A Long Day in Luang Prabang

A 78km Bike Ride
Steffen and I woke up at 4:40 and were out of the hotel by 5:00 sharp. We got into town around 5:25 and it was cold. We waited for the monks to come on their 'route', in which they walk by the 'hundreds' and the locals and tourists give them food. I did not give them any food because I think one should work for a their living. We walked down the morning market afterwords, where they had streets and streets of foods and live animals, some pretty freakish ones too. We went back to the hotel for a brief nap and we decided to go on a bike trip. We rented bikes for 20,000 kip (about $2.3 USD) for the day, which was more than the typical $1 USD. We were on the road by 10:45. We were going to the Kuang Si Falls, which our map states about 39 km away (~25 miles). The bikes were shitty since they only had one gear and the curly-type handlebars which are hard to handle. The journey was through the mountain, but we only had to stay on one road the entire time. The roads were SO HILLY it was the toughest workout I have had in a long time. We finally arrived a little over 2 hours later. The waterfall was wonderful and huge. There were some smaller falls that we were able to swim in, in which we did and the water was very cold. We Walked through a bear rescue sanctuary and enjoyed some refreshments.

On our way back my bike started to crap out on me. The axle where the pedals rotated was becoming more and more sloppy. It was getting so bad that I wasn't able to pedal uphill anymore without the pedal working properly. I would have to run along with the bike uphill, which was much more exhausting than one would imagine. I kept this up and after about 19km the bike chain came off the sprocket. Since there was only one gear there was no derailleur which meant the gear had so extra slack. I would need some tools in order to fix this already crappy bike. Steffen and I discussed our options and not 5 minutes later a pair of motorbikes came to our rescue. There were 3 boys and 1 girl, all from Denmark. I had told them that I needed some tools and that all motorbikes should have a built in kit (good thing I know this because they had no idea). I was able to relocate the rear sprocket and fit the chain back in place. This was amazing since those tools they give you for motorbikes are completely lame. I manage to go another 3 or 4 km before the same thing happens. I consider leaving that damn bike there and just jogging alongside Steffen, but that would be 15+ km (~10 miles) and that is just too much. Luckily I am able to flag down a tuk-tuk driver that is taking 4 people back from the waterfalls. You see EVERYBODY takes a van or hired tuk-tuk to and from the waterfalls. Maybe a couple people a week try to bike it, we were the couple this week. The driver loads my bike on top and talked me into town while Steffen rides back using his functioning bike. I discover the 4 people in the tuk-tuk are from London and 2 of the guys are traveling for a year while the other 2 (one guy and one girl) are traveling for only 2 weeks. The 2 guys had just spend 7 weeks in India and they were telling me about it and I got some good pointers. We also discussed how although we all 'enjoyed' Vietnam, that we were MORE than happy to be out of that disgusting place those dirty communists claim to be a 'country'. I get dropped off in the middle of town with my broken bike and the other claim I don't have to pay because they already paid the driver for a trip to and from the waterfall. However I tip the driver 8,000 kip. We stares at me insulted. He says I want more and in my mind I'm thinking of course you do. He says I need to pay him at least 10,000 and I say nope, don't have it, thanks for the ride. Even though I had more money I wont pay him more than that, I mean he only had to stop for 2 minutes and take me to the same place he took them. I then had to walk 25 minutes back to the bike place, drop off the bike and walk across the street to my hotel. I discovered that Steffen arrived only 3 minutes before me, since walking through town game him ample time to catch up. Also I was able to talk my way out of giving the biker rental guy a $20 USD deposit for each bike, which was a damn good thing.

I think tomorrow I will hike up the mountain and see the museum.

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Crazy Night in Vang Vieng, and Rough Morning After...

Full Moon Party In Vang Vieng
After tubing we went out to eat at a local restaurant. I am beginning to miss the American way of dining. Well I shouldn't say American, I should say "not Indochina way of dining". There we are, all 7 of us, sitting down and waiting for our orders to be taken. The waitress comes by and takes our drinks. This takes 10 minutes since there is some confusion on what diet coke it. You see, here Coca cola labels their diet sodas, "Coke Lite". She mixes up orders and gets confused with bottles and cans. Next she takes Shelly's order then disappears. We have to wait 5 minutes for her to come back and take Michael's. Then she leaves again. When she returns A.J. talks to her and explains that she should take all of our orders together. AJ was born in norther Thailand, Chang Mai, and the dialect is similar to Laos. This is a huge help to us. She takes Kati's and Anth's order, but then leaves again. Another 10 minutes and we have to call to her. Then she takes Steffen's order and finally mine. I order fried pork with sticky rice and a side of BBQ vegetables. It was very tasty, though for the price of 30,000 kip the plate was not too big. My total meal was 46,000 kip, which was much more than the others, but still only around 5 dollars.

