Vang Vieng Adventures: Kangaroo bar/Beerlao burger/Poutine + Cave Tubing/Balloons/Kayaking + Crazy cave trekking/Blue Lagoon swing jumps

After traversing the long and winding road from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng, Laos, we finally reached our destination with an hour or two to spare before dinner.

Vang Vieng is a province of Laos that's known for its sporty activity stuffs like cave tubing/trekking, kayaking, waterfall/lagoon jumping, and in my case.. watching the Superbowl at 6:30am from my hotel room with Southeast Asian broadcasters speaking over the still-audible American broadcast.

While I will remember it for all of those things, I won't forget the incredible pineapple/Tiger Lao whiskey smoothies from one of the street stands we came across whilst strolling around town.. I just wish I could somehow import that lady and her fruit stand back to NY. The strange thing is that there were similar stands selling fruit smoothies and crepes with fruit/nutella/etc just about every ten feet on these streets.. except this lady happened to be the only one we saw in the entire province to offer the fruit smoothies mixed with liquor.. for 15-20,000 Lao kip.. or about $2-2.50 USD. I did later convince another stand at the Blue Lagoon to mix some Tiger Lao whiskey into my pineapple smoothie, but they were very confused at my request and it took me a few minutes to get them to understand what I wanted.. so putting liquor into fruit smoothies may not be so common in these parts.. but wow, are they fantastic. While the Lao whiskey is great, the fruit in SE Asia is so much more fresh and tasty than in the states because of the tropical climate.. and that just makes a world of difference.

Dinner for our first night in Vang Vieng would be at Kangaroo Bar, an Aussie bar that opened a number of months ago to a warm reception. It really reminds me of a classic dive bar in NY, with some table seating for dinner, a small area for awkward white-folk dancing, and a beer pong table right up front. The difference is that everything is dirt cheap here, the weather is beautiful, and the bar is fairly open.. there's no door or anything like that - it's wide open to the [dirt] street outside, and patrons are hanging out inside, outside, and all around.

The Aussie bartenders/waiters worked along with a few locals to provide some of the better restaurant service we would receive in Laos since there wasn't a language barrier. FTT, the Aussie guys, and I had mostly been eating local food for the past week, but there were some compelling western items on this menu that I, and a few others in the group, simply couldn't pass up.

I'm not typically a burger guy (save for the occasional stop at Shake Shack or In n Out), but they highly recommended the Beerlao burger as their specialty, so I gave that a shot and was very impressed - the flavor with the Beerlao cooked in there was very tasty, and it was also cooked just right. This burger would've easily been enough for a meal on its own, but some of the Toronto girls (Vanessa, Lauren) spotted a Canadian delicacy on the menu that we just had to check out: POUTINE.

For those of you who know me well.. you know that there are few food-related items that bring me more sheer joy than gravy. From turkey with gravy on Thanksgiving, to late-night curly fries with gravy at the diner growing up, to McDonald's nuggets with KFC gravy in Penn Station, to well.. wherever gravy can be found - there are few loves in my life that are quite like gravy. So here we are.. in Vang Vieng, Laos.. at an Aussie bar - and they have poutine! (Poutine is what Canada likes to call french fries smothered in gravy and melted cheese curds.. so clearly I get it without the curds) .. but hold on - we're in Laos, at an Aussie bar - how good could poutine possibly be? Welp.. it was pretty dang good. Overall, it was a great showing from the chefs at Kangaroo Bar. The next day would be an extremely long one, with the Superbowl starting at 6:30am, and our departure for cave tubing at 8am.. so it would be an early night after dinner.

I've already posted the details of my experience with one of the most anticlimactic Superbowls in recent memory, so there's no need to delve any further into that - but what saved me from watching the whole game and leaving at the half was our plan to go cave tubing and kayaking for the entire morning, into the early afternoon.

