over the hills where the spirits fly

It takes 7 hours to reach Phonsavan from Vang Vieng, and the minibus traveled past the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. I felt like I should be in Middle Earth (after eschewing The Hobbit in favor of something a little more embarrassing for my minibus reading material, even!)







The landscape changed from these glorious karst mountains to rounder, softer hills and then suddenly there were pine trees! And it smelled like cattle and pine and I could have been anywhere, if not for the occasional banana tree and valley full of rice.



And then it was just soft, rolling hills, and I saw a larger-than-I-expected flat city of shop houses, and I hoped that it wasn't Phonsavan, but it was. The end of the line, for now.

relax and float downstream

After the caving adventure, I kayaked about 10km back to town. The scenery was beautiful.



Now Vang Vieng is something I read about before I came to Southeast Asia in the first place. I learned that it's a backpacker town, where the main entertainments are watching The Simpsons and Friends all day, or tubing down the river from bar to bar getting drunk. It sounds horrible, and I had to see it. Of course, the scenery is fabulous and it's really nice and peaceful during the day if you're sick, which I am. But after 7 or so kilometers of pristine karst topography and baby goats and people playing in the river, this cacophony swells and we go around a bend to see BARS BARS BARS! And slides and swings and holy hell so much clashing music! At one in the afternoon!



And then back to the pretty.

A nocturnal vacation

First, Emily and three Israeli girls got into a songthaew with our Lao guide and drove fifteen kilometers or so through the fog and rain. Then, we walked about two kilometers to the cave.



We got into innertubes and pulled ourselves along the rope into the cave, taking great care not to bonk our heads on the low entry. In the cave, we could only see by our headlamps.





Eventually, we came to a part where the water was too shallow, so we picked up our tubes and walked, hunched to avoid the low ceiling, to the next bit where we linked up in a chain and paddled upstream with our hands through the limestone tunnel.



What happens next? Slimy, tentacled arms touching our feet? Headlamps go dark? Creepy, translucent cave creatures? A previously undetonated landmine closes off the entrance to the cave and the water level slowly rises? A flash flood fills the cave suddenly with water? One of the Israeli girls has a dark secret that she will kill to protect? We realize that one of our party is missing? There is a knife-weilding maniac hiding in the cave with us? I am, in fact, a psychotic killer? We emerge unscathed, only to find a strange skin disease that turns into something more sinister?

In practice, it just wasn't good for my cold.

Rocket, man!

On Sunday I hopped on a bus to Vang Vieng.



I found myself saying, "It's only a three hour bus trip! That's nothing!" And it was. Where Ryan and I were the only falang on the cramped trip from Rayong to Nong Khai, this bus was all falang. And it actually smelled like dirty hippie. Very unpleasant. I checked into a guesthouse, and a loud shot went off across the street while the receptionist was handing me my key. We both jumped. I had arrived in Vang Vieng on Rocket Day!

I found my room and took a shower for some reason (showers in Laos are not effective unless administered just before sprawling naked under a fan and not moving for the rest of the day) and then ventured down to the base of most of the vapor trails.

I crossed this rickety bridge.



And ventured through the festival to the river.


Yeah, that's a rocket on the van.

Present Emily is very grateful to Past Emily for the purse umbrella, by the way.





The river was nice and cool, and surrounded by gumdrop mountains. I stood about knee deep, holding my rainbow polka-dot umbrella and eating an ice cream cone. Random people drifted under my umbrella's shade and thanked me for it. And there were rockets.



They're supposed to make it rain, and they worked.