We awoke the next day in our guesthouse to find that it was situated quite nicely right along the Mekong River. The Old Quarter of Luang Prabang, where we were staying, is settled on a peninsula between the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers. The small streets are lined with guesthouses, French-influenced cafes, bakeries, creperies and fruit shake stands, nice clothes and gift stores, and a few fairly impressive temples. The town it seems is fairly laid back, with a great balance between the comforts of a somewhat touristy “resort”-like village and the allure of a French-colonial Lao town. An 11:30pm curfew has kept the bars and clubs to a minimum, and explains why everything was closed upon our late-night arrival. Luang Prabang is far enough afield that it has avoided corner mini-golf and other kitschy attractions, but still panders to adventurous Western travelers in need of a break from their adventures.
Still a bit cramped from the previous day, we spent the morning enjoying an extended Luang Prabang-style brunch outside by the river. It was prix fixe, and included dried riverweed, fried to a crisp with sesame seeds, a delightful chili paste to spread on top, buffalo sausage, a stew of pork and greens vegetables, salad, onion soup, steamed sticky rice, a fruit plate, and black Lao coffee. While the majority of coffee coming out of Vietnam is Robusta, Lao coffee seemed to be mostly Arabica or a mix of the two. Usually served with a heaping serving of condensed milk, it was a constant challenge to get my coffee actually black. Still, the condensed milk at the bottom of Ariane’s coffee made a delicious dip for the bananas in the fruit plate, and we got a second helping of both.
When the sun sets in Luang Prabang, the main streets of the Old Quarter are transformed into a night market of ethnic handicrafts, Lao-style clothes, knick-knacks, and delicious snacks. We spent some time looking at clothes: a sarong for Ariane and Lao pants and a shirt for me. The market, while quite enjoyable and laid back (in typical Lao style), has suffered the influence of thick foreign wallets with little regard for or knowledge of how to haggle properly. This influence made it difficult to haggle for good prices, but we tried anyway. A “trick”, which the locals have quite intelligently taken advantage of, is to ask prices in US dollars rather than the local currency, Kip. This held true in Cambodia as well—it’s easier to ask for $2USD than 17,000 Kip, and harder for the customer to haggle the price down. The question then is for only $2USD, why bother haggling at all? Well, that depends on what you’re haggling for, and how much it “should” cost.In any case, we enjoyed the night market, did a bit of shopping, and really enjoyed the street food. We shared a Lao sandwich, some grilled spring rolls, pork sausage, and a delectable lemongrass-stuffed fish, grilled on a bamboo kebab.
After Luang Prabang, it was time for a change of pace. We hopped a mini-bus south to Vang Vieng. We’d heard some rumors about Vang Vieng, but weren’t entirely sure what to make of them. The first rumor involved Vang Vieng being a vacation paradise for Australian college kids on break. The second rumor involved some sort of phenomenon regarding the TV show Friends, which we didn’t really understand. And, the third rumor was that Vang Vieng was surrounded by truly spectacular natural beauty. The mini-bus ride confirmed the first rumor quite well. We shared the “van” with three college kids from Melbourne, who were very excited to take advantage of Vang Vieng’s primary attraction: a several hour tubing ride down the Nam Song—a true lazy river, with makeshift bars all along the way. Lonely Planet warns, “People have died on this trip, so don’t go too stupid with the drink and drugs.”
With little time and little interest in Australian “Spring Break”, we opted to take advantage of one of Vang Vieng’s other draws: caving in the great karst cliffs around the town. Ariane had been bugging me for days to agree to rent motorbikes or a car to do some of the travel on our own. With the sun quickly setting, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to give in to her wishes. Motor bikes seemed like a great way to get out to the caves and back before the sun went down.
So, we walked around the town and haggled with a couple places for rentals, deciding between manuals and automatics (quickly realizing we should probably ride automatics). We ended up with two motorbikes/mopeds, and headed out across the airstrip to a Shell station to fill each bike up with 3 liters each. After complaining about wanting to ride motorbikes for so long, it seems that Ariane wasn’t exactly a natural. She had trouble starting, couldn’t turn, got scared, and couldn’t brake either. (Sorry, Ariane!) After a little bit of practice on the airstrip, and switching bikes, we headed out towards the karst hills beyond the river. We stopped at a bridge to pay a toll, and I started heading over towards the other side. When I heard a sudden vroom, followed by a bang, the frightened cursing of a Lao man, and laughter, I turned around only to realize that Ariane had started her bike up right towards a squatting Lao man, who, shocked that he was about to be killed by this small foreign girl on a moped, had leapt up and out of the way. His buddies found the incident a bit more amusing than did he. Across the bridge, we agreed to keep going and try again.
