September 6 to 7—The Road to Vang Vieng, Laos, Tubing Below the Mountain Peaks, and a Muddy Cave Climb

Dear Family and Friends,

Thursday, September 6, the road called to us early, and we set out for our 7:00 AM bus ride with the locals headed North to Vang Vieng, Laos. Dani had not slept much in the night with some more of the belly sickness (she felt in the morning like she’d done 1,000 sit-ups), but we decided to risk it and catch the bus anyway. After checking out of the hotel, a tuk-tuk driver sitting at the front door charged us 10,000 kip (1 USD) to go to the morning market bus terminal in the center of town. The kind driver dropped us off directly behind the proper bus (yay!), and we hopped on.

It was definitely a local bus—mostly full, with the aisles and extra seats in the back loaded down with vegetables and other produce. Sandwich sellers came on the bus offering their wares to Dani while Martha was out buying water at a little shop nearby. Martha came back, and went to find the sandwich seller; unfortunately, she did not have proper change for a 50,000 note (5 USD) so Martha took all of the change that she had and declined a second sandwich to make up for it, more than doubling the price of the 5,000 kip sandwich. But it was good and nice to have something in her belly, so no complaints.

On the bus, the mountainsides opened up for us once again, offering beautiful scenery. We stopped many times to pick up more passengers and once on a hillside for everyone to have a moment with Mother Nature. Most of the local women wear long skirts that are big enough for two people but folded over to wrap around, with beautiful designs on the bottom; Dani noticed that they also wear pants under these skirts, and when nature calls on a hillside next to the bus, they simply open the wrap and pull the skirt to above their shoulders to make a nice screened tent for themselves! Quite discreet!

We arrived in Vang Vieng around 1:00 PM and accepted a saang taew (pickup truck with two benches along each side of the back cargo bin) ride to our chosen guest house. It was across a new bridge over the rushing river, so the driver dropped us off next to the bridge. We paid 4,000 kip (0.40 USD) each as bridge toll and walked over the well-constructed bridge, admiring the view of the gorgeous mountains. Down the rocky path and to the right, we found the May Lyn Guest House, recommended by LP and rightfully so. We were lucky that they had a room left, although all the bungalows were taken.

Martha went to look at the available rooms while Dani stayed in the outdoor dining room of the guest house. A dog came up to Dani wondering if she was trustworthy enough to ask for some petting; Dani bent down to scratch the dog’s face and pet the top of her head for a few moments. Oh, it’s been months since Dani pet a doggie! When Dani lost balance a little, the dog was startled and started to bark. She kept barking, even as one of the longer-term guests attempted to calm her. One of the other guests said, “It’s a Lao dog, not an American dog.” Road-weary, tired, sick, being barked at, and now outted as the 'obnoxious American' who ruined the serenity of everyone’s breakfast was almost too much for Dani. Martha finally returned after chatting it up with the former-Irish now-Laotian owner of the place, and we went up to the room to settle in. “No, I don’t want to nap,” says Dani, “I just want to get out of here.” So, we threw our swim suits into a bag, took water and our cameras, and headed out of the guest house for the afternoon to see whether tubing on the river was still an option for the day.

Vang Vieng is a quiet town in the daylight, although much more built-up than Martha recalls. We had lunch in a cute restaurant at the corner. It looked nice, though no one was in it at 2:00 PM in the afternoon, which was a little concerning, but shouldn’t have been because few farangs were around at this time of day in the main stretch of town. The waiter’s name was Pia, as he informed us, and he was a nice guy, very friendly. We chatted with him for a while and enjoyed a lunch of pad thai for Dani with a coffee and banana fruit shake; Martha had a chicken curry with lots of veggies and rice with a lime shake and some coffee.

