After lovely Pai, we headed to Laos on a three day journey to Luang Prabang via a day of two buses and two days on the "slow boat." The scenery on the boat was gorgeous with mountains and villages just beyond the water's edge and although the boat ride was 6 hours each day, time moved quickly between reading and meeting fellow backpackers from around the globe.
Once we stepped foot in Laos we were happy to see the French had left some of their influence in the culinary department. Baguette sandwiches, sign us up! Todd and I woke up every morning with the same craving, a baguette sandwich. Eggs, meat, veggie or cheese, the choices were endless. We checked out a few temples in Luang Prabang, enjoyed cheap spa treatments (facial $5), explored caves and saw the most amazing waterfall. The Kuang Si waterfall had multiple levels of turquoise blue water you could swim in and it resembled what the Vegas hotels try to replicate as their "tropical beaches." The waterfall was so surreal, Todd and I couldn't believe the entire thing was natural. Needless to say we jumped in and enjoyed the pristine water after we hiked to the top to enjoy the view from above.
Before we left Luang Prabang we had to take advantage of the French influence one more time by visiting a French restaurant which had a delightful price-fixed menu with menu items we would see back in San Francisco. For appetizers, we had the caprese salad and the watercress soup with mint oil, followed by the cumin scented oyster mushroom lasagna, rounded out with creme caramel and hot pineapple tart. After eating a lot of Asian food and some mediocre Western meals, we were feeling a taste of home at the fine establishment, L'Elephant Brasserie.
Next on our list of places to visit was Vang Vieng, about 6 hours south of Luang Prabang where we knew we would have a good time. Not only is Vang Vieng as beautiful as Yosemite, but it also has tons of fun activities to enjoy. Our balcony from our $10/night hotel faces gorgeous limestone cliffs across the river from us and they are quite a sight to wake up to. Vang Vieng is known for it's tubing pub crawl (where you rent a floating tube, float down the river and jump from bar to bar) so we embarked on that adventure one day to be happily surprised with rope swings, zip lines and a huge water slide! It was so fun, we're planning to do it again before we leave Vang Vieng. Besides water activities, Vang Vieng boasts numerous caves with great hikes and swimming options inside the caves. We rented bicycles one day to explore a cave 6km away and it was very impressive with stalactites and shimmery stalagmites formed years ago. With headlamps on and a never ending path, we made it a day of exploring the huge cave with a slight feeling of being in an Indiana Jones movie.
Todd and I next tackled rock climbing since Vang Vieng has such huge, dramatic limestone cliffs just screaming to be climbed. Neither of us had ever climbed outdoors, just once in the rock climbing gym back in SF and now that we have returned safely I am happy to report zero injuries. We had a group of 5 of us with an experienced guide and he showed us the ropes again (no pun intended) before we tried it ourselves in the natural environment. With my long limbs on my side and Todd's athletic background, we equally conquered the climbs set before us. Since neither of us hardly knew how to climb at the beginning of the day, we were psyched to both tackle 6A climbs (5.9 US grade) by the end.
Today we had breakfast on an organic farm at the edge of town which grew lots of produce including mulberries which we had never tried and they even made their own goat cheese there. It was a great meal to start the day with before jumping on our rented scooter to explore the surrounding areas of town. We visited four caves today, each unique in their own way. My favorite was the That Nam cave where we weren't able to walk into the cave, we had to get on an inner tube and follow a rope line into the dark cave to see what was inside because it's half full of water. Overall, a pretty neat experience, I bet nothing like that exists in the United States.
We're debating leaving Vang Vieng tomorrow to head to the capital of Laos, Vientiane, since we've been here for 6 nights and need to get visas for Vietnam. Supposedly, Vientiane offers sushi, steaks and great French cuisine so that's an extra incentive to hit the road. Until our next blog folks from Vietnam, thanks for reading!
