Laos part 2

outside our bungalow in tad lo

steve showing pictures

our bus to tad lo

my new pet... mr. water buffalo

mekong river

Monsoon season has began and our Laos visas have ended. However, we finished up Laos with the 4000 islands, Tad Lo and about 27 hours of bus travel.

Out of the 4000 islands on the Mekong river in southern Laos, we stayed on Don dhet. This island again had no electricity, our few hours of light and music at night were provided by generators. While occupying this island, we rented bikes to ride around the island and to other islands (there was a bridge, I am not Jesus.) While ridding around in 113 degree weather, we witnessed amazing rice fields, herds of water buffalo, children playing in the river, waterfalls, and a pet monkey take a baby chicken hostage. It was beautiful as well as entertaining. When we returned from an exhausting day of ridding, we headed to the little beach the island provided.

One afternoon, while laying on my blanket in the sand I happened to open my eyes to see a water buffalo coming right at my head, I scrambled to my feet and out of the way. I soon realized he wasn't coming for me, he was just heading for the water to cool himself off . It turned out, he came to our swimming spot everyday. I believe he preferred to cool off with the backpackers because he was spoiled by them. Everyone would sit by him in the water and splash water on him, keeping him nice and cool. Like every animal, I wanted to take him home.

The second day we rented bikes, we went to another island where we paid for a man to take us out on a boat to see the river dolphins. The river dolphins are an endangered species. From what I read there are less than a dozen of them left. I was excited to attempt to see these creatures, but doubtful that we were going to catch a glimpse of one. The odds are such as trying to find a needle in a hay stack. But, sure enough, this man new where they were. He brought us to a giant rock in the middle of the river, where we climbed out and sat, waiting, and watching for the dolphins. Although we were far away, we saw them, even heard them. It was such a treat to be able to see something so amazing and incredibly rare. Needless to say, I enjoyed myself.

After the 4000 islands, we headed to Pakse for a one night lay over, and then to Tad Lo, another little village on the river. It was quaint, quiet, and serene. When our rice/cement filled bus dropped us off, we had to walk about a mile up the road to the guesthouses. We passed up the road we were to turn down and hiked up a very large and unnecessary hill. Although the climb up that hill withl our packs on was completely out of our way and tiring, it was worth it because we saw an elephant. A wild elephant that just happen to come out of the jungle to eat whatever was on the side of the road. We were so into our own struggle up the hill that we almost didn't see the quiet 2 ton elephant standing right next to us. Steve and I both just laughed.

We eventually made it to our bungalow without being stampeded by the elephant and without any other type of injury. In the evening, Steve was sitting out on our porch with the computer doing some writing, when a little boy decided to come up and check it out. So, Steve showed him pictures of snow, and Wisconsin. He was in aw. The one boy soon turned into five. We had a little slide show going with the little boys cracking up, they taught us some words in Lao, and we taught them some words in English. It turned out to be a fabulous evening.

The next day we did some hiking to some waterfalls, I did my hiking in flip flops because I decided to throw my tennis shoes out, they hurt my feet. Believe it or not, I am much more graceful and more comfortable in my flip flops than any other type of shoe. When our path lead to a little open patch on the river we watched little naked Lao children jump from a tree into the river. They saw us across the river and put on a show by doing their fanciest jump moves. The mother in me came out when I saw a child no older than four years old climb to the tip top of this tree and jump in the river. All I could say was, "dear lord Mary Joseph." While watching these children, I immediately thought of "Darjilling Limited" when the brothers save the Indian boys in the river. I didn't want to act that scene out in real life. We watched a while longer, said "sabadee" (hello) fifty more times than continued on our hike, where Steve decided to play army, running in and out of trees, pretending to have a machine gun in his hands. I continued walking.

We left Tad Lao, Laos just in time for our visa to expire. We headed for Thailand and instead of taking a break, we decided to keep getting on bus after bus to ferry to taxi. A total of about 27 hours we traveled to get to the next island (off of the east coast of Thailand) that we wanted to explore. By the time we arrived, we were hot, sweaty, and exhausted, but relieved. We found ourselves a cute little bungalow on the beach, and here we are going to stay to soak up all the sun, sand, and ocean we can before we head back to the arctic circle, also known as, Wisconsin.