It's a little funny because when I booked this trip, I knew I had very little flexibility with my travel dates, as my coworker and his fiancée would be away the entire month of February.. so I had no choice but to book something that would likely cause me to miss the Superbowl (Feb 3) for the first time in probably 25 years. Then when I found out we'd be in Vang Vieng, in a hotel room with a TV and I could wake up at 6:30am to watch it, I was thrilled. However, with the actual game being a complete waste of time after the first few minutes, leaving halfway through for a day of adventures was the best possible way to proceed at around 8am, Laos time.

We all meet outside to take a couple of tuk tuks to our cave destination, but there's somehow not enough room inside of the tuk tuks to fit everyone - so I bravely volunteer to ride on the platform in the back of our tuk tuk.. and boy, was that fun. I hang onto a bar along the roof and remain standing for the entire 20 minute ride.. and it was awesome. I felt like a commando on the back of a Hummer, minus the automatic weapon.

During my exciting tuk tuk expedition to the cave tubing site, I noticed that some of the bartenders from the Aussie bar from the previous night were riding alongside us in their Wrangler. I thought, that's strange - maybe they're coming with? It turns out that one of them was a big fan of Ashleigh, and they decided to not only join us for the day's adventures, but to sprinkle in a little debauchery as well. It's also possible that they wanted to do some tubing and kayaking for the day anyhow, and taking in some hard liquor and nitrus before the clock strikes 10 in the AM is just how they roll.. but more on that in a moment.

Cave tubing is a pretty unique experience. To start things off, they give you a headband with a bright light attached to it because, well.. caves can be pretty dark. Then we strip down to our bathing suits (the Aussies call these "swimmers," and they call sunglasses "sunnies" - so many nicknames to remember), and head into our tubes. The tubes are the same ones from any water park.. think Lazy River - black, shaped like a doughnut, and filled with air. We hop into our respective tubes and get into the water towards the cave, which is about 20 feet away, and we each grab and pull ourselves by the rope which lines the path for our excursion.

The water is fairly cold and the cave dark, but the inside of it is really something else. It's really cool and exciting to be somewhere so remote.. in a cave.. in water.. pulling ourselves along with a light and a rope as our guide. I'm not sure how well I would've done as a cave man in ancient times, but I guess I can say I do rather enjoy caves. Even though the water wasn't comfortably warm and there were parts of the cave where the rock formations were fairly low and on the sharper side (poor Ashleigh hurt her foot), it was a very calming, yet thrilling experience.. if that makes sense. And so we navigated through the cave, took some photos, and turned back.. and then the real fun started.

As we're getting out of the water, it's probably only 9:30am, so the sun hasn't fully risen yet and we're all quite cold.. but fear not - the Aussie bar folk are here to warm us up. They're already carrying on with a bottle of Captain Morgan Black and some sort of contraption that appears to be filling balloons with air - and it doesn't seem like they're doing this to make us a family of balloon animals.. or a bicycle, clown. If I thought my first tuk tuk ride of the day was fun, the second ride would put that to shame.

We depart the cave tubing site and head towards the kayaking location, and it's going to be about a 20 minute ride. Somehow we end up in what I'll call the party tuk tuk with some of the fun folks in our crew, plus one of the local Laotians from the Aussie bar. What makes our tuk tuk slightly different from the average tuk tuk is the huge subwoofer in the front, facing out.. there's that, the party music blasting, and also the guy from the Aussie bar passing around the rum, balloons, and that fancy balloon-filling contraption for when supply simply couldn't meet demand. The good news is that at this point, it's almost 10am.. so therefore, it's almost certainly 5 o'clock somewhere.

We arrive at the kayaking location, fired up from our party tuk tuk and ready to do some kayaking. There are only three solo kayaks, and I wanted the extra workout, so I fought along with Toronto/Ginger Lauren and Marco to get my own, which I'd never done before - I'd only ridden in a two seater.. and it was a great call. It was not only fun, but a fairly decent workout.. and the river was pretty serene and beautiful. As we were told, this stretch of river was formerly famous for bar hopping, where people in boats/kayaks/etc. would stop off at numerous bars on the side of river throughout their trip.. but apparently something bad happened (I can't imagine what that could've been.. booze+boats=?) and they closed off the areas at these bars where people could pull up and leave their boats/kayaks/etc. However, we were already "sorted" (great Aussie term.. also sometimes spoken as "sorted out") from our party tuk tuk, and so the absence of river pub crawl probably wasn't such a bad thing.

