We still had quite a big crew with us to bring in the new year: Hari, Mary, Esther, Brad, Cory, and Neal. Our first night there was Brad's birthday which we celebrated on the strip of three main bars (and a bunch of other bars neighboring) is comprised of Bucket Bar, Jaidee's Bar and Smile Bar (playing the world's worst music). We had a great night filled with buckets and everyone was very excited for the coming days ahead. All-in-all, Brad's birthday was celebrated in a proper and drunken style.
"We got up the next morning to partake in the tubing that VV is famous for. We picked up some dry bags and inner tubes and were off on a tuk-tuk up the river for a day of tubing. Tubing is quite literally what it sounds like - you float down the river (and very small rapids, especially since it was low water season) in a truck tire inner tube. What makes it glorious other than the beautiful scenery and cold mountain water, is the entire first kilometer from where you get dropped off on the river is filled with bars blaring all sorts of music, offering up booze, food and buckets, and providing water apparatuses. On a particularly beautiful day, our huge group, Mary, Hari, Neil, Cory, Brad, Esther and I, had a blast. These water apparatuses consist of everything from trapeze style swings that drop you 30ft into the water to a mega waterslide that is more of a long ski jump than a waterpark waterslide. The afternoon was spent just floating from bar to bar, where they throw out lines to reel you in off the river."
The whole crew rented motor bikes on Dec 31 to do some exploring of the surrounding caves and lagoons. Everyone brought different riding experience with Neil and I having the least. Immediately, Neal and I both got lost from the group but we didn't realize it for a good 20 minutes driving. We eventually found the group at the blue lagoon and cave. "The cave, a steep climb up some rocks, was simply amazing. It was a massive chamber that had many tunnels leading on to other chambers. Lacking any natural light, guardrails or floodlights, we clambered around climbing up and down the limestone and eventually descended (with headlamps) deep down a slippery hill into a tunnel. What a thrill! Sweaty and tired from our caving, we returned down to the lagoon where they had ropes to swing on and tree branches to leap from. The lagoon was a turquoise blue similar to the one seen near Luang Prabang and was storybook perfect." After the lagoon we grabbed something to eat before we got ready for New Year's Eve and went back to the guesthouse separately. We returned to the guesthouse to find that Cory had absolutely eaten it on his bike as he was covered in bruises from his back to his butt.
Everyone (Brad/Esther, Yanni/Annuka, Sevan/Tara, Cory, Mary, Hari, Neil, me) ran into each other that night at the Smile Bar and, despite a horrific music selection that saw the Chicken Dance and Who Let the Dogs Out played right around the stroke of midnight, had a great time. We danced the night away. Although it was hard to be away from home, it was special to be with a great group of people for the holidays and to bring in the 2009.
The rest of our time in Vang Vien was spent motorbiking, tubing, relaxing and healing up. Somehow I have become quite accident prone during this trip and had a spill on the bike (not to worry, just a scrape on my leg which has given me a 'Lao Tattoo' scar.) The worst thing that happened was when I landed in the water after going off one of the zip line jumps. You will hear more on the injury as the blog progresses, but in short, I busted a hole in my eardrum and have been to a slew of hospitals/doctors since the incident- I guess that is why I bought health insurance. The hole in my eardrum is still slowly healing, but it prevented me from being able to scuba dive. Scuba diving was something that I was really looking forward to on the trip and I was not able to get certified for diving in Thailand, Indonesia, or Australia. Huge bummer, but I am dealing with it and know I will get certified one day soon. Enough about all that. Vang Vien was a blast, but we eventually had to leave down south making our way to Thailand...
Many of the events described in this entry- town, tubing, blue lagoon- were taken directly from Hari's blog entry. http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1231136760/tpod.html
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