Family Guy and the Capital

From Luang Prabang we traveled to Vang Vieng. It is a huge party spot on the river that has a feeling of Spring Break but without as many rules. All the restaurants play either Friends or Family Guy endlessly and we're not sure how that whole thing got started. Anyway we decided to go tubing down the river our first day there. There are bars all along side the river and they throw out lines to pull you into their place. Each bar is fully equipped with loud music, people dancing, rope swings, high jumps, and plenty of Beer Lao and lao lao to keep you there for a long time (lao lao is the rice whisky here and sometimes they store it in bottles with snakes or other critters they find around - fairly good if you can forget about what is in the bottle with it). We got to the river around 12:30 and by 5 we had only made it to the third bar - we had a great time! They do have a little racket going regarding the tubes. You pay a deposit for the tube which you get back when you return it, but if you spend too long at a bar (as we found out) when you go to get your tube there aren't any left. Either the locals come and take them back for you or there are a lot of people just coming and taking tubes. Anyway, needless to say we needed a full day of recovery afterwards and were more than happy to veg out in front of some Family Guy. The town itself is fairly small but they offer plenty of trips around to go caving, trekking, etc. We decided to take it easy while we were there; relax; and actually make it fully down the river one day trying to bypass all the bars that throw out lines (or at least the first three). People watching is amazing as you can imagine with all the people coming off the river from "tubing" for the day, but it can get really loud at night when all the bars close down and people are singing or yelling on their way back to their hotels. Must say that winter here is sweet - nothing better than floating down a river in 90 degree heat mid January!

From Vang Vieng we travelled to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. It is actually a quiet town, also along the river, and has tons of Wats to see. The tourism scene has definitely made a difference and there are plenty of restaurants that serve mainly Western food. Since it has such a French influence we decided to splurge one night and go to a nice French restaurant for a big meal. Ben got prime rib and I got a lamb shank. It was good but a little disappointing - not much of a surprise when you order that type of food in SE Asia I guess. Since we have seen so many wats by this point in our trip we stayed at the capital for only 2 nights before heading further south to Pakse. From there we will continue our way south to the 4 thousand islands before heading back through Thailand.