The kayaking tour lasted for about two hours, which included two brief stops along the way for folks to relieve themselves and such.. and then we pulled the kayaks in just a few minutes by foot to our hotel.. just in time for one more fantastic red curry chicken at the hotel restaurant, where the service was unsurprisingly bad, but the food was surprisingly good.

After eating and recharging our batteries for a few, we wanted to keep the day of fun outdoor activities going, so we decided to follow the advice of our tour manager and check out the Blue Lagoon, which was described to us as a fun place to swim, hike, hang out, etc. About seven of us liked the idea, and then I convinced everyone that we should take a road smoothie in case we get thirsty along the way.. so I directed the tuk tuk to our favorite smoothie lady with the Tiger whiskey/pineapple and other wonderful smoothies, and we ventured off to the Blue Lagoon for a really fun afternoon.

Our drive through rural Vang Vieng was a bit eye-opening.. the area was extremely poor and lined with shacks and dirt roads, in contrast to the part we were staying in which was a bit more developed.. but there was a beautiful stop at the end, and that was the Blue Lagoon.

When we walk in, the first thing we see is a clear, little blue body of water with some people swimming, and others swinging/jumping off a tall, massive tree which hangs directly over the lagoon. There are also areas to sit in the shade  and in the sun, a couple of folks playing soccer and volleyball. All in all, people seem to be having a really great time.

Before we got involved in the lagoon itself, Frank had learned of a cave hike we could do, so a few of us went to check that out. I was just wearing my reefs sandals, so I wasn't exactly in ideal cave-trekking gear, but the reefs served me surprisingly well this time around. Just as with cave tubing, we rented headband lights for the trek, and it's a good thing we did - there's no way we would've made it past the first part of the cave without them.

The walk up the steps to the cave was a bit long and slightly treacherous, which served as a preview for the rest of the hike - it was really challenging and a little unnerving at points, but it was a lot of fun and I'm very glad we did it. After we made it through the initial, well-lit portion of the cave, half of our party turned back, but Frank, Aussie Kate, and I trekked along through the darkness.. and that's when things really got interesting. It's one thing to be walking on a street or through a field in nearly complete darkness, but it's quite another to be hiking through a cave.. and there's no way we could've navigated through this portion of it without our headband lights.

Being a nimble (even in reefs), fairly good climber paid serious dividends on this hike. There were some areas that were a little flat, and we were able to walk for a minute or two, but the majority of this trek would be spent climbing up, down, and around rock formations throughout the cave. The inside of the cave, while dark, was pretty amazing to look at.. and luckily, our trek to the end of the cave and back, which easily lasted a half hour, ended with a lot of great photos and without any injuries.

We hiked back down the extremely steep and scary steps and off to the Blue Lagoon, where our other mates were waiting for us to start swimming, swinging, and jumping off of the tremendous tree hanging over the lagoon. There was one branch that was maybe ten feet high, then another that must've been 25 feet high.. plus a rope attached to the lower branch that was used to swing into the water. The Aussies and Frank all checked out the high branch and jumped off, but I was far more interested in the rope swinging into the water.. so I asked Nick to be my photographer for the event.

It turns out that it's not easy to catch someone moving quickly for an action shot with my waterproof camera (I didn't bring my dSLR for this excursion because of the hiking/water).. and while the shot Nick took was decent, I wanted more.. so I decided to do what any sane person these days would do in this situation: "Lemme take a selfie." (the song was released after the trip ended, but falling behind with these posts and finishing them weeks later, it was too appropriate to leave out).

The logistics were a little tough, because I had to hold onto the rope tightly enough to support my body weight with my right hand so I wouldn't fall into the water too soon, but I also had to be steady enough with the waterproof camera strapped to my left wrist to take a decent selfie with my left hand. What resulted from this stunt was nothing short of incredible. Not only did I luckily get a phenomenal action photo of myself swinging above the lagoon, but I somehow managed to capture Nick and Damon watching intently towards my acrobatic water-bound selfie in the background. If when all is said and done, this is the best action selfie I've ever taken.. I think I can be satisfied with that.

