Easter Sunday
Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
April 12, 2009
Happy Easter! I hope the Easter Bunny came to your house, he did not make it to Laos... Guess it is too hot for him!
We both did not sleep well and we both do not feel 100%.
We checked out of the Guest House and carried our bags to Vansana. Our room was not ready, so we left our bags at the front desk.
We went to the Restaurant Luang Prabang Bakery for breakfast. I had an omelette with a small amount of ham, tomato and lots of onion with a peach iced tea that did not taste as good today. Bill had eggs and a croissant. The croissant was more like bread than what we are accustomed to.
We walked twice around town trying to find bikes for a reasonable rate. We ended up paying more than we wanted to, 20,000 kip each ($3) and I bought a new pair of sunglasses for 25,000 kip ($4).
The first cave that we went to is the most famous cave, Tham Jang. We had to cross a bridge and were charged 4,000 each to cross and then 10,000 each to go to the cave. This cave had been used by Laos people to hide-out when the Chinese were invading in the early part of the 19th century. We had to walk up a set of steep stairs to go inside the cave. It is interesting that the stairs are not the same length or depth on the way up (or down for that matter). There must have been numerous engineers who worked on it.
The cave was quite large and well lit. There was also a cement path and stairs inside. At the end that had a look-out over the river there was also a small shrine. There were many neat stalagmite and stalactites in this cave. We walked to the end of the lights and turned on our small torch (head light). We were able to walk for a bit, the path continued along, but the lights were out. We could have kept going, but I was getting creeped out. This cave was very busy with many Laos tourists. We found out later that many people stop over in Vang Vieng on the way to Luang Prabang for Laos New Year.
We biked back across the water instead of swimming the spring at the base of the cave. We stopped at Kangaroo Sunset Grill and had lunch. We shared the grilled fish, which was really good. I was really tired and hot, so we decided to go back to the hotel and use the pool.
We cooled off in the pool that overlooked the river. We sat in the lounge chairs and read/napped for a while before heading back out into the humidity.
We were charged another 4,000 kip each to cross the bridge and 10,000 kip each at the next 2 caves. Bill commented that this day is one of our most expensive in Laos. The road to these caves was very bumpy, good thing I have a mountain bike instead of a cruiser bike this time.
We went to Tham Phu Kham (aka Blue Lagoon). We had to leave the dirt road and follow a path through harvested rice fields. We then had to park our bikes and walk another kilometre. The last 200 metres of the walk was climbing rocks up a steep hill to the cave. We were so hot by the time we arrived at the top. It was a neat cave though. After entering and crossing the bamboo walkway we could not see a thing. There are no lights here and it is VERY dark and creepy. I did not go very far in this cave. There was one other very small cave at the bottom of the hill too. On the way down the hill Bill was able to get something out of the trees that looking like a tomato. When Bill cracked it open he immediately threw it down because it freaked him out. It was like black sludge in the middle. I think it was an alien fetus!
We passed on the lagoon and headed to 5 caves that were further up the road. Along the way a little boy and girl had stopped their bike because the bag with their papayas had broken and spilled the papayas on the road. Bill and I stopped and gave them one of our plastic bags. The little girl just stared at me! Again, once we were off the "main" road we had to ride through rice fields. We did not see any other tourists around and it was very peaceful. It was like a scene out of movie with the limestone mountains in the background.
After we paid to see the caves we walked through more fields with grazing cows, then crossed a pond where people are supposed to jump off a bamboo bridge (only one person can cross at a time) and swim. It is very shallow and dirty. I don't think anyone has been swimming here for a long time. We quickly looked at the 5 shallow caves along this chain of mountains. Another storm is coming and it is getting late. We are supposed to return the bikes by 6 pm.
We managed to find a shortcut that required us to use 2 bamboos to get over a barbwire fence and then we had to cross the red ant covered bridge again. This time I did not get bit. On the way back the man who collected our fee was bringing the cows home. Reminds me of the times we had to chase the cows back into the barn at our house. These cows seemed more cooperative though. I think they are used to the routine.
We did not take our time getting back to the dirt road. I felt 2 drops just as we got on the road, but we managed to stay ahead of the rain until we crossed the bridge and were back into town. We peddled like mad and returned the bikes before it was raining too hard and just before 6 pm. We dashed across the street to the "Friends" bar and ordered BeerLao, a coke and a soda water. We did not place our food order immediately and that was a mistake. We watched more than 2 episodes of Friends and could not get the waitress to come over and take our order. The rain finally eased up, so we went up and paid for our drinks and left. We walked back toward the tube rental place to a pancake street vendor who made me an awesome pancake with peanut butter, banana and chocolate for 10,000 kip. He made it on a large crepe maker, but it was more like pizza dough than crepe batter. It was really thin and he folded it all up and slathered it with butter. Yum!
Then we went to Sanasay, Bill was still thinking about the chicken from last night. On the way in we saw some really good looking pork ribs on the grill, so we ordered that instead of chicken. I was not very hungry, so I ordered a small Tom Yam soup with chicken. Bill had to ask the waiter for a BeerLao 3 times before he finally remembered to bring one over. They are playing soccer on TV instead of Friends tonight and have the music cranked up (most people must be deaf here). The small soup turned out to be really big. Bill had some of the chicken and we still did not finish it. He really enjoyed the ribs too. We talked with a couple from Munich, Germany while they were waiting for their meal. They both finished a large BeerLao (640 ml) before their food arrived. We finally had to go up and get our cheque. We were overcharged again, they wanted to charge us for an extra BeerLao this time. The guy ended up giving us a 1,000 kip discount for the error, so dinner cost 90,000 kip ($15).
We went back to the hotel and tried to sleep. I was awake most of the night swatting away real or imagined bugs. I think the bugs are getting the best of me in Laos.