Tour Of Laos, Day 4

Pui and I had breakfast at a nearby café. Justin wanted to join us, but his girlfriend Raht wanted to eat Thai food and dragged him off in search of vegetables in battery acid. After that, we dropped off our rented motorcycles and checked out of the hotel.

Rick hired a van that picked us up in front of the hotel and we all piled in (including Caroline — the first time we had seen her since arriving in Vientienne) and rode 3½ hours north to Vang Vieng, which is a measley little place that caters almost exclusively to backpackers. Bars, internet cafés, low-end restaurants, guest houses, and souvenir shops that seemed to specialize in camping materiel represented the bulk of commercial endeavor in this town. However, the town is merely the parking lot for what lies beyond, which are mountains. As best as I can guess, a million years ago, this place got twisted 90 degrees, so that sedimentation layers that were lying flat suddenly became vertical plates, and as the softer layers wore away, massive thousand-foot cliff faces and jagged mountains were born. I think this is called Karst topography, but I'm not sure if that specific enough to explain this.

We checked into a rustic (in a semi-demeaning sense) bungalow hotel on the banks of the river at the foot of these cliffs just to the north of town and then immediately set off for something to eat (Caroline losing us at first opportunity). We stopped at one of the nicer restaurants in town and had dinner, which was pretty good all told. After that, we had a bit of a wander, and I bought one of the items I had returned to Laos for: A huge hand-stitched silk tapestry (about 3 meters by 1 meter) to hang on the wall back home. It was $120, but that is half the price it would be in Bangkok, and about one-tenth the price it would be in America.

After that Rick and I wandered on our own, leaving Da and Pui in a salon, and Justin and Raht wandering off to enjoy a marijuana-laced milkshake (a local delicacy) back in their hotel room. Rick and I managed to find some rather upscale hotels along the river where we enjoyed a beer at their riverside patio. I think that one of my favorite things in life to do is sit with Rick, have a beer, and talk about stuff. Somehow we entertain each other that way with very little effort.

From there, Rick and I walked back to the bungalows and found Pui and Da there with beer, and we sat on the porch and drank, eventually going to bed.