After dining, we decided to hit the closest tubing place, and used their back room to change into our swim suits. Dani decided to leave her bag with them, though it made Martha exceedingly nervous. She did put together a small plastic bag of her camera, wallet, and toilet paper—to take onto the river. Onto a saang taew with four other people towards the water’s edge, we listened to the other tubers and eavesdropped on the two guys travelling together from Spain. Eventually, we chit chatted with them a bit, and learned that they were from San Sebastian in the North corner of Spain—we would have stopped in this town on the recommendation of Martha’s sorority sister, Emily, had we stayed in Spain for a full year.

At the water’s edge, the driver of the saang taew unloaded the tubes and left. We went into the river with no explanation on when to get out or anything for safety! But once we were in the water … ahhhhhhh. Nice temperature in the river, and a lovely quickness to the flow. We were able to lean back, hold onto each other’s hands or feet to stay together, and relax along with the pieces of driftwood floating by. A kilometer or so along the way and to the right appeared a bar with loud music and a bunch of people hanging out. OK, let’s go ahead and float on over! Martha missed the landing point while Dani was pulled in by a strong swimmer. Finally, Martha came walking out of the forest having gotten out a little way’s down.

We ordered a beer, and saw someone jump from a platform high up in a tree into the river. He swam a little way downstream, then was pulled back in by one of the workers with a bicycle tube on a rope. Oooo, that looks like fun, thought Dani. She handed her rings from her fingers to Martha, and climbed the ladder just as another guy jumped in. At the top, Dani could clearly see the large pieces of driftwood occasionally floating by, and identified other obstacles that would make for a not-so-fun experience if she jumped at the wrong time, including three tubers headed into the bar.

As she was assessing (and, yes, getting over the realization that she was actually pretty high up in the tree), the young man who worked at the top of the tree passed her a handle. Oooo, even better than jumping, Dani gets a zip line! Yeah!!! She grabbed hold of the zip handle, reviewed the waters one last time, and jumped. Zzzzzzzzzzzziiiiiipppp over the muddy waters! What fun! Dani hopped out, smiling and pulling her swim top back up. She climbed the slippery muddy banks back to the deck where Martha waited. OK, now Martha was ready for her turn! She was unfortunately now third in line. But, soon enough, zippppppppppp into the river she went!

Good music (well, a lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers to be most accurate) thumping along the waters, cool breezes, a zip line and jumping—no wonder we’ve been hearing about this town from other travelers along the way! Wheeee! Dani went again down the zip line!! This time, it was a bit more perilous for her, though, as she forgot to take a deep breath before she landed in the water, and was pulled under for a moment without air. But, she was just fine and smiling by the time she came back up on shore.

Back into our tubes, Martha had her ‘almost died in Laos’ moment as her tube was sucked under the deck at the next bar, and the workers had to come down and help her maneuver to the rope and be pulled back up to the landing. We met up with the Spanish guys again at this next bar where it was fun just to hang out (and listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers). A tube popped, and it turned out to belong to one of the Spaniards. One of the workers grabbed the tube, brought it back for repair, and returned it to the guy free of charge. (After all, the fee for ‘lost tubes’ is one thing, but as long as you showed up with a tube, it could be deflated … most of them had multiple repair patches to them.) We watched in amazement at the swimming abilities of the workers at the bar; they jumped from the edge of the bar, swam out to grab tubers who weren’t otherwise going to make it to shore on their own. What a great way to ensure the bar had visitors! As the Spaniards drunkenly bebopped around the bar, we had fun talking with a Kiwi/Aussie couple, Vicky and Dave.

Soon, it was time to move on to the next pub, the last before heading back through the quiet waters into town. As the quick waters swirled, Martha didn’t make it to the water’s edge, opting to enjoy some quiet time bopping along the river. At the bar, Dani waited for Martha to again walk out from the forest as she had at the first bar. But after many minutes, one of the bar workers who had a motorized kayak showed up shaking his head, and Dani realized that Martha wasn’t going to materialize. The bar looked like a lot of fun, with a pool table and most of the folks we’d seen along the way in previous hangouts, but eventually Dani hopped back into her tube and floated on downstream. She spied another bar on the left side of the river where a bunch of Irish guys were hanging out. Nope, Martha wasn’t there, so back into the tube. Two Irish guys floated by on one tube with a deflated tube in tow, and yelled up at their buddies for not giving them enough advanced notice to get out and join them!

