Bangkok to Rio

Our next stop after Vientiane was Vang Vieng, an absolutely gorgeous town along a river, surrounded by towering limestone peaks full of caves.

Vang Vieng has a strange double identity -- about half the tourists go there for hiking, biking, rafting, etc. The other half go there to get blasted on [insert drug of choice here] while watching endless reruns of Friends in one of several identical TV/drug bars on the main street. Apparently this is a fun activity, and somehow different enough from getting high and watching Friends in your home country that it's worth coming all the way to Laos for.

Well, after about six days of watching Chandler hook up with Monica through an opium-induced haze, we decided we'd had about enough and... wait, our parents are probably reading this.

Actually, the latest we stayed up was 10 pm, and we didn't manage to drink a single Beerlao in the two days we were in town. Sadly, this is true.

We did go for a beautiful but nether-region-bruising 30-kilometer bike ride through the countryside, which we later realized had been recommended in our guidebook as a nice ride for motorbikes.

Some photos:

Beth takes a bike break to benefit her bruised bottom

Jesse manages to avoid the local traffic

Locals riding in style

Gardens on the riverbank

The other major activity in Vang Vieng is floating down 4 km of the river in huge inner tubes. Entrepreneuristic locals have built makeshift bamboo bars along the river where you can stop for beer and enjoy a pleasant MTV-spring-break atmosphere.

We skipped the bars and just floated and appreciated the scenery.

Looking good, if I do say so myself.

Some final Vang Vieng photos:

Bye bye Vietnam, good morning Laos. Rather than take a 24-hour bus ride from Hanoi to Vientiane, we splurged on a flight, hopped on a plane, and stepped off 50 minutes later in what must be the smallest capital city in the world.

Okay, I just googled it, and the smallest capital city in the world is Adamstown in the Pitcairn Islands, population 46.

But Vientiane, the largest city in Laos, seemed smaller and quieter than the smallest town we visited in Vietnam. Makes sense when you realize that Hanoi alone has more residents than the entire country of Laos.

There's not a lot to do in Vientiane, but we had a nice day and a half, starting off with the traditional Beerlao on the banks of the Mekong:

That's Thailand on the other side:

The French ran this place for quite a while and I guess they got kind of homesick, because they built a Lao-style Arc d'Triumph, complete with Buddhist imagery and about 15 t-shirt shops crammed inside the thing:

The arc looks over the so-called "Champs Elysees of the East." Yeah, I really don't know about this one.

While atop the arc we met a young novice monk, Somphone, who was eager to practice his English and asked us to walk back to his temple with him.

He told us about his family -- his parents are farmers in rural northern Laos, and they sent him to Vientiane to study; he hopes to become a tour guide. We exchanged addresses and promised to send him his photo.

Of course, it wouldn't be a blog post without food, so here's the Vientiane night market:

We had ping paa, Mekong river fish stuffed with lemon grass, covered with salt (to keep in the moisture) and grilled. Eaten with sticky rice and chili dipping sauce, like everything else in this country. Delicious.

For another break from Hanoi, we went on a day trip to the Perfume Pagoda, the holiest site in Vietnam for Buddhists. It's a bit complicated to get there -- you take a bus to a river, a rowboat up the river, a cable car up a mountain, and a long staircase down into a cave, at the deepest corner of which lies a Buddhist shrine.

The boatride:

Our boatman was tired, so Jesse offered to row for a bit:

The most impressive thing about the Pagoda was not the shrine itself, but the surroundings.

If you've seen photos of Vietnam, they're probably of Halong Bay. Either that, or women in the field with round straw hats. We'd seen plenty of the latter, so decided it was time to book a trip on a boat to check out the famed limestone karsts and caves of Halong Bay.

The boat trip was fantastic - the highlight of our travels thus far. The first day, we visited Surprising Cave. The most surprising thing was how much one rock resembled... well, the guide called it a "gun," but a more accurate description would be... well, this is a family blog, so let's just call it "equipment." Standing at attention. Unfortunately we didn't document the thing. Here's a photo of a less anatomically-correct stalagmite:

The scenery in Halong Bay is gorgeous, and, according to our guide, resembles all kinds of animals. Apparently our imaginations aren't as good as his. This is either fighting or loving chickens - you decide:

Here's some photos of the scenery, to give you an idea of what we were looking at in between penis jokes and whatnot:

The first night of the trip, we got to sleep on the boat, anchored in a lagoon. Here's the view from our cabin:

We went kayaking, hiking and swimming.

Sadly, after three days we had to return to the madness that is Hanoi.

To get from Hoi An to Hanoi, we woke up at 4 am, and endured 16 hours of tiredness, sore butts and loud karaoke (yes, on the train), with only peanuts for snacks. A highlight, however, was watching American movies dubbed with only one woman doing the voice-overs for every character, and with the original dialogue still audible in the background. Apparently there wasn't room in the budget for male voice talent. Somehow, Clint Eastwood just didn't have the same effect with a woman's voice... maybe if they had found a 60-year-old lifelong smoker...

The views, however, kept us going. A couple highlights, taken from the train: