for awhile, and then made our way to the bbq. It was an awesome deal, as it was $1.50 for all you could eat bbq, and it was so damn good. We had a nice meal there, and just hung out watching the stars and relaxing. Two old and very drunk Laos men wandered over and started chatting with us, and they were very touchy feely and drunk and trying to force this damn Laos Laos alcohol down our throats. It was quite an interesting few minutes hanging out with them.

Tubing in Don Det, enjoying a beer

Eventually we just wandered back to the bungalows, hung out for a bit, met our neighbours, and called it an early night. The bed wasn't terribly big for the 3 of us, so Nick decided he would sleep outside in the hammock for the night, and use Anna's mosquito net to cover himself (yes she brought a mosquito net with her, along with high heels, a business dress, a hammock, snorkel, etc...), so he sorted that all out, but didn't sleep so well. I slept pretty well myself, although I was awakened by poor Andrei several times in the night since she had come down with some stomach ailment.

The next day we just lounged around a bit and waited for Laura to show up, as she had to take the bus the day after us since ours was sold out. After she arrived, we got her all checked in, and were going to rent some bikes and go tour around the island a bit, but then just got kind of lazy and decided to just chill on the very small beach that was there for the afternoon.

The night in Don Dep is very quiet, as there's not really any rowdy bars or nightclubs, and everything pretty much shuts by 11 pm or so (plus there's no bowling alley!) Also, there's no ATMs on the island, which we weren't aware of, so it was getting to be a bit tight with money with everyone, so we had to make things as cheap as possible. We just hung out, ate some quiet dinner, and relaxed at our bungalows, playing some cards and hanging out with our neighbours. It was a pretty early night to bed, since we had planned to rent bikes the next day and go early to tour the island. But of course an early morning never materialized, and by the time we were up and out and about the next day it was already nearly noon and hot as hell! We rented some bikes and began biking towards the waterfalls, although we ended up missing the turn for the fall and ended up in a lagoon area where you could hire a boat to take you out and see some river dolphins. We tried to barter the price down a bit, but they wouldn't budge (well I tried to, everyone else was cool with paying $2 for the boat ride, but once I realized it was for an hour, then I agreed to go along), so we hopped 3 per boat and ripped on down the river.

Very dry climate all over Laos

Nice day for a bike ride

On the Mekong

It provided some very beautiful scenery and some nice rapids as well. We had initially thought about renting kayaks and exploring the area that way, but they wanted like $35 for the day to rent them and get around, which is way too much by Laos pricing standards. The boat was just as good though, as the kayakers that we did see didn't even get any closer to the dolphins than we did. After hanging out there for a bit, watching the dolphins from a fair distance, we had a little swim in the river for a bit and met some girls, one of whom was deathly afraid of geckos and lizards, so I started taking the piss out of her a fair bit over the next few days. Her name was Laura and she was from Melbourne, and I would later have a fun encounter with her in Cambodia, but I'll save that for the next blog. After hanging around for about 20 minutes in the water, we hopped back in the boat, and went back to shore. We arrived and grabbed our bikes, which Andrei dropped and subsequently knocked over a bunch more, and then were on our way to find the waterfalls. We eventually found our way there, and of course they wanted to charge to get into the waterfall, and for bike parking. There was no way I was going to pay for bike parking so I just walked the little desk where the guys were trying to sell parking tickets.

hi Henrique, Anna, and Andrei!

Good job knocking over all the bikes Andrei

We got to the falls and admired them for 15 minutes or so, then had some fresh coconut, and were on our way back to the village. While crossing back over the big bridge to get back to our island, I decided it might be fun to try driving my bike on the bridge wall, which didn't go over so well, as I fell off shortly after, but onto the bridge and not 25 feet into the water...ah well, guess my balance isn't so great!

Nice rapids and rocky terrain

After finishing up at the falls, we grabbed our bikes, and casually wandered back to the village. Henrique and Anna went for a romantic sunset watch, while the rest of us just grabbed some snacks and beer, and played some cards at the bungalows (which I lost at to Andrei grrr). We decided it would be our last night there and that we would be heading off to Siem Riep the next day, but I wasn't sure how the open ticket worked for all of us. I tried to find a place that could help me, but wasn't getting much help, so I just decided to call the number on the ticket and let them know we would be using it the next day and how we were supposed to get a boat over and when. Of course the guy didn't speak very much English, and just told me that a boat would be there waiting for us the next morning at 9:45 am to take us over to catch our bus...I wasn't entirely sure about this whole setup, but there wasn't much I could do. We just grabbed some dinner, and had some killer brownies from the Reggae bar, and hung out for the night. 

Falling off the bridge

Losing at cards sucks!

We got up early the next day, and went to a restaurant right by the beach so that we could keep an eye out for the boats, and had a tasty breakfast. It was about 9:45 and we went down to where some people were gathering by a tour agency, and I presented my ticket to one of the guys working there, but they were no help at all, they just took the ticket for a bit and then came back with it and said sorry can't help. So we just waited and waited....the ticket said the actual bus was leaving at 10:30 am from the other island, and it was already 10:05 am with no boat showing up. I tried calling the agency again, but the skype wasn't working in the internet cafe, so we had to make a last minute decision to just hire a private boat to take us across and hope we could make it in time for the bus....well, we weren't able to, and arrived at 10:40 am, but found some guy with the travel agency that we had booked through, who took us over to some other spot and arranged for a bus for us. Because of the pain in the ass and the fact that there was no boat to pick us up, the agency did reimburse us for the boat cost so that was alright. The guys at the agency were a bit shady about getting our visas, as they were charging $10 US more than what the visa should cost, but they said it would save us time and issues at the border, so we just went along with it, but it was pointless. At this last minute I realized I had completely forgotten about my little trip mascot and taking a photo so I grabbed one last one before leaving Laos, then we boarded a mini bus and were on our way.

hey mascot!

We arrived at the Cambodian border, and had to clear Laos by foot, which I did in style, as seen here. 

Laos Limbo!

And with this, I'm out! Will update on Cambodian adventures soon (assuming I can remember anything)