At the fork in the river with two flags—one red, one green—Dani smartly opted for the left fork with the green flag, remembering Capt’n Harry’s sailing rule of ‘red right returning.’ Following in Martha’s path, she went through the slow lazy residential area. In the meantime, Martha had been bobbing along, taking photos of the towering mountainsides and enjoying the time alone. She passed pretty close to the water’s edge, looking for places to get out, which meant that she occasionally passed locals fishing with their large nets, and had to quietly hang so as not to disturb the fishes. She eventually got out at a rocky sideline, climbing up to find the tubing office right in front of her!! She collected the bag left safely with the tubing group and headed back to our lunch spot in hopes that Dani would know to find her there. Pia was happy to see Martha, and the two of them passed some nice time together.

Dani learned that the rivers rejoined, so it wouldn’t really matter which flag you chose to follow. At a small sign that read ‘Tubing Stop Here,’ she hopped out, finding herself behind someone’s house. As she made it to the street, she realized she had landed pretty far downstream from the tubing office. As she walked back up the street, Dani saw Martha (who had spotted Dani first) standing on the street talking with Pia. He invited Dani to change in the bathrooms (Martha had already done so) and get more comfortable.

We then sat and talked with him for a few hours, learning that he had a good friend in the Netherlands who had invited him to visit and would even pay the airfare (gosh, aren’t those Dutch just wonderfully sweet)?! We helped him complete the visa application to the Schengen Nations before wandering up the street towards the ATM to take some money out for dinner instead of walking back to the guesthouse and paying the bridge toll again. This ATM did not accept our Visa card (apparently, it’s not everywhere we want to be), but an Italian from earlier in the day invited us to sit with him and a group he was amassing. Italian, Dutch, two Asian Americans who freaked Martha out a bit when they responded to her in perfect American English, an Israeli, and more as the night passed, each wandering in at the request of the Italian guy. Dani spoke with a Japanese gentleman who let her know that he had been hanging out in a bar up the street with two Spanish guys who were pretty drunk—yay the Spaniards made it back to shore! As much fun as it was hanging out, by 11:30 PM we needed some food and weren’t at all sure if the guest house closed its doors by late-night, so homeward we went. Thankfully, the proprietor of the May Lyn, a friendly and interesting guy named Joe, made us a baguette and cheese, and we hung out with American Cleo and British Paul, who had each been there 10 days already, sitting on the balcony sharing stories and enjoying the riverside silence.

Friday, September 7, we decided to stay another night in Vang Vieng, especially since we’d gotten to bed so late the night before and had spent SO much time on buses of late. Breakfast at the guest house was good, including baguettes, cheese, and eggs. A necessary evil, we started the day walking to town to drop off laundry (where it would be machine washed AND dried for just 4,000 kip a kilogram [0.40 USD]!). As the morning heated up, we stopped for a fruit shake at a place near the Laundromat before walking to the bus station to try to review options out of town.

The open expanse of the bus stop looks like an old air strip. We had hoped to learn about the locals' bus up to Luang Prabang, but found nothing but an easier route back to town and towards our guest house than the way that our tuk-tuk driver had taken us upon arrival. For lunch, we stopped at a spacious hangout for some tuna laap with sticky rice (for Martha) and some gloppy rice and meat-based stuff for Dani that we don’t remember the name of, with a side of rice. Some ginger tea for Martha was given the task of settling her stomach a bit, and Dani enjoyed her coffee.