We would swing, swim, and jump for a bit longer, and then decide to head back for dinner.. but not before I convince some folks working at a smoothie stand to put Tiger Whiskey into our smoothies. As I mentioned earlier, they found this idea very confusing at first, but they finally did come through after some coaching. It was a great excursion, a great trip back.. and most importantly.. Vang Vieng was a blast from beginning to end.

Superbowl XLVIII from Vang Vieng, Laos

I'm watching the Superbowl from Vang Vieng, Laos. It kicks off around 6:30am here, and it's a slightly different experience than your run-of-the-mill Superbowl.

First, Thai broadcasters are speaking over their American counterparts, but I can still somewhat hear the broadcast in English.

Second, it looks like the market for Superbowl advertising isn't quite the same in southeast Asia as it is in the states - I've seen the same commercial at least ten times for a charity called redrawtheline.org, promoting energy conservation in response to climate change and other issues.. then four BNP Paribas commercials, and one Ford commercial. That's it for the entire first half. Through the first quarter, I actually wondered if they even sold advertising, because they just kept replaying the same redrawtheline.org commercial, but then BNP Paribas saved the day with a minute or two remaining in the quarter.

Also, I had it muted because my roommate was sleeping.. but it looked like Broadway Joe jumped the gun on the coin toss before anyone made the call for heads or tails.. and it looked like a nice kick-save by the ref to catch that coin before it hit the ground.

Unfortunately, I'm leaving at the end of the first half to go tubing/kayaking and exploring through some caves here. Fortunately, I'm leaving to go tubing/kayaking and exploring through some caves here.. and this game isn't even close - 22-0 at the half. Ouch.

Same Same but Different + Late-night bowling in Laos (Luang Prabang) + The long and winding road to Vang Vieng

One of the most common sayings of the locals in southeast Asia when trying to communicate with English speakers is "Same Same." Just to give you an idea of the popularity of this phrase.. there is an entire market for merchandise throughout Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.. all with Same Same as the tag line. It's actually become such a popular thing to say that even westerners like us now say it all the time.. and we have plenty of fun doing so.

There are a number of variations of Same Same out there. There's "Same Same.. but different," which is probably the most popular of the lot - and it means that two things are similar, but not quite identical.. so there is a difference there. Another common variation is "Same Same.. but better!" This might be my personal favorite because one thing is clearly better than the other, and that's how we're going to convey our feelings about it - by comparing it to something similar but not quite as good to draw the distinction.

After some quick googling, I've learned that there was actually a movie!!! made in 2009 called Same Same but Different, about a bargirl in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the German student who falls for her.. and there's also a book with the same name! In this case... that's Same Same, but SAME, as we would so circuitously say throughout our trip. Since that one doesn't make as much logical sense as the others, we use it exclusively, as it tends to confuse the locals. They seem to need some differing point of comparison in there to make it work.

In case you're wondering, and I'm sure you are.. by the end of this trip, I became the proud owner of two Same Same t-shirts.. Same Same but different, and Same Same but better.. though the former was used at a marker party and is no longer wearable in public.. but more on that in a future post.

Our local Laotian tour guide, Nuth, was a huge fan of using Same Same whenever she talked with us - and that's probably where we picked it up.. that, and also from the street vendors, who are everywhere throughout the realm, where bargaining skills are at a premium.. as we learned in Phuket.

For our final dinner in Luang Prabang, it's a group meal at a place called Hive, which claims to have the best bacon in town.. because it's double smoked. They even have a large sign outside that states this claim for everyone to see. Being there for dinner, we didn't get to try the bacon, unfortunately.

The food for dinner is alright, but on this night, dinner would simply be our appetizer, as we have our sights set on much more ambitious goals.. most notably, to get outside the province lines prior to the 11:30 curfew so that we're able to stay out through the night.

