Still New Years...

It's five days into their new years celebrations and everything is still going full on. All day there are people in the streets, shop vendors have huge speakers setup, and there's water...lots of water. Its the hot-dry season right now but you'd never guess from the puddles in the street and all the water being thrown around.

I've had three full days here in Vang Vieng and wish I could stay another twenty. This is one of the most scenic places I've been so far and the people are great! And there aren't as many tourist here, a real sigh of relief coming from Thailand where backpackers out-number the locals 10 to 1 (maybe it just feels that way). Fortunately the journey to get here wasn't any indication of where I was going....The "5 or 6 hour" bus ride from Luang Prabang turned out to be a whole day ordeal, which would've been alright under other circumstances. The whole trip was only around 100 miles but almost the entire way the roads were narrow and windy, weaving up and down the Lao countryside. This huge old bus would be crawling up these mountainsides, driving around the other buses that were steaming on the side of the road while blaring the horn at oncoming traffic. And then on downhills we had Mario Andretti at the wheel whipping around the curves...it was terrible, almost everyone looked like they were going to be sick.

Despite all that, I made it here just fine and was very happy to get off the bus. I found decent accommodation close to the river here; it's in a really nice spot and the room is better than most places I've stayed. Electricity and water stop working pretty frequently but I think that's just how it is here. Next door, there's this little outdoor restaurant/bar I've been going to for breakfast and dinner. There's never anybody else eating there so its just me and the Irish guys who runs it, he's kinda long-winded but the foods okay.

On Wednesday I went out to find some of the caves that Vang Vieng is famous for. Most are a ways out from the town so I got a map and a motorbike and headed out. Some of the more popular caves were packed with Thai and Lao tourist on vacation for the New Year, it was sorta hard to enjoy these incredible caves with tons of people walking around. So I went out a ways and found this dirt road that eventually led to a cave entrance; and there was absolutely nobody else there! I followed a path and walked through some brush to find the cave then climbed down to the entrance. As I finally made my way in I heard some rustling to my right, looked down by my feet to see a good-sized snake slithering underneath a rock! Looking deeper into the cave and back to where the snake had disappeared I decided that I'd seen enough.

The last cave was actually my favorite. It was out even further so I was expecting it to be empty as well, so I was surprised to see a huge crowd of people when I showed up. There was a carnival or something going on (for new year's) with probably a thousand just outside the entrance. I think everybody there came from the local villages; the whole time I saw only one other white person. I got a lot of stares but people were very welcoming and quick to pull out a few words of broken English. I'll put in a picture of some little cave-kids I met.

The next day I got a tube and floated down the river that goes along Vang Vieng. Because it's the dry season and the current is pretty slow I had to paddle for quite a ways. There weren't very many people tubing down the river but I did come across another huge group of people celebrating the new year. They spread out across the shallow part of the river and were just kinda roaming around eating, drinking, and kicking water at each other. It got so crowded at one point I had to stand up and carry my tube to an open section of river. It was good fun though...

Vang Vieng is an incredible place and I wish I could stay longer. I'll be moving on to Cambodia soon and should be there for about 10 days. Alright, I think thats about enough for tonight...