the spring break I never had, and a few familiar faces..

The last week has been COMPLETELY different than the previous one. I have also passed the half-way mark of my trip and am not feeling good about it - 3 months is FAR too short, I truly wish i could stick around here longer...... what a journey it's been so far.

Vang Vieng

So i spent 7 days and 6 nights here - there really was barely anything cultural about this place at all, it was just a crazy week of really insane (and cheap) partying. Vang Vieng does, however, have amaaaaazing landscapes of the most gorgeous mountains west of the city. There was also a restaurant that specialized in DOG dishes, which i can't say i ever made it to.......
Nearly every day i rode a tuk-tuk up to the "starting" point of tubing, and worked my way down to multiple bars. At each bar you get a free shot of whiskey (I don't think i spent a single penny at these bars the whole week), and a free bracelet. Some people have their entire arms covered in these bracelets. There are ziplines, swings, slides and ropes going from the bars into the river, as well as that huge blowup blob that catapults you off once someone else jumps on it (like in the movie Jackass). I understand how this place can be a trap to most backpackers because of the lazy living, cheap accommodations, cheap drinks and the restaurants: EVERY single restaurant plays all-day marathons of Friends episodes and Family Guy episodes, with an occasional How I Met Your Mother marathon. What a trap to stay here forever!!!!!
So I never actually went tubing, I just bar-hopped the entire time. You can cross over by land or swim across the river in which case the locals throw ropes at you and pull you into the bars. My 2nd day i was passing over to a bar and once i grabbed a hold of the rope they pulled me and i crashed into this giant water tank, swallowed 2 giant gulps of river water, helplessly holding my bucket in my other hand, and my bathing suit top trying to escape with the speed of the rope pulling - it was quite a hilarious scene. thankfully i didn't get sick from the river water. So it is basically non-stop partying all day, then once the tubing is over at around 7pm everyone gets dinner and gets ready to go to the night bars where from 9-10pm everyone gets a free bucket at bucket bar. What the hell kind of a place is this??????
I have to say, this truly was the spring break i never had. It was unlike anything i had ever seen/experienced. They had crazy musical chairs but with tubes, dancing, hilarious Jenga games and dares, these crazy scorpion venom and whiskey shots (which were actually really smooth!!), whiskey shot train competitions, tons of boys vs. girls games, and this gross games called "pass the ice cube" which i enjoyed watching but not participating in (hint: only use your mouth?).
My last day tubing (the day before st. patrick's day) a woman actually interviewed me about vang vieng for an american newspaper she was the asian correspondent for. That was awesome! she said she would email me the article once she wrote it, and it'll be published some time in the May issue. She asked me what i thought about the dangers, what's shocked me, etc.

One of the views looking west in Vang Vieng

Sitting at the restaurant i always ate at, watching hours and hours of Friends.

Pre-whiskey shot train game,cool river tables in the background

Crazy Jenga game, each block with a different challenge

Musical tubes!

My friend Celine (!) ziplining into the river

As a good 'halfway' point (3 days in) to my time in Vang Vieng, I decided to skip the tubing and visit the Blue Lagoon where there's a gorgeous pond to swim in and a very impressive cave called Phu Kham to explore. I went with 2 boys, one of which I had actually met on the 2-day slowboat and just bumped into at a restaurant here. We traveled on the most horrific dirt road of all time and climbed what felt like over 200 steps up a steep hill to get to the cave entrance. This place was gorgeous. It was mandatory to rent headlamps as it can get pretty dangerous and very dark. It was advised not to walk for longer than 10 minutes, but we walked in more like 20.... We reached a point where little by little the sunlight of the entrance dimmed, the volume of birds chirping at the entrance lowered, until we were in complete darkness, solitude, and silence. We felt nothing but the cool air and walls of the cave, heard nothing but our breaths and the occasional water droplets and their echos, and saw nothing but an oddly relaxing and tranquil black canvas before us...... We sat there in silence for a good 3 minutes. I thought it was such a phenomenon, a place with the most beautiful and sparkling stalagmites and stalactites, salt crystals and impressive unique formations growing for millions and millions of years in complete darkness. It's a beauty only revealed to those who are curious enough to wander and explore.

En route to the Phu Kham caves...

Had to make a photo-pit-stop... these mountains were awesome.

Just past the entrance to the Phu Kham caves, we went behind these rocks past the Buddha shrine on the bottom right

Just to the left

 Just outside the caves back down the 200+ steps was the gorgeous pond, Blue Lagoon, with swings and ropes to jump off as well. The water was an amazingly clear, deep glacier water blue. And it was so deep too. It was soo gorgeous here I could've hung out here for days.

After my 7-day 6-night streak of partying and mingling, I left on st. Patrick's day. Leaving was a tough decision for me to make, also considering I had a friend coming in a day or 2 later, but I was beginning to get cabin-fever from the same thing every day. Not to mention it was St Patty's! But i got myself to escape finally, and began what i didn't know would be THE MOST HORRENDOUS commute of my life. I went straight from Vang Vieng, Laos to Hanoi, Vietnam. The commute wound up being a whopping 31 hours long. A mini-van journey and the most cramped, stuffy, claustrophobic and plainly uncomfortable sleeper bus.......ever. Thankfully i ran into people i met at the Vang Vieng bars, so i was in good company. But wow it was terrible. Not to mention i don't think they wash their fleece blankets they give out to everyone, because mine smelled like homeless feet stuck in canvas shoes for too long (that is a surprisingly accurate description...).

The cramped, stuffy, bunk beds with no-leg-space sleeper bus. And a marathon of pretty terrible Vietnamese musical shows called "Paris by Night".

Byebye Vang Vieng! a collection of my free bracelets from the bars

Where I Am Now

HANOI, Vietnam!!!! This place surprised me - I found it to be a lot more developed than expected.... About an hour after my arrival (and the best shower of my life) i was picked up by none other than Randy Lovelace from conn. It was so amazing seeing a familiar face!!!! He drove me on his motorbike to meet with Kevin Ford and Delaney who was visiting. They were eating dinner down on Chicken Street (which was delicious). I spent the rest of the night with them catching up, totally excited and feeling so odd to see friends from home for the first time in a while.
Today was also spent entirely with them, exploring Hanoi, visiting the fabric market (where they all got custom-made clothes, i'll be doing that in Hoi An), hanging out in the park, and having an incredible do-it-yourself BBQ dinner. Their place is so great, it's amazing to see how well they've both adapted to this new place and home and it's been so great having a taste of home/conn for me as well. Apparently I got lucky coming to Hanoi now because it was the first sunny day in ages. Apparently since Randy and Kevin were here they'd only seen the sun 7 times, including today.

reunited!

Fabrics in the fabric market

Figuring out tickets and showtimes for the Water Puppet Show

Taken from the back of Randy's motorbike during Hanoi rush hour

View from Randy and Kevin's roof/balcony

BBQ dinner tonight

On my way back to the hostel I bumped into my friend Levi from Chiang Mai and Pai. What a small world! He said Vietnam has been his favorite so far. I'm staying in Hanoi for another day to see the water puppet show and the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh, totally preserved in this mausoleum.... Then i'm off to Halong Bay for a day or two, back to Hanoi for one more night, and continuing my travels south to Hue and beyond. Vietnam's felt promising so far, and I'm feeling really good about things.
:)