The only damper on lunch was the horrible movie that some other tourist chose to play on the big screen television—a slasher film about a group of people on a remote paradise island. Not pleasant lunchtime background noise, so we preoccupied ourselves with Yahtzee while awaiting our meals. (Food in this country/part of the world is prepared upon order, so can take quite a while). As we were leaving the restaurant, Dani was really not feeling well, and had to concede to no more fruit shakes while in Laos because the ice in them could be made with unfiltered water and be the cause of her recurring tummy discomfort. So sad.

Then, our day really started. We stopped off at the guest house to lighten our load before a nice walk out to a cave remotely located a couple of kilometers away. We turned left out of the guest house and took a right at the roadside sign for the Phadeng Koan Kham Cave. We had to cross a rice field, which provided us 600 meters of fun squishing through the mud, hopping over man-made streams for irrigation, and getting a close look at the dragonflies and butterflies that inhabited the field.

A river bed gave us a chance to get some of the mud off of our shoes and pants, and provided some relief from the hot afternoon. As we approached the mountainside, we paid a cave toll of 20,000 kip each. A man started walking with us, carrying flashlights. We assumed he was a guide, but we had not talked cost at all (and really didn’t intend to explore in the cave since it was late in the day and could be rather dangerous), so we asked him what was up. His services would cost us 50,000 kip (5 USD), so we declined. He warned us that it was dangerous to go in alone without flashlights, and we assured him we would not be going into the cave. We were most interested in the walk!

Up the mountain, the terrain changed from the grassy paths of previous wanders and turned into monsoon-soaked red mud. It became slippery as it got steeper, and we had to be extra slow and careful as we walked to enjoy the beautiful views. The mud then disappeared and we enjoyed some low-level rock climbing, pulling our legs up high, holding onto small crevices of rock, pulling ourselves up and over and up again. (We can see how Jochen and Connie from near Koln in Germany like this so much!) Occasionally, we encountered a crumbling sign with an arrow pointing the way, but it was not easy to figure out which way to go at all times. We reached the cave finally, took a few photos of the first room, peaked into the darkness, and headed back down, carefully making our way down the rocks, through the mud, and back into the rice-cluttered field.

We did stop for a few minutes to swim in the creek to wash off some of the newly-collected clay and mud from our pants, shirts, faces, and shoes. The light was fading, giving us a great view of the mountains at dusk. And like so many beautiful moments, they can never quite translate perfectly to film (or digital photography these days).

Back to the guesthouse for a proper shower and dry clothes before heading back into town to pick up the laundry. Walked up the street where people were in every bar, lounging watching TV and hanging out with a Beer Lao in hand. We decided since we had tried the Thai style of massage that we should also try a Lao massage. The atmosphere was wonderful—curtains were pulled around each bed in the large room. We lay down and got some body work done. The guy who worked on Martha was very strong, cracking her back and really getting into her shoulders. The woman who worked on Dani was gentler, and she kind of wished she had gotten a deeper massage, but was still wonderfully relaxed by the end of the session. The massages cost us 30,000 kip (3 USD) for head and back therapy, and it was worth every penny. When the massage was done, we were invited to a small table on the side of the room for a cup of tea.

We walked around the corner to get the laundry before heading back to bed when the rains started to come down. It was amazing to be seated outside of the little café that did our laundry and see the sheets of rain pouring down at the end of the street before the monsoon made its way to our end, like a wet blanket being pulled over the stretch of the avenue. We had enough time to ponder the strange noise down the street that turned out to be rain on the tin roof tops, before the water wall reached us. A man ran out from his seat at the Internet café part of the shop to move his motorcycle under cover. We sat in front of the laundry shop for 20 minutes until the rains stopped. Martha wanted to stop at the riverside restaurant for dinner to listen to the sound of the water as we dined. But, it was empty and perhaps closed, so we went back to the guesthouse where Joe made us another baguette with cheese. We hung out in the dining area until late at night, talking with the fun guests as they played spades.

In love and light,

Martha and Dani