Friends in Vang Vieng

We're in Vang Vieng now. It's a beautiful setting with limestone karsts and rivers. It's a small town that sprouted about around a now-disused landing strip (from the war?), and now filled with backpacker cafes with episodes of "Friends" playing back-to-back -- strange, I know, but the surrounding is fantastic. We visited a cave today and swam in a cool natural spring coming from the mountain. This place is magical. We've decided to forgo going to the Plain of Jars for more rest-time here. From here, we'll head to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Coming down through Laos, I ran into a couple of friends from Mae Sot, Hanna and Caroline, who were headed up the Mekong. I've also run into a Dutch dude that I met in Mae Sot on my last night there, saw again in Chiang Mai, and again in Luang Prabang, and again today. This is a small world. It is wierd how well-tread the beaten path is in Southeast Asia. When I was leaving Chiang Mai, I ran into a whole group of Mae Sot volunteers in a bar. We had a good time hanging out -- I could have sworn I was still in Mae Sot!

Laos, baby, LAOS!

I'm in Luang Prabang, Laos! I and a couple friends (Emily and Rob), took a seven-hour bus journey from Chiang Mai to Chiang Khong, a border town in Thailand on the Mekong River. It was hot (a barely functioning air-conditioning and no vents over our bench!) and crowded, but I finally made it out of Chiang Mai! The next morning, we took a small dugout across the Mekong to Huay Xai, the border town in Laos (Laos, baby, LAOS!) and got on the slow boat to Luang Prabang.
The slow boat down the Mekong River takes two days, stopping overnight in Pak Beng, a town that exists only for the trip to Luang Prabang, as far as I can tell. Along the Mekong are dozens of small villages, isolated from the rest of the world if not for the Mekong River traffic. They consist of a few ramshackled elevated huts made from woven reeds. The boat stopped off at a few places to buy and sell wild boar and chickens to these river folks. There were a few water buffaloes grazing by the river. I felt like I had gone back in time.
Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is gorgeous and small. The food here is wonderful. There is a mixture of French and Laotian cuisine that is out of this world, after almost four months of Thai food. I love Thai food, but this is simply amazing. Today we sat by the Mekong having Beer Lao (fantastic!) and some spring rolls and a nice Lao salad. I cannot describe how perfect it is here. This country place is pretty run down, but there are a lot of old French Colonial buildings. Things close down early (11:30 pm). I'm not sure why, but probably for security reasons. Tomorrow we plan to head to Vang Vieng.
Lao, baby, Laos!