more caves and more sun!!

This is pretty much my amazing view dudes... from my balcony in Vang Vieng, Laos. Beautiful, isn't it? What a laid-back town! Totally tourist oriented and dependent, a lot of drunk partiers, but very low key which is exactly my style...

Yesturday we met up with a couple fellow canadians and another woman living in Barcelona, for a trek to see a few of the legendary caves. The first one was called the elephant cave because there is a carving in the limestone of an elephant (go figure). The Buddhist monks from long ago carved that out... poeple have walked through this cave for 3 days without ever reaching the end of it. We only went in about 100m but we could have gone so much deeper, we were all very curious. We had lunch made by a few local villagers, we sat and chatted for a bit before leaving to check out 2 more caves... one of which we could only view by inner tube! That was so cool! I can't wait to have these photos uploaded! From this cave, we walked to a nearby village but on our way saw some things you would never see in North America. Women, men, and children bathing in the stream - water used for everything including washing fruit & vegetables and cooking. These people live in houses built by hand, on stilts, with hay rooves and wicker walls... no running water... no electricity... children from the age of 5 fishing and working in the fields, mothers working the fields with new borns and infants strapped to their fronts and backs... This life is simple. Even in the large town of Vang Vieng, this is so.

We were driven to the Song River, a confluent of the dirty Mekong River, where we borded our kayakes! That was pretty neat, something I'd never done before, and I was pretty damn good at it too! heehee There were folks on innertubes floating down as well, stopping here and there at the riverside bars... what a life! We had dinner with the Barcelona lady, played pool on shitty snicker table - I won - and passed out from the 2 for 1 Lao Lao Slings.

Today... today was a laid back day for sure. I laid out in the scorching hot sun and got some sweet color! Yay! My tan is returning! heehee There are these covered hut things set up that are 1/2 on the river's edge and 1/2 on the rocks where you can order beer and snacks, lay out in the sun, and just chill right out. I laid on a bamboo lounging chair in the river... Carly played guitar in the hut. Beautiful day.

And tomorrow we're going CLIMBING! My first climbing experience will be in Laos, that's awesome! I'll be sure to write about that! Don't worry about me though... Carly's a certified instructor back home so even though I've never even been up a wall, I'll be just fine. ;-) A la prochaine!