It's fairly well-known secret in Luang Prabang, by backpackers and normal humans alike, that one can take a tuk tuk about ten minutes outside of town to a bowling alley.. that's right - a bowling alley.. and there's a party, filled to the brim with westerners, ready to rage all night long. Curfew? .. not here! They sell the standard Laos whiskey that I absolutely adore, as well as beer and something else that I was unfortunate enough to try - something they referred to as Chinese whiskey (in the attached photo on the left of the Beerlao).

The reason I got this Chinese whiskey is that it was the only option for a bottle smaller than a litre.. it was maybe a fifth.. and since we were just getting started at the bowling alley, I didn't want to go big right away - but I should have, and I ended up going that route anyhow. This Chinese whiskey was honestly the worst tasting whiskey I've ever tried. Forget about whiskey, it might've been the worst thing I've ever tasted.. period. It started out tasting vaguely like a whiskey, right up until this absolutely awful flavor bursts into your mouth.. and makes you want to spit it out immediately. Just awful. To be tough though, I finished the cup I poured over the rocks, and then finally broke down and got the good stuff for five or six bucks - Lion whiskey. So I went crawling back to the Laos-produced goodness.. and thankfully, she took me back.

Anyhow.. enough of that terrible drink.. and onto the bowling situation. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing. We're on the outskirts of a province in Laos.. in Communist LAOS.. and we're at a bowling alley at 1am with tons of westerners.. mostly backpackers.. dirty, grimy, hippie backpackers. It's like we're at party somewhere in the rural US with tons of random weirdos.. except instead of being in the rural US, we're in LAOS. I still can't get over this. Why are all these people here? How did they get here? Why are they in Laos, of all places? I may not be the most worldly of men, but the country of Laos never really crossed my mind before this trip.. yet here we are, and there are easily a hundred westerners, mostly in their 20s-30s, partying it up like there's nothing strange about it. That said, I think I can answer my own question as to why they're here...

Laos is awesome. It's beautiful, mostly under-developed.. it's more charming and less skeevy than Thailand.. and one can probably live and eat considerably well there for about $5-10 per day. Also.. Thailand is so commercial! Laos is the new hotness.

The bowling alley itself isn't half bad either. At one point I actually threw four or five strikes in a row.. but then later in the night, I couldn't even buy a strike. At first though, people thought I was a pro.. and then I came back down to earth. We hung out and bowled for a few hours, the night raged on, and I Irish-exited via tuk tuk back to the hotel around 2 or 3. We had a long drive set for the next day, so I wanted to get some shut-eye.

The following morning, we would depart for Vang Vieng, Laos, a province predominantly known for it's outdoor activities like kayaking, tubing, and the like. On our tour sheet, it warned us of long and winding roads to Vang Vieng.. and it advised anyone with motion sickness to get some pills or a band to prevent any issues.

We were to be on the road from 8-5, with a stop for lunch plus two stops in between.. so a very long day of driving. Given my phobia of vomit dating back to my childhood, I'd always take pills for motion sickness on boats and long bus rides like this to prevent any issues from coming up (pun intended) - except, I suppose I never knew whether or not I actually got motion sickness.. so this time, why not go drug-free and give that a shot?

Well.. the good news is that I do not suffer from motion sickness.. and I was also really tired from the night before, so I was able to sleep much of the way. That said, the road was verrrry long and winding - everything in the region is mountainous, and while the scenery is beautiful, navigating these mountains by bus is simply not ideal smooth sailing perspective.. I think flying might have been a less bumpy idea.. but we already had two flights planned for Cambodia.. so bus ride, it is.

For the most part, everyone made it through this ride unscathed.. people felt ill, but everyone kept it down for the most part.. and the prize at the end was Vang Vieng, one of the most fun stops on the trip.

Day 2 in Luang Prabang: Feeding the monks + Riding Thum: The Renegade Runaway Elephant + Swing jumping into the Kuang Si Waterfalls

At 5:40am, our second day in Luang Prabang would be our second earliest start on the trip, as we needed to be up and out early enough to secure our spots to feed the local Buddhist monks. The procession of monks begins around 6:15-30am, and tons of people line up on mats to pray and give out the food they've brought - this will be the only food these monks will have for a week, or sometimes even a month.


