339: OH MY BUDDHA

At the Buddha Park in Vientane.

I walked up some very narrow stairs.

338: OUTDOOR CLIMB

I went outdoor climbing in Vang Vieng! But first we had a very long walk to get to the mountains...

The best part of my day was when Jen didn't want to climb the overhang and decided to try to climb a tree instead. This is my favorite picture ever.

337: VANG VIENG

We had a winding and bumpy 8 hour drive through the mountains to Vang Vieng. The scenery in that part of the country is gorgeous, but the town itself was a bit of a hole. It was full of drunken and/or stoned tourists who were there to do the infamous tubing down the river. The tubing is actually quite dangerous because of all the bars along the river, and having intoxicated people in the river leads to a lot of injuries and even deaths. When we arrived, my tour guide warned us of all the drinking, drugs, deaths, and rapes that occur here, and the impression of the town that I got from him did not get better as I walked around and saw that it was full of tourists and that there were barely any Laotians.

My tour guide said, "At night time you will see a funny thing. You will see lots of naked people coming back from tubing!" And sure enough, there were tons of scantily dressed foreigners - some covered in mud, some with no shoes, some with writing on their bodies, all of them wasted - coming back from the river. It made for some good people watching during dinner!

This town is a bit different from all the others I had been to, where conventional clothing (covered shoulders and knees) is recommended. There are way too many swimsuit-clad tourists here for the locals to really care. In fact, Vang Vieng had a bit of a surreal quality to it. Instead of the constant smiles and 'sabai dees' I had become accustomed to, all I got in Vang Vieng were blank stares from the locals and an invitation to join a circle of happy, stoned people. Everything was catered to Westerners - all the restaurants were full of tv's showing old episodes of Friends and Family Guy.

I felt that despite the beauty surrounding Vang Vieng, it was missing something that the other parts of Laos had - it seemed too hedonistic, as if it had lost its soul.

336: CAVES AND SUNSETS

The Pak Ou Caves are packed with thousands of little Buddha statues. Too bad it was so far away - it was a 2 hour boat ride from Luang Prabang.

This Buddha has a red nose

At the end of the day, I climbed up Mount Phu Si to watch the sunset over Luang Prabang.

335: WATERFALLS

Kuang Si Falls.

The question is, why was I wearing pants in this picture?! It was hot, I hate pants, and it wasn't even a wat (temple) day!

334: ISLAND LIFE

Life in Don Daeng: Watching the locals work the rice fields, trying not to scare the water buffalo, hanging out on the beach, eating grilled bananas, having kids (and parents, and grandparents) wave and shout "sabai dee!" (hello) from the window as I walked past their houses. 

Walking the water buffalo

It was HOT...I don't know how they could wear sweaters

Landing in Luang Prabang

Our flight to  Luang Prabang left 45 minutes ahead of schedule, which I hear happens often for the last flight of the day because the Lao crew members like to go home early!

333: HOMESTAY

Driving my tractor-cart into the sunset

The island of Don Daeng was where I really felt like I had to rough it.

We started off with the funniest ferry ride I have ever taken. Basically the ferry was made of a platform attached to two fishing boats, and with 6 plastic chairs on top for the people to sit on. The chairs weren't even attached to the boat!

Cute little children followed us as we walked around the village. They would pick some flowers, run over to me and give me the flowers and smile, then run back to the gardens to pick even more flowers! I had a mini bouquet of flowers after a few minutes.

I loved the little boy holding his carrot!

Instead of a hotel, we had a homestay for the night with a local family. This meant very rustic accommodations - no aircon, no running water, squat toilet in the outhouse, etc. We had spent the early afternoon climbing the ruins of Wat Phu, and combine that with 40 degree weather well into the night with no shower (due to lack of running water) - imagine how dirty, sweaty, and sticky I felt!

We had an amazing home cooked dinner, some of the best food I had on my trip (but I suspect it was flavored with MSG). That night, as I crawled underneath the mosquito net into bed, I was surprised by a never ending supply of BUGS all over the mattress!

Our mattress and mosquito net

Jen and I spent about half an hour killing the bugs, with Jen spraying each bug with DEET and me squishing the bugs using toilet paper. I think we were keeping our roommate awake due to our squealing, because after awhile, she said, "If I were you, I would roll up those blankets into sausages and put them on the foot of the bed, since that's where the bugs are coming from. Then you should sleep." We took her advice and rolled up our blankets into sausages, but it wasn't very much help.  There were still more and more bugs coming in. I just ended up using the blankets to squish even more bugs. We eventually had to give up because we were never going to kill every single bug on our bed.  I had a hard time falling asleep because I kept imagining the bugs crawling all over my body.

I woke up in the middle of the night and it was freezing. My first thought was that I should use the blankets that the homestay family had provided for us, but then I remembered all the squished bugs that were now attached to the blanket. Then I thought I could grab a sweater from my backpack, but then I remembered the giant spiders and grasshoppers that I had seen in the room before going to bed and were now lurking in the dark. I turned on the flashlight and found a squished bug on my hand and I tried to scratch it off, but I couldn't get it off my hand. I scratched and scratched, but there was no way I could get it off. I gave up, grabbed a thin long sleeved shirt from my tote bag (which was thankfully under the mosquito net) and fell back into my Gravol-induced sleep.

I suppose I am not made for living in the outdoors. I woke up with little ant (?) bites all over my legs, but it's better than the surprise that one of the other girls got in the middle of the night. She woke up to a cockroach crawling up her pants!

Would I go back to Don Daeng? Yes...if I could stay in the hotel down the street from my homestay!

332: WELCOME TO KHONG ISLAND

I LOVED LOVED LOVED Laos. Let's just say that the trick for me to love a place is to have low expectations. I didn't think much of Sicily before I went there last year, and I ended up loving it. The same goes for the country of Laos.  Before I left, I was incredibly excited for Cambodia and felt neutral about going to Laos, but now that I am back home I would say that I would definitely want to go back if I had the opportunity to do so.

The moment we crossed the border from Cambodia to Laos, it felt like we were in a richer country because of the better roads and toilets. I had always assumed that Laos was poorer than Cambodia, but it is actually the opposite. The Lao locals seem better off than their Cambodian counterparts, and I think it could be because it is a Communist country.

The south of Laos is known to be one of the most laid-back places in the world, and we spent the afternoon cycling around Don Khong, one of the 4000 islands in the area. Our $1 bikes were heavy, and the breaks didn't work, but it was such a joy to bike around the countryside and watch people work on the fields. Satellite dishes are the thing to have in this country - everyone, even those living in little wooden shacks, has one!

We had drinks at a restaurant as we watched the sun set over the Mekong River. My drink of choice? Oishi green tea! I drank that green tea almost every day of my trip.

We left before the sun dipped below the horizon, but we underestimated the time it would take to go back to our guesthouse. As we rode back, it started getting harder and harder to see all the potholes on the road - there were no lights on the street!

What was even worse though, was that we started getting bombarded by bugs. They splattered against our bodies as we rode our bicycles -  I ended up getting them in my eyes, my nose, my ears, my mouth, and all over my skin. The bug in my eye was the worst. I could feel it in there for the longest time before it eventually got absorbed into my body...

By the time I got back to my room, I was covered in bug juice. I even had bugs down my shirt!