vang vieng

karis the cave woman ... ------------------------walking through the rice fields


the trip from vientiane to vang vieng was an interesting one. seeing that we do love to travel with the locals, we found ourselves a local bus (resembling more a 'chicken bus') with the seats jam-packed with people and the aisle loaded with the sorts of fruit boxes, groceries, motorbikes, backpacks and the odd traveller. we were seated right up front between the driver and the door operator guy, with a rather unsafe looking door. after 4 hours, or so, and many toilet stops we made it to the englishmens (and women) paradise. millions and millions (excuse the exaggeration but there may just as well have been) of bellowing boozed folk carrying, and depending on the case dragging, their tubes along. indeed, there are riverside bars strategically placed with many a notice saying "last bar until end". it must clearly work as there were more than a few legless characters.

besides all that chaos, the town itself was cute, with restaurants (typical and western, showing reruns of 'friends'), roadside kiosks with pancakes, baguettes (i had a mighty happy frenchman with this discovery!!) and fresh fruit shakes. our bungalow was awesome; built on stilts with a little wooden 'stoep' (balcony for the non-south africans) surrounded by rice paddies and the nam song river (which we conquered on kayaks in the pouring, but really pouring rain. in french, they have an expression for such rain - il pleut comme vache qui pisse, its raining like a wee-ing cow). we even witnessed a cat giving birth. a first!