Alright where did i leave off? Xmas eve was a blast and even though the town of Luang Prabang has a curfew at the ripe hour of 10 pm the men in blue let the bars stay open to twelve, it was a Christmas miracle. Christmas Day we said goodbye to two Norwegians that we had shared a very bumpy and vomit filled bus ride with three or four days earlier and ran into earlier that day and our friend Georgio. Villium and I got some rest did some xmas decorating. We also visited some temples including one Chumsy Hill (this hill is in desperate need of a new name, i was thinking something majestic like "Dragon Teeth Pagoda Point" i looked for a suggestion box but i learned that commies don't take suggestions, they make them). On this hill you can get a 360 degree look at the surroundings while sitting on a stupas's stairs. We climbed the (what felt like) five million stairs in hopes of some great sunset view but it appeared that we were not the only one's who had the same idea. As we jostled for a spot, jockeying for position i ran out of batteries in my camera... damn! So Villium, with the much better camera and a seemingly infinite power source (he won't reveal his source), did all the picture taking, which i have yet to obtain. We were lucky to run into some people who we had run into a few towns back who had in turn run into David, our dread-locked friend wasn't hard to miss and with the smell of patchouli in the air we smelled him out and spent xmas locked out of our respective hostels at 1 in the morning. It was a great day, for sure, we did our best far away from loved ones to capture the spirit of the day. The next morning we woke up early at 5:30am got dressed and headed down the stairs to see the Monk procession. Every morning some 400 Buddhist monks walk down the street and except alms. Everyone of them carries a bowl and they get rice and other food stuffs from the devoted. As we reached the front door of our guesthouse we found it locked by padlock! Locked in a red prison! we had done the impossible. We had woken up got our cloths on, found our cameras all without opening our eyes and now we were unable to leave! This must have been our punishment for knocking on the door for 15 minutes the night before begging to be let it. Back to sleep we went. When we did rise finally i went to the Vietnam Embassy to get a visa and i am not sure what the others two did with themselves. The night passed uneventfully as we planned our final day. We made sure to have the owner unlock the door for us early and made it to the Monk procession. It was amazing to see. Endless streams of orange colored Buddhists came out of no where to accept there allotted food for the day. We teamed up with a french family and a couple from Belgium, all of which we had seen in the 3 preceding towns. Its neat to see the same faces, sometimes, (i ran into a guy i waited for the bus with in the pouring rain, for 4 hours, in the Philippines back in November, just yesterday) i am, for the most part traveling the typical backpack route through Laos, so it makes some sense but sometimes its uncanny where people turn up. We went to the most amazing waterfall/ Asiatic bear rehabilitation and rescue park. Funny combo for sure. The waterfall was simply put, picturesque. The water was so incredibly blue that we all had to make sure the Lao government hadn't painted the pools with a blue floor by personally touching the bottom, no one seemed to take the others word for it. We skated out of town the next day having acquired my visa and using up everything Luang Prabang had to offer we were off to Vang Vieng. This little town is growing faster then it probably should be. Its really a backpacker town. From top to bottom this place caters to tourist but not the old wrinkly ones, not many are older than 35 here. The one thing that still baffles me about Vang Vieng is that almost every single bar here plays a constant loop of either "Friends" or "Family Guy". I have been here for 6 days and it just, wont, stop, season after season, one after the other ALL DAY. It blows my mind even now. A friends bar doesn't play "family Guy" and vise verse just one or the other. I know people here that have spent days, days mind you, recovering from their nights in a "Friends" bar. There is only one bar that i have seen with a different show playing (cartoon network) and it has always been empty.Vang Vieng is odd in the extreme but has a lot of things to offer. It has an infamous river and a thriving industry to go along with it. Tubing the river is the main draw of this this non stop party hub. You get a tube from the affectionately named "tube mafia" and get dropped off up river to spend as much time as you want making the float down back to town. If you were to just stay in your tube, you could make it back in two hours. No one does however as there are a dozen plus bamboo bars on either side of the river, fighting over your Kip with "Free shots! Free Food! Free Buckets" (a lot of bars serve booze in small buckets, giving you four straws to share, or make it four times as efficient to drink by yourself, i have seen the latter more often). Each of these bars is employing a few wranglers who throw a line to your tube from the banks, grab it and you are pulled to the safety of a bar that will sell you anything, yes anything, they will also let you judge, for yourself, your particular level of altered state by encouraging you to cling to ziplines, slide on slides, use