Still in Laos

Hey folks,
I'm still in Laos. Phil and I headed down to a little backpacker's haven called Vang Vieng. But first off, a few more stories and thoughts from Luang Prabang.

I really did enjoy my stay in Luang Prabang, it's such a peaceful little town. I didn't do much during the rest of my days there. I just walked around and checked out a lot of Wats. There's a lot of wats in LP, and apparently over 500 monks. THey're really friendly as each time I went by, they would wave me to come over for a chat.

I got to hear a lot of interesting stories. Some of the monks are there by their own choice. Some are there because their families can't afford to send them to school so at the wat they can get a free education. Some of them have big dreams of going onto university and/or leaving Laos. One guy is VERY DESPERATE to get married. He says that he has extreme difficulty following the "no touching girls" rules. Guys are guys, eh? - no matter the culture. There's a lot of poverty in Laos. You really don't see much of it though. I didn't really see it, but I sort of knew it was there from what the monks were sharing with me. So that was a neat experience.

The next day, I also went to a very beautiful waterfall (Kuang Si falls). I got to swim in the run off a bit downstream. So overall, a great stay in LP.

Now we're in Vang Vieng. Like I said, it's a backpacker's town. It's totally catered to foreigners. You can tube down the Nam Song river. It's absolutely gorgeous. The river is lined w/ limestone mountains on one side. And as you tube down the river, there are lots of stops - little bars-meet-waterparks line the river where you stop in for Beerlao (big long neck bottles for only $1 USD). There are swings and all sorts of jumps into the river. There's crazy techno music blaring. So it takes a few hours to drift down the river in the tube as you stop in at the various "bars." It was a pretty sweet time yesterday and by the end of it - you're prettty smashed....

I also walked around yesterday in the morning to explore the countryside a bit. I decided that it'd be a death wish to explore a cave by myself so I passed on that. I decided to take what I thought was a shortcut back to the hostel. Needless to say, I got scraped up pretty bad trekking around in rice fields. at the very end, I thought this big bull was gonna charge me but I kept my distance.

Anywho.... Laos is great. I like it better than Thailand just b/c it's so laid back and not as busy as Thailand. It's cool how Laos totally caters to the tourists but it also takes away from the authenticity. Amidst all the partying and drinking, you can sometimes forget what country you're actually in. The locals just become service people to you. I dunno - it's hard to find that balance... between being a traveler and a tourist. So I'm off to Vietnam tomorrow night.

I think I'll go tubing again today.........................