It's my last day here in Vang Vieng, heading south to the most boring capital cities ever apparently, Vientiane. Wikipedia tells me that it is home to one if three bowling alleys in Laos, the others are Luang Prabang (been there, done that) and Pakse (next stop). Soon I can say I have been to every bowling alley in Laos. I love culture.
Vang Vieng was fun and short lived. Day one involved hiring mopeds (semi-automatic) and driving off the beaten track to the blue lagoon, a waterfall and a cave. The latter was pretty impressive if not a bit scary. With only my iPhone as a light source, we were pretty limited with how much exploring we could do inside so we wimped out and left. Apparently there are vast chasms with skulls painted on deep inside the cave into which you could throw down a stone and never hear it land. Pretty glad we wimped out when we did. Don't fancy being memorialised by another painted skull of a curious backpacker.
On the next day we went tubing down the Mekong. Once a scene of many riverside bars blasting music and throwing out Beer Lao to passing tubers, the tubing experience is now much tamer due to the many previous deaths of idiots getting wrecked on mushroom shakes and jumping from trees into shallow water. Obviously a brilliant idea.... Though the party scene is quiet, nye on dormant, it was still pretty awesome relaxing on the river, passing amazing mountain scales and limestone cliffs.
While on the subject of these infamous shakes, 3 days before arriving at our hostel, a guy drank one and ended up believing he was the hulk and decided to jump from a second story hostel balcony, and then jumping from the third. He shattered most of the bones in his body and punctured his lung. Still believing he was Bruce Banner, he then began to fight a group of guys who ran to his aid. Mental! I know this because by chance I met his friend while rock climbing yesterday. Insane.
Went climbing on the above mentioned limestone cliffs all day yesterday, it was awesome. Compared with the super safe and professional CMRCA in Chiang Mai, these couple of Lao 'guides' took a more relaxed approach to safety. I chalked up and put my shoes on and said 'Climbing', waiting for my belayer to respond with 'climb on' and when he did I then began to scale the cliff without realising that I hadn't even tied myself in! I had a rough night the night before so my brain wasn't working at full capacity, but still! The guide merely chuckled and said 'oh yeah, you'll probably need that'....you think?! It was a pretty wicked day of climbing 6b's and 6a+ which was rewarded by a swim in the river.
I'm now waiting for our bus to take us southbound to boringville, no doubt another journey of hairline passes on blind corners and screeching tyres. Until next time chums when I'm a pro Laos bowler!
Much love
Oh yeah, the last picture here is of me and a fat wad of cash. Our hostel owner just drove up on a moped, barefoot and in his PJs with a bag saying 'want to see something cool?' and produced these bricks of dolla. It looks a lot but is actually 50 USD but in Laos Kip. I think the money shot compliments the loud shirt and ray bans I'm currently wearing. Looks like I've walked out of Vice City, or Cocktail or something similarly horrendously retro. Im a cool what can I say?
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