swings, somersault off high jumps and and see how far you can get launched into the river with that inflatable bag thing that no one seems to know the name of. As with most things in Laos, i am not sure how much oversight the government takes in the way of public safety. I can see this scene playing out in the states, take away all the booze and paraphernalia and add an army of life guards and paramedics whistling over every slight infraction of the rules. There are NO rules here, seemingly so anyway. Bars are more like those found in Amsterdam then those of back home where you can only buy two beers at a time and the other person who you are buying if for has to come show his ID before the smug bar girl will let you get your mitts on the second one. here its "how many can you carry? that many? ok, well take a free beer bong before you go to get your strength up" Accidents do happen here, that is for certain. People can be seen limping, spray painted head to toe (another river past time), all over town. I was witness to one accident myself on the bag jump, if you have seen jackass you know what i am talking about but if you haven't, one person jumps on to a large and under inflated floating raft, he positions himself in just a way that when two, the larger the two the longer the flight time, jump from a tree top platform, launching the solo tuber into the stratosphere in all sorts of odd twisted body contusions. A jumper was knocked in the eye with an elbow splitting it open. I expected the bar to be prepared but was only given some toilet paper and some LaoLao (Lao whiskey) to disinfect it. It didn't keep him down and i saw him later that night at the bar, dancing unaffected by his new "Vang Vieng tatoo" as they are accidents involving stitched are called. The day went by fast, it was new years eve, and i had tried my hand at everything they would let me climb, jump, get thrown from and/ or coast on. I did not bring a camera but others did and there are some pretty amazing pics to come, i can assure you. I made it back in one piece and we all, the 6 of us who had floated together went back to get some rest before the countdown. I woke and tried to get the blue and green stars off my nipples that my "friends" had made me get but my hair wasn't letting go so easily. I still have blue paint on one, 3 days later. The town has guest house's overlooking massive limestone mountains and i was lucky enough to get a room with a view of the sunset for the first two night, i have since down graded to the basement wahh wahh. My room looks out over the river and "party island" where bars simply don't close, ever. "Bucket bar, Smile bar, reggae bar etc." i have been a one/ every night client of them all. Hammocks are a staple as well as no shoes and tables under thatched roofs without chairs, just pads and pillows, lounge fitted in the extreme. Of course the reason i have stayed here so long is because i am encouraged to display my hairy feet everywhere i go :). I have also spent my days going to caves ( huge huge huge caves), lagoons and i spent several hours on top a mountain with the most amazing views and a near vertical accent. We rented mountain bikes and ate curry. Dined on cheap fruit shakes and marveled at the sunset then the stars and then the sunrise. But i have overstayed here, like most places, i find myself indecisive about where to head to next and the departure of nearly everyone in town that i know, most recently my two good friends this morning has pushed the issue. I will be making my way to Vietnam's largest northern city, Hanoi, how and how long it will take me i have not figured out yet. A bus from here takes about 26 hours straight, that's without delays. The minivan that brought me here broke down and with a little pushing and a lot of praying i finally got here two hours later than intended and that was only a proposed six hour journey. I was affraid the other passengers where going to blame it on the bamboo pole i had made the driver attach to the roof but they didn't say a word. Anything can happen when the roads look like they would be better suited for offroading rather then transport. I might make one more stop in Laos, in Phonsavan possibly, where hundreds of large clay jars have been found in fields, there origin and purpose has never been discovered. Well that ought to fill you on me, whats going on with you? Send me an email sometime let me know what you did for xmas and new years, there are bound to be some good stories out there.
Grilled Chicken Feet on a stick! Hmong new year celebration Luang Prabang Laos
The view from my balcony, before the down grade, Vang Vieng Laos
Climbing to get a better view, I was late coming down and traded the use of my ipod to a local on a motorbike for a ride back to town. Nothing like riding on the back of a moped with a guy in military fatigues using your ipod while flooring it through the jungle. Vang Vieng
In the biggest of caves the sun shines directly on a reclining Buddha, what a sight
for scale, i took this pic while inside the cave, you can see people just barely to the left of the shrine. This was the entrance cavern and the only one with any day light the other pockets where just as big and eerily dark, silent and amazing
Sunset in Veng Vieng, it was a good 6 days. I wont be writing on my blog till i reach Hanoi. Wish me luck will ya? Love and miss you all. I am still in one piece. Jake
Looks awesome!
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