It seemed like there were about 100 monks or so, and they basically walked by in a straight line, one by one, with their food baskets either open (they're still accepting food donations) or closed (no más, por favor).. in a funny way it reminded me of Halloween, except instead of candy they get foods for sustenance like sticky rice, which is what we giving out.


It actually took a little coordination to keep grabbing chunks of sticky rice quickly enough to pass a bit to all monks who walked by without missing one, since they walked somewhat briskly at times.. though they must be a big fan of sticky rice, as I noticed numerous times that they'd have their baskets closed but then re-open them for our group and our sticky rice. Strangely, there was what appeared to be a Jewish star on the inside of my sticky rice basket.. and I didn't see it on other baskets.. but I'm sure that was just coincidence. Hm.


The rules for us as donaters of food were that we had to stay seated (not allowed to stand) on our mats on the sidewalk until our sticky rice was gone, and we weren't allowed to look the monks in the eye when we handed them the food.. so mostly boilerplate monk stuff. Once we finished handing out our food, we were allowed to photograph the remainder of the procession. All in all, it was a really cool thing to be a part of.

The next activity for the day was quite possibly the one I was most excited for before the start of the trip - elephant riding!

We head out to the stomping grounds (yep) of some local elephants about a half hour from our hotel. I get paired up with Tiana, who is the only other American on the trip.. she's from Seattle actually, and at this point the Superbowl had yet to be played, so she's still fairly grounded and low key.. that is, until our elephant, Thum, took matters into his own.. hands? .. hooves? I'm not sure what's appropriate here.

Anyways.. we all start by standing on this high platform that's similar in height to the backs of the elephants, making it easier to jump on. Everyone else gets onto their elephants without a hitch, and they leave to start the tour.. so Tiana and I are last to leave the platform. Tiana (or Tiananmen, as my autocorrect seems to prefer) gets on while I'm grabbing my dSLR camera for our ride.. and then the real fun starts.


Each elephant and group of two of us has an elephant trainer/whisperer of sorts.. basically a guy who works there whose job is to manage the elephant and its behavior during the ride. In the very beginning, this person's job is to simply (or not) help everyone hop into the seat on the elephant's back, prior to getting themselves on near the head/neck to help direct the elephant on the tour.

While I'm grabbing my camera, our elephant whisperer is still on the platform, just after helping Tiana onto the seat on his back, about to help me hop on as well.. and then Thum shows us what he's made of. He's not about rules and conformity - he stomps (yup) to the beat of his own drummer.. he's a renegade.. he's defiant.. he's THUM.. and now he's left for the tour without me OR the elephant trainer. That's right, Thum has run away with Tiana. Now they're about 50 feet from the platform, and people are freaking out.. mostly Tiana, but the trainer was yelling at Thum from the platform, and that wasn't working. Even Tamara, our tour manager who was staying on the platform to watch our stuff, said she'd never seen this before and wasn't sure what to do.


To be fair, I would've been freaking out too. Thum had a pretty good pace going with no one to direct or control him. and he gave no indication that he wanted to turn back. All of the other trainers were riding and directing their elephants on a leisurely tour, and our trainer couldn't even get Thum to come back so we could start ours. Thum wanted to do his own tour, alone with Tiana, and he didn't feel as though the trainer or I needed to be a part of it.


Finally the trainer gets off of the platform with another guy and they start chasing Thum down. The scene was completely ridiculous.. a massive elephant is running away with a girl from our tour, and these guys (the trainers) are running after him on foot, yelling and screaming at him.. like that's going to make a difference.

After about ten minutes, the elephant whisperer does convince Thum to come back with the classic trick that never seems to fail on animals - offer up a treat (in this case, bananas). The tour for other people is about 15% over already, and we haven't even started yet.


