I love Laos! I had the most wonderful time in Laos and was sad as I was running out of the country yesterday at a full sprint! Did I say full sprint, because that was an understatement! But you'll have to keep reading to understand why I ran out of Laos.
Everyday I spent in Vang Viang I said was my last, so my friends were surprised the first few times I met them for breakfast, but then they started expecting me there. I think they must have been a little surprised when they realized that I really had left. My last day in Laos I went for a walk through town to a cave, swam in the bluest water I have ever seen, had a really fun photoshoot that I will have to show you pictures of, and went on another tube ride down the river. This ride started later in the day than before and we were told to be back before dark, but dark came too soon. We found ourselves floating home in the pitch black and some locals came to get us out of the water. The water was going too fast for me to get over to the side and I found myself being washed away from the group at a very fast speed. I was screaming for help and 2 new friends, Mira and Greg, came to my rescue. They were just as shaken as I was because they thought I was going to be washed away as well! When we got to the main road we realized that we were completely lost. I had assurred everyone that they wouldn't need their shoes because we wouldn't have to walk far, but now that we were lost we were wandering around on sharp rocks with our bare feet. Eventually some other locals turned us in the right direction and we found a store where the owner offered to drive us back. We hadn't realized how far we were from town, but the drive was pretty long!
The next morning I got on a bus to Luang Puabang and had the most beautiful 6 hour drive there. The scenery was absolutely breath taking and I thought I was going to cry just looking out the window. I have never seen scenery like this anywhere. We drove up and down mountains on winding roads the whole way. We drove past village after village and saw so many people just living their lives in this beauty. When I got to Luang Puabang I found the cutest little guest house with thatched walls, parked my backback (or rucksack as I have been told it is called) and went exploring. There wasn't a lot to see here, but I did find lots of people, a night market, temples, the Mekong, and the best massage I have had yet! THe next morning I got on a slow boat and was heading down the Mekong, which was the whole reason I originally came to Laos.
The ride was incredibly uncomfortable because we were seated on little wooden benches, but the boat was not crowded at all so we had room to strectch out all over the floor. I met a group of people my age - Laura and JP, Emma, Ashling and later another Laura. We spent the day chatting when the motor wasn't too loud to talk, reading, listening to music and relaxing. It rained most of the day so we couldn't really see the scenary, but I imagine it was amazing. When the boat first started it sounded awful and we were betting on how soon it would break down. I have to admit that we were all a little surprised when just 5 minutes into the trip the boat stopped. It turned out we had run into one of the many floating trees around and it was stuck in the motor. Once that was out we were on our way again.
We arrived in Pac Bang around 6:00 and were in search of guesthouses. We didn't have far to search because there was nothing in Pac Bang except a few guesthouses and a few restaurants. We settled into our rooms, and went out for dinner. One of the funniest things about this whole trip was that we were ALL out of money! I was one of the richest and I only had $8 to my name. We all shared rooms and were careful what we had for dinner because we had no clue when we would ever see a bank again - they are extremely hard to come by in Laos. After dinner we wandered up and down the main road, which was actually the only road, and this took a total of about 3 minutes. We settled on going into a little candle lit place, not sure what else to call it other than place, and played cards and talked for the next few hours. We had heard that the power went out in the whole town at 10:00, but 10:00 came and went and we still had power. We were sitting with candle light, but the street still had some light. We went to bed around 10:30, I jumped in the shower (cold, I still can't get used to cold showers!) and as soon as I got out of the shower the whole town went black. You couldn't see a thing! I remembered that I had seen a candle on the floor in the bathroom so I found my way to the bathroom and crawled around until I found it. As I was leaving the bathroom I ran into someone in the hall who had a lighter so I had light again!
THe next morning we were back on the Mekong, this time it was a much more beautiful day. The boat wasn't as loud so we were able to talk more as well. We made a few stops along the way to let people off, and one to buy pineapple. After I had bought my pineapple and got back on the boat a parade of little boys and one man came chasing after me telling me that I hadn't paid! I told them that I had and after about a minute of confusion they apologized and left. We finally got to the Laos exit about 10 minutes before the THailand boarder was closing so we had to RUN!!! We jumped in the back of a tuk tuk, drove down to the docks at a very slow speed (we were convinced they planned for us to spend one more night in Laos), ran down the street with our backpacks to the passport office, threw money and passports at the guy, ran from there down to the water, jumped in a boat, sped across the river, ran up the hill on the otherside to the Chiang Mai office, rushed to fill out our paper work, and got our passports stamped! We had to pay overtime charges, but we didn't care because we had made it back to Thailand, all in about 11 minutes! We still can't figure out how we did that!
From there we got on a minibus to Chiang Mai for a few hours, had a great bus ride here and that is where I am right now. I will be catching a bus to Bangkok in a few hours and flying to Cambodia in the morning where I will meet up with Jodie and Megan and maybe Brandon if he is around.
P.S. For those of you I went to highschool with, I ran into Jakob Chapman in the street in Vang Viang, how weird is that
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