After dinner we head down to the bars. There were at least 15 bars all lit up with lights. The juxtapositions of decorative lights and blaring music with the poverty stricken locals and their shacks without the luxury of indoor plumbing was incredible and quite surreal. We went to a bar called The Smile Bar and it was packed with westerners dancing and drinking--It was the Full Moon Party. The dancing was actual dancing, not what you seen in all the damn American clubs, which resembles some type of pathetic in-tempo humping. I came up with the brilliant idea of splitting a bucket between AJ, Steffen, and myself. The bucket was Lao rice whiskey, some sodas, red bull, and lime. It was only 30,000 kip and around 35-50 oz. I was to buy the first one, then Steffen the second, and AJ the third, that is, if we were still conscience for a third bucket. The bucket came and I complained that there was not enough whiskey in it. Mind you, I complained before even tasting the drink, I just wanted as much alcohol as possible. They poured a good 4 or 5 more shots into the bucket. We drank it down and when Steffen got the second both he and AJ requested I go to 'swindle' them into providing more alcohol. It worked with great success. The third bucket was up to AJ and this time I really worked the bartender over. The bucket was likely 1/3 whiskey. It was too strong to drink so we ended up drinking about a liter and a half of beers. At this time we were somehow able to drink the rest of the bucket...BIG MISTAKE. We met an Australian named Angus (like the beef), but he just went by Gus. We chatted it up for a while then I met Dale from Dayton. He was the first black person that I saw in the last month, and he was from Ohio. We were moving onwards to the bar next door when we met a friend of AJ's, or at least I think he was his friend. He was very funny and incredibly gay. I asked him which of us three (Steffen, AJ, and myself) he found most attractive jokingly. He then gave me a very dirty response...'nough said! At the next bar two of the bartenders were white and from Canada and maybe one was from the US? The Canadian's name was Scott and we talked how unlike the popular song suggests, Scotty does know. We talked and they agreed to give us some free shots. If I were in the states I would have paid AT LEAST 50 dollars for all the drinks had, but I paid no more than $4 USD. They are very happy to give their alcohol away here, and we are all very happy to accept it. Steffen and I make sure AJ gets back safely and then we go out again to check out the local disco. We wander and run into some locals playing a game of boccie ball. They were very good, but they used metal balls and I wasn't sure how they were able to tell them apart for scoring purposes? We discover that the local clubs are closed and we are tired anyways. We get back to our bungalow a little after 2, which is quite the night since we started out for dinner at 7:15. I get back and lay in bed but feel pretty sick and there was no way I was going to get to bed. I drink a lot of water quickly in hopes of upsetting my stomach, and surprisingly it worked. I was able to 'eliminate the toxins' as one would day from the middle ages. I wasn't up to prime, but I felt good enough to get to sleep.

I woke up the next day, barely. I was very hungover and I had less than 10 minutes to get washed up, pack my suitcase and my day bag. I took some Advil because I knew what was coming...A 7 hour van ride through the mountains. This was such a brutal experience. Even the other, that were feeling fine, almost puked. I was able to make it through the bus ride without loosing any fluids (A+ for me). I cannot even begin to explain how bad this ride was. There must have been no stretch of road that had more than 500ft of straight pavement. Not to mention the van was painfully uncomfortable just to sit in.

Luang Prabang
We arrived in Luang Prabang around 14:00 and it was hot. We took a 25 minute walk into the city and scoped out the 'placed to go'. I then had a riverside lunch with Anth and Kati, the Finnish couple. It was very nice being along the Mekong River. I ate a salad, which had eggs, cucumber, mint, and it tasted very American. I only hope the lettuce was clean enough to eat? I know that when I am in India I won't be able to eat like I do here. My large salad and ice milk with sweet milk cost me about $2.50 USD. Tomorrow I am planning on waking up very early and getting into town around 5:30 to see the Monks beg for food. There are hundreds and hundreds of them that come. This is the same area that has a morning market, as well as a night market. There is a mountain I am going to climb called Phusy Mountain (pronounced Pu-say), and across the street is a Museum. The day after tomorrow I may do a day tour. They have kayaking, hillside trekking, elephant riding, biking, waterfalls, elephant bathing, etc. I think I'll go for the biking, kayaking, and waterfall trip. It's about $40 USD, which is kinda pricey, but it's a nice way to spend the day since we do have 3 nights in this city.

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Hanoi to Lao

Hanoi
I spend my second day in Hanoi first by going to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, but it was not open on Sunday. We did however get into the Ho Chi Minh museum, but it was mainly communist propaganda. Afterward we went to the 3 story market, which was insane. You can buy anything and everything you can imagine. Outside the indoor market there were streets packed with food, cloth, and electronic vendors. On the way back to our hotel Kim, Lyn, Carrie, and I picked up our laundry, which only cost 15,000 Dong per kilo, about $.35/lb of dry laundry. This was the first time I did my laundry (no washings before 20 days, not bad huh?). We dropped our stuff off and went to KFC for some lunch. Then onwards to the water puppet show, something Hanoi, Vietnam is known for. It was interesting, but I got bored. I had no idea what the hell the story line was. On the way back to our hotel, after the show, Haereshem and I got some Bao. That night we went out to eat and I got a side of kimchi. It was the best I've ever had, very flavorful and very spicy. After dinner we said our goodbyes for those that are not going to Lao. Some of us went to a night club but it was something else. I mean, 5 security guards in uniform greeted us inside the front doors and checked our bags. When the doors of the club opened we were almost deafened. It was SO loud. We found out that drinks were around 70,000 Dong, which totally a rip off, so we left. We noticed 4 more security guards scattered outside and around the front door, scoping the area. There were also several Mercedes, and other nice cars parked along the road. Mind you, this is a country where someone is rich if they own a 1985 ford. This place was definitely mob run.