Vang Veing, Laos- home base

Jesus

rockets

Dark Cave we went swimming in

We ended our stay in Vang Veing (a place that became our home for over a week) with another 4 hours of tubing down the river, some hammock reading, and some more "Friends."
Our second tube ride down the river, we met a lovely couple from Georgia. We had a very nice time chit chatting and swimming with them. You can never go wrong with choosing to float down a river in the hot hot sun.
Hammock reading occupied most of my time for the rest of our stay in this town. I left Steve to his writing while I got lost in a juicy book about crazy suberban mothers and their affairs. While maxing a relaxing, I was able to watch a heard of the cutest cows try to cross the river, stare at the immense mountain that stood directly behind the river, and of course... swim in the river. Upon my two days of hanging out in a hammock by myself, i met a very intesting German gal/lady, not quite sure how old she was. Her "hipness" gave the idea of young, but her face... not so much. Disregarding her age and her height (she was so tall- her legs began at my neck), she was one of the most intersting people I have ever talked to. At that moment she was just on vacation in Laos, visiting a friend she had made while there 3 years earlier. From what I got, she has pretty much been every where in the world twice, except for the United States. She didn't live in Germany, she lived on an island off of Thailand. She had a Thai boyfriend who did bamboo tattooing for a living. I had a chance to meet him and watch him give a Lao man a tattoo on his bungalow bed. Connie, which is what her name was, and I sat in the river on a bed of rocks for about 3 hours talking about everything from yoga to the education system in Germany. She was a nomad who loved yoga, but not enough to give up her partying life style and become a true yogi. I admire her and her bravery for doing whatever the hell she wants. She was one of the few people you will meet in your lifetime who is truely happy and doesn't regret one desision they ever made.
Our last day in Vang Vein ended with us again going down to the river for a big "rocket party." For the Oak Creekians, this party was the equivalent to Lion's Fest. However, all day long they shot homemade rockets off into the mountains. It was fun to watch groups of friends that had gotten together to build a rocket for the occassion. It was almost like being on a co-ed baseball/volleyball team. The team would cheer and root for the success of their rocket, then get drunk off of Lao whiskey and beer, then dance and sing to music that everyone knew the words to.
After we realized that we had seen all the episodes of "friends" that the town had to offer, we decided it was time to leave. Not to mention the Ross and Chandler manurisms steve happened to pick up... we really had to go.
We made it to Vientane where we went to a museum, saw some sights, did a bit of bowling with our tubbing friends from Veng vein, and bought some books. Tonight... we head out for our next stop, Pakse.

Vang Veing, Laos

If you are fan of "Friends" or "Family Guy," Vang Vieng is the place for you. As I had previously mentioned, this town is known for their merry activity of tube floating and drinking simutaneously, but what I did not mention is that 50 percent of the restaurants/bars in this small town all consist of the exact same menu and tv's that play either "Friends" or "Family Guy." I thought I would be "Friends" out after being here for about a week, but I am not. I actually look forward to the one meal we eat a day (on accident... we forget to eat) Our meal quest is to search out the Friends Cafe that is not showing episodes we have seen already. Steve has told me that he feels as though they are now his friends, and somehow Chandler seems to pop into a lot of our conversations. Perhaps, we are a bit too involved in the show, but oh well.
Besides good ol tv, we haven't been doing much. We've been enjoying the river, the mountain, the sunshine. I don't know how else to explain this town, but lush. It has such a relaxed atmosphere that it is making it hard for us to leave. Steve's been doing a lot of writing and I've been doing a lot of Ang stuff, you know... sun bathing, talking to strangers, eating ice cream. It's what I do best.
While writing this blog I would just like to mention our "interesting" guesthouse, the babylon. we chose it because it was the only place with free wi fi. Steve is a good boy and looks for jobs, I go on facebook and play spider solitare. Anyway, the young man who owns it is Nic, yes... Nic without a "K." He is perhaps Brittish. He is an alcoholic. He lays in the common area passed out, all day. The common area is supposed to be a bar/restaurant, but I guess it's pretend. People, come in to hang out there, but they really don't have any beer or food, so no one hangs out there, not even guests. Nic's helper is a young lao man. Nic's helper once had to reposition Nic's passed out body in the common room. Nic's helper sometimes has another young man come visit him and give him massages. I am not quite sure what is going on, there is definately something though. We keep saying that we are going to leave this weird place... it is now going on day 5 or 6. Maybe tomorrow.

