Vang Vieng

Laos is very beautiful...VV is a little town about 5 hours north of the capital...we spend 3 nights there...it's a bit of a back packers rest area...lots of fun stuff to do and so many people make VV a rest stop b4 heading on to Vietnam or Thailand...

The local lao people are racking in the dough in this town...the town is fairly cheap to live in still...sort of reminds me of what thailand would have been like around 30years ago...the laos gov't set up this town as kind of anything goes area as long as you play by the rules...any really the rules are very ez to abide by.

one can eat a 'mushroom' happy pizza here...drink an opimum happy banana shake...in fact you can get about any food group HAPPY here if u know what i mean.

There's a really nice river the Meikong that we floated down one afternoon for 5 hours...there are bars along the shore where you can frink free lao lao whiskey and buy beer and food while you float in the sun...the mountains rise sharpply into the sky and everything is jungle green...it's really beautiful.

there are rope swings and zip lines that you can climb and jump into the water with...it's really so much fun and refreshing...we met a ton of people so far and as such there's a posse with us as we float down the river. it's a very mild river float...just perfect for drinking beer.

afterwards we head to one of the better establishments that josh and I made friends with...Jai Dee's of Jack Daniels as he likes to be called keeps us happy with free lao lao and just about anything else we want...he's a very kwel guy and we traded gifts...i gave him my puzzle piece and he gave me a shirt...

the city closes down at 12am...well sort of...that's when the police make a sweep of the town and make sure the bars are all closed...part of playing by the rules is to be quiet durning this time...around 12:30am a few places open up in a discrete fashion...which means that you can listen to music and buy beer etc but it has to be done in the dark...and very quiet.

really there's not much to at night in this area as most places don't want to pay off the police to stay open later...there's a curfew in the whole country.

the next day we rented mopeds...more about that later...

peace

mag19