Ariane a little shaken up, we took it slow (actually passed by a few bicycles), and made it to our destination just as the sun was beginning to set. We parked our bikes, accompanied by a small Lao boy, and followed him up a steep ascent to a cave. As we approached the entrance to the cave, we realized that both of us (like idiots) had gone caving without flashlights! Fortunately, our Indiana Jones-style kid guide (like Short Round from the Temple of Doom) led and lit the way, and showed us some cool rock formations that made noises like a xylophone when struck. Back out of the cave, the kid asked for money. I looked at Ariane to see how much I should give him, “1,000 Kip?” I asked. Ariane replied, “eh, give him 2,000,” thinking we were being quite generous. I handed it to the kid, who looked a little disappointed, asked for more, and upon my refusal, rushed back down the mountain, leaving us to make our own way as the sun went down. It was only later that we realized that 2,000 Kip is only about 23 cents (oops). Back down by our bikes, we heard a thunderous boom in the distance. Not sure exactly what it was, we waited cautiously until we heard it again. The thunderous boom turned out to be… thunder. 
So, we quickly got back on our bikes and started heading back towards town in dusk. The way was a bit rocky with puddles of mud, lots of bugs in the air, and fading light. So, I can maybe possibly understand how a motorbike coming the other way (though not too close) caused Ariane to lose control of her bike and crash into a big puddle of mud—maybe. I stopped, and went back to help her up. Fortunately, she was already being assisted by a group of local boys (one of whom was very naked), pointing at the mud on her bike to let her know that it was dirty. She knew. We cleaned off the seat and handle bars, and started going again. Like I said, I can maybe understand how this incident happened. BUT, I’m not entirely sure how she ploughed into a bush on the side of the road a few moments later. :)Anyway, we eventually made it back to town in the dark, took showers, changed, and cleaned the bikes up. A little concerned about further incidents, I returned both bikes one at a time, and then met Ariane for dinner. After dinner, we walked around for a bit. The town of Vang Vieng is literally an Australian “spring break” paradise. Each street had tens of internet cafes, bars, and gift shops selling t-shirts proudly announcing to the world that the wearer had weathered the hardships of the Vang Vieng drunken tubing experience. (Everywhere we went in Southeast Asia, we saw Australian college kids sporting these shirts.) As for the Friends phenomenon I mentioned above, it is absolutely, 100%, shockingly true.
Every corner in the town boasts open-air cafes and restaurants showing reruns of Friends. A few cafes had decided to break away from the norm, and were rebelliously showing reruns of Family Guy. How did such a phenomenon begin? I have absolutely no idea. What’s more surprising, however, is that wherever there is a TV showing these reruns, there are several to many foreigners sitting their glued to the screens. My only guess is that a nice helping of happy pizza, followed down by a happy shake, and a joint on the side, merrily caps off a hard day of getting high and drinking in a tube floating down a river, AND necessitates an episode of Friends.We found a place called the Organic Mulberry Farm Café (linked with an actual organic mulberry farm just outside of town), and enjoyed a mulberry shake and an apple-mint shake, before indulging in some of the delicious snacks around the town (probably available to cure severe cases of the munchies after watching Friends). Our pleasure was a “crepe” filled with Milo (a chocolate substance made by Nestle), honey, bananas, milk, coconut powder, chocolate syrup, drenched in butter, and topped with a sinful drizzling of condensed milk.
The next day we had another mini-bus south to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. The city was not as clean as I’d expected, but still quite interesting. By the river, there are (like in Luang Prabang, but not quite as quaint) French bakeries, shops, restaurants, etc. We walked around a bit, did some shopping, visited the patuxai, a Lao version of l’Arc de Triomphe (in Paris), which ironically signifies the Lao struggle for independence from France, and which was built using cement donated by the US to build an airport, giving it its nickname: “the vertical runway”.
From Vientiane, we had planned to go directly to Bangkok. Trouble booking a train, left us with tickets for an overnight bus. When we realized we had a bit more time than we’d thought till the bus departed, we decided to go get massages. We found a reputable-looking place and looked through their “menu”. Ariane opted for a Lao Foot Massage and I went for the Traditional Lao Massage. They began by soaking our feet, then continued with Ariane, while they sent me upstairs to change into Lao garb in a private room. The masseuse was a young Lao lady, who tried to speak with me, but I didn’t really understand her broken English. She started on my feet and calves, with me lying on my back. Working my legs up my inner thighs, she came up between my legs and stopped, putting pressure on both legs with her hands just below my waist. I waited, not entirely sure what a Lao massage entailed, and not wanting to insult her. Seeing my non-response, she continued down my legs, massaging each thigh, one at a time. As she came up my thigh, getting closer and closer to my genitals, it became clear what she was getting at. Unsure of how or when to tell her that I did not want sex, just a massage, I waited and she, seeing that I was not excited, continued on the other thigh. Unfortunately, some things are unavoidable, and when she did the same on the other thigh, and did notice a response, she proceeded to grab it and ask, “massage?” to which I responded, “no”, and she replied, “yes?”, “no”. All in all, the massage was not bad—40,000Kip (about $5USD) for an hour, full body, and no happy ending. This was my first massage experience, and I don’t think she used enough force for me. Next time I’ll have to have a big Swedish or Russian guy do it—at least that way I won’t have to worry about getting offered sex (I hope).
Well, that’s all for now. More to come, I promise.
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