When Thum pulls back into the platform, the trainer gets on immediately and the other guy helps me into the seat, which has a wooden bar that closes over you like on a roller coaster, with Tiana. Finally, we start our tour.. except now Thum is in a mood after having to turn around and come back.. so he doesn't want to move around too much. The trainer is yelling at him in a local dialect of Laos, and he's not responding. In fact, Thum's runaway was the fastest he would go for the entire tour.. for us, he moves extremely slowly and keeps going off the path to eat something or relieve himself. Whenever there's an easy way and a hard way to continue along the path.. Thum takes the hard way and then improvises to create a new, harder way. There were points when we'd go up a hill and have to hold on for dear life, because it seemed like Thum was going to fall backwards and we were going to get crushed.. but thankfully, he stayed upright for the duration of the ride.


Somehow we're able to meet up with the rest of the group after another 15 minutes, as they sat and relaxed in the river while waiting for us to catch up. Thum continued to make our tour as interesting as possible, until he finally relieved himself, which may have been on his mind from the start. Pretty amazingly, these elephants actually go the bathroom while they're still walking - now that takes coordination.


It was actually a lot of fun once we got moving.. and once Thum started acting like more of a team player, the whisperer actually hopped off let me take his spot near Thum's head for a really cool experience.. plus, he took a bunch of great photos of us. Luckily, I brought my Korean Bad Guy hat (sorry Ed! I did get you a hat from Laos though) and let Thum wear it for a photo opp, as it couldn't have been more appropriate for him. We trekked up and down the path, through a river, and back to the beginning.. and it was awesome.

At the completion of our tour, we reconvene at the platform and they give us an opportunity to buy mini bananas (they don't seem to have the larger yellow bananas we're accustomed to.. maybe they need a fresh direct gopher?) and bamboo-like branches to feed our elephants. Unsurprisingly, Thum ate everything in sight.. and feeding him was really cool. In the end, we had a blast.. and Thum will go down in history as the coolest elephant.. EVA.


After a great local lunch at the Lao Lao Garden (Padsapao!), our final leisurely excursion on the day (it was a long one) is at the Kuang Si Waterfalls. This one involves some hiking up a bunch of steps and other terrain, and there's a really nice waterfall is at the end. We're allowed to swim in it, despite the fact that the water is extremely cold.. plus there's a rope swing from a tree branch that overhangs maybe 15 feet above the water.. so swing, we did. The cold water is a huge shock to the system once you land.. and heaps (an Aussie favorite to describe a lot of something) of rocks and stones on the floor of the falls make it very difficult to get out. Regardless, this was also a lot of fun, and it wouldn't be the last we'd use a rope swing to have some good times in the water.

A light breakfast on the Mighty Mekong River + Bike Riding with a side of Snake Whiskey + A Luang Prabang Sunset on the mountain-top, Phousi Stupa + Utopia

The morning after our evening in Pakbeng was an early one, as we were back on the boat by 7am heading towards Luang Prabang, our next stop in Laos. There was some banter the night before during our game of Bull$hit that we would resume the game at 7am after we boarded the boat.. and we stayed true to our word. What a way to start the day.. beautiful scenery, a serene setting, a half bottle of Lion whiskey, and a whole lot of Bull$hit.


We were all fairly toasted by about 8am (sorted or pissed are also commonly used by the Aussies.. I prefer sorted because it seems ironic in reference to inebriation), but we were the life of the party and having a great time. It's a good thing we brought a bunch of snacks though, since we crushed a few packs of oreos, chips ahoy, and pringles by about 11 when the Lion whiskey finally ran out. At that point, the group decided to switch to Beerlao, a local favorite in Laos, as well as a favorite beer among our group on the trip. At that time, I decided to break away, take in some more beautiful views along the Mekong, and catch up on some blogging.. as keeping up has proved to be a bit difficult.


We arrived in Luang Prabang in the early afternoon and quickly headed out on the town for a bicycle tour. Being more of a runner, I hadn't ridden a bike in probably a decade or two, if I had to guess.. but I truly can't recall the last time I actually did.


They advised us to refrain from taking photos and video during the tour for safety reasons. However, given my high level of recent experience with cycling, especially whilst recording video/taking photos, I decided to face this challenge, head-on.. even after the shot of snake whiskey - but more on that in a moment.