Laos part 1

Hmong Village

Plain of Jars
Bear rehab
waterfall

We have come a long way since chaing mai, Stephen and I have finally made it to Laos. However, we did not make it without experiencing an incredibly horrendous boat ride, fever, and car sickness.
Getting to the border of Laos, not so bad. Getting to Luang Prabang, so bad. In order to get to that magical town we had to take a boat for two days down the Mekong river, which does have the potential to be a beautiful adventure, but given the circumstances, the scenery is the last thing on your mind. Everyone, which is a very large sum of people, is shoved/crammed onto a boat that is no wider than 10 feet, where they are to find a seat on what looks like a church pew made for a smurf, two people to a bench. From there, you sit for the next 8 hours in 98.9 degree temperatures trying to stick your head out into the wind of the boat. And, yes... it was exactly 98.9 degrees, we took the temperature with our compass.
When we finally arrived to our overnight guesthouse, I took care of a delirious fever stricken Stephen. I had never seen him so sick. Needless to say, I didn't go to sleep. I stayed up to make sure he was warm, he had water, he had Tylenol. I really didn't think we were going to get back on the boat the next day, but he sucked it up and we go back on the boat built for smurfs the next morning. We made it through another 8 hours of hell, and when we got off of that boat, we splurged. We got ourselves a room with air conditioning, our own bathroom, and HBO. We stayed in this room for about 3 days, until Steve could be away from the bathroom for more than an hour. Some serious laying around was much needed.
There were a lot of tours to do in Luang Prabang, but we passed. We went to a waterfall to swim and went to a bear rehabilitation center one day, but that was it. We were ready to move on.
From Luang Prabang, we decided to do a 3 day tour, which would take us to see the plain of jars, a Hmong village, and drop us off in vang vieng, which is probably the most popular city in Laos, known for it's caves and river tubing.
When I signed up for this little tour, I did not realize that we would be going around some very swirly mountains. My equilibrium did not like these swirly mountains, I became quite car sick. I felt so sick that I actually told Steve that I would do the 2 day boat ride over again rather than drive through the mountains anymore. I was so happy when we blew a tire... the driving had no choice but to stop. When we got to a little town to fix the tire, I somehow found a pharmacy and motion sickness pills. Alleluia, praise Buddha! I slept/ passed out the rest of the way there, to the town of nothing.
In the town of nothing, there was nothing, and nothing made sense- go figure. After being in a car for about 8 hours, being sick, and not eating all day, we were quite hungry. We walked about a good 2 miles down the main road of the city to only find no where to eat. The "restaurants" that we did find, we were told, they weren't serving food at 5 o'clock in the evening. So... we headed back to our guesthouse to purchase cups o noodles and eat them in bed.
The next morning our driver took us to breakfast, which wasn't much better than the cup o noodles. From there, we went to see 3 different sites of the plain of jars. It's exactly what it sounds like. Giant rock jars dispersed through out the plains. There are different theories of why they are there, how they got there, what they were used for, but my favorite is, they were brought by giants from the mountains.
Ok...I'm going to finish up since, I now am not feeling to well. We finished our tour, we are now in Vang Veing- beautiful. Yesterday, we climbed through a dark cave and went swimming in it. We got monsooned on, a little Lao girl slapped Steve's butt, we watched about 4 hours of "friends" at a bar drinking fruit shakes while it rained. We are of course having a wonderful time.