Getting into Lao
The next morning, we were on the road at 5:30, which meant we had to wake up and pack our bags much earlier than that. I got in the van, now 6 of us, the Finnish couple, the Aussie couple, my German roommate Steffen, and myself. They are all 26 to 29 years old. I went to sleep for about 1.5 hours, at which point I could no longer sleep. The hotel had packed our breakfast for us, since breakfast was included in our stay, but we left to early to eat it. They packed us 4 slices of break, jam, butter, orange soda, and 2 bananas. The others told me that the break was moldy so I only had the bananas. Before we got to the Vietnam/Lao border the roads got VERY curvy and bumpy. We were riding along the edge and scaling several mountains. There were signs ALL OVER the place warning us of loose rocks, rock slides, weak bridges, uneven pavement, etc. These roads went on for hours and hours. We must have averaged 15km/hr. We checked out of Vietnam fine and now we were in no man's land. We had to drive to the Lao border, which was only half a km or so away. We had to pay a 2 dollar bribe and my visa was $35 USD. This fee was dependent on our nationality. We all were happy to be out of the ugly, rude, dirty Vietnam and into Lao. Lao was very different than Cambodia and Vietnam. Even though Lao is more poor than Cambodia, it isn't too apparent. True they live in wooden houses I could construct within a week, but there isn't the extreme poverty we saw in Cambodia. This is because Cambodia is missing an entire generation of people from the Killings in the 1970s.

Pak Xan
We arrived in Pak Xan around 8:30 at night, after having left Hanoi at 5:30 in the morning (talking about a long day of traveling). This city is tiny, which our hotel was the only hotel in the city. There is only one street (highway 13) that we will be taking during our stay in Lao. I went for a run in the early morning around 6:30 and then we had some breakfast. The hotel had a caged bear which we fed and pet. We had another 4 hour or so bus ride to get to the capital city of Vientiane.

Vientiane
This city was very quiet. It's the sleepiest capital city in the world is seems. We walked around and visited some pagodas. Steffen and I went into a shopping mall and could not believe what we saw. There were bootleg bags, watches, and clothing all over. Food kiosks selling all types of unusual foods and beers (at least unusual to me). We walked into one warehouse-like room where they had at least 20 kiosks of high-tech phones. MUCH more high tech than back in the states. Outside the mall there was a market. We say some locals melting down scrap metal and making jewelery. We wandered into another market where all they sold was electronic stuff. From cameras, to cell phones, to video games. You name it. They had more merchandise than all the products in a given Costco, UNBELIEVABLE. They had the same quantity of clothing and bags and shoes upstairs. Likewise with gold and silver jewelery. There were more people in the mall and these markets than in the entire city. On the way out I bought myself a black t-shirt of the Lao alphabet for about $1.50. On the way back to our hotel I met a couple from the US. Steffen and I got to talking with them and we decided to get a beer riverside. Mind you, the Mekong River was pretty dried up where we went to get the drink. We talked for a couple hours and had drank a little shy of one and a half liters of beer (which is quite a lot of beer in the hot sun). They are married and have been traveling for about a year. They have been all around south east Asia and eastern Europe. We talked about the cultural differences and how we all hated the Vietnamese people.

Vang Vieng

After another 3+ hour bus ride we arrived at a nice backpacker's city called Vang Vieng. We checked into our Bungalows and all went tubing down the Nam Song river. It is crazy, like a spring break of South East Asia. There had to have been 8 bars, that all had water slides and zip lines that through your out at least 15 feet above the water. We had to sign a waver with our tour guide and with the tubing company becuase many people have died using the zip lines. The bars were filled with western backpackers and free shots for all that stopped at their bars. People would through lines at your on your inner tube and we would grab on and they would drag us to their bar. They all served Beelao, a pretty nice lager, but we got a 'special' menu at one of the bars. They had Magic Mushroom Shakes, Weed Shakes, and, Weed Brownies for 50,000 kip. They also had Opium Tea for 250,000 kip. There are about 8,500 kip to $1 USD. The tubing trip took some time and I got off a little earlier and walked with my tube for about 3 km to see the town. Much of the town is filled with only locals. I get stares from the children like Jesus or something. They also say hi, or hello, in their broken English. It's very cute. When I within half a km to our hotel I saw the touristy area. There were Internet cafes everywhere, and ATMs, and book exchanges. There were tour booths, food stalls, and more white people than I've seen in the last 3 weeks. All the bars here have reruns of Friends playing on them, I'm not sure why, but they are just known for it. Tonight is a full moon and there is a huge Full Moon party that we're going to attend. Tomorrow we head for Luang Prabang, where we will be staying 3 nights. It will be nice to be somewhere for that long. We've stayed in 14 hotels in the last 3 weeks and it's becoming a pain in the ass to unpack and repack the same stuff over and over again.

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