Biking around a new town is really a great way to see it.. I took tons of great video and photos with my trusty rugged waterproof camera strapped to my wrist.. and I only came close to crashing about ten times. We stopped at a local temple which was quite nice, and passed through all of the main streets within the town itself. Luang Prabang is much larger than Pakbeng and its one street, but it's not quite an urban epicenter.. it's still a developing area, somewhere in the middle.. and it's where our local tour guide lives and works, so she was able to give us the inside scoop on certain things.


One of those things was to find a spot along the bike tour to stop for some snake whiskey. And no.. this is not a brand of whiskey.. this is local whiskey with an actual snake in it, and then that whiskey is transferred to a shot glass for you to drink. Just take a look at that photo - how legit does that guy look? .. exactly what I imagined a snake whiskey guy would look like. Getting past the mental block of drinking something that was just touching a snake was a little tough.. but once I got past that, it wasn't too bad. The shot was pretty harsh/strong. I'm not sure if that can be attributed to the alcohol content of the whiskey or whatever effects are produced by a live snake swimming in it.. but it wasn't half bad, and it warmed us up pretty nicely for our bike ride back to the hotel.


After getting back to the hotel, we had a few hours of free time before dinner, so we used them wisely. By this point on the trip, Frank has really started to show how good of a traveller he is in terms of finding good sights to see and places to eat during our free time. Sure, he mostly uses TripAdvisor.. but he still makes the effort and does the research, and the rest of us reap the benefits, which is great.


The idea this time was to hike up a bunch of steps on a mountain called Phousi Stupa to catch a beautiful sunset over Luang Prabang. There were definitely a lot of steps on the way, but it was completely worth it - the views of the city and the Mekong were magnificent from up there, and we arrived just minutes before the sunset.. right along with about a hundred other people - so apparently this is a popular thing to do. That said, it worked out very well, and we got some good exercise in the process.


To finish off the evening, we had dinner and drinks at a nice restaurant/bar called Utopia. The owner of the establishment purchased it less than a year ago and made huge renovations that turned it into a really cool setup.. and there's even a beach volleyball court tucked away in there, which is awesome. We had some traditional Laotian food including a dish called Laap, which is the most popular meal in their cuisine. It can be made with meat or fish and contains many herbs and spices including cilantro and mint, among others. We also tried something called river weed, which was very interesting.. and the best way I can describe it is seaweed jerky.. it's flaky and served in layers with sesame seeds on top. The story is that local farmers find all of this seaweed, hang it out to dry, dust it up with local herbs and spices, and sell it to restaurants like this one to be served with a number of dipping sauces. It was unique and tasty - I'm usually anti-seaweed (except on the inside of a sushi roll), but this wasn't fishy or anything, and it was nice and crunchy, laid out in sheets for dipping.

We also got to hang out with the owner, Rob, who hails from Canada and is trying to make his mark with the recent uptick in tourism to Laos over the last five years.. and it seems to be mostly working out - the place was absolutely packed by the end of the night, right until everyone got ushered out for curfew (in Luang Prabang it's 11:30 for some reason). Here, though.. there is more to do after curfew, just outside the province's borders.. but more on that in the next post.


The challenges he's running into are related to infrastructure and resources. In terms of infrastructure, it's still a province within a really poor Communist country.. the power goes out in the entire town at least a few times a night. The bigger issue though, is finding reliable help that can provide western-level service with some degree of consistency.

In most of southeast Asia, service at restaurants isn't very good.. they don't necessarily work for or expect gratuities, and attentiveness to customers is generally a low priorirty.. but Laos (and Cambodia, as we'd later learn) really lower the bar even more. It's difficult enough to find locals who can speak or learn to speak English. Those who can speak English tend to get higher level local jobs, as being a waiter for a very low wage is not too glorious when you can speak English well enough. Consequently, what you end up with is a high turnover rate consisting of incompetent help that can barely speak English.. and the high turnover rate ensures they don't have enough time to learn how to work in a restaurant or provide decent service.. so really a perfect storm. The saving grace in Laos is that the food tends to be really good.. so there is that.

On this night, we would get to bed at a reasonable hour, as we would have a 5:40am departure to feed the local Buddhist monks in the morning.