Chilling with Phoebe, Chandler, Joey and the Gang

Trip Start Oct 17, 2007
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Trip End Mar 14, 2008


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Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep  ,
Friday, November 16, 2007

Been a while since the last entry, lots going on.  The rest of our time in Luang Prabang was a bit of a gong show, but great times.  We went out to the Lao Lao Gardens bar again and then bowling again as well.  It wasn't as crazy as the first night, but pretty hilarious nonetheless.  Karl and Blair (another guy from Vancouver) were sitting down talking to a few Laotian guys for a while and apparently one of the guys was gay and he breaks out one of the best pick-up lines I've ever heard.  First he says to Blair, "Do you want ride home on my motorbike?"  And Blair just sort of hesitates and then the guy jumps the gun and says to him "You and me sleep same bed tonight?"  This was all before I sat down, so I only heard this all later.  Some time after this happens I sit down to join them and Karl and Blair get up and I talk to the Laotian guys for a while totally oblivious to what just happened.  There's a photo of me sitting with these three guys and apparently if you zoom in on it the one guy is trying to give me a kiss...  A little awkward, but pretty hilarious.  The photo's on facebook if anyone wants a look.  The next day we went a bit out of town to this amazing tiered waterfall with the most turquoise water I've ever seen.  There was a swimming hole as well with a rope swing and a spot where you could dive off the waterfall as well.  Great place.

Next we got on a bus down to Vang Vieng which was one of the places I was really looking forward to going before the trip.  This place is the tubing capitol of Southeast Asia.  As a tubing enthusiast I knew we had to come here.  As a town, I'll be honest it's a bit of a shithole that seems to be there for the sole purpose of supporting tourism.  Every single building seems to be either a guesthouse, an internet cafe or a travel agency.  The rest of the buildings are restaurants where you lie on mattresses and pillows and they show non-stop episodes of Friends...  There's one place that shows Family Guy and another that shows movies as well.  It's pretty crazy walking the length of a block and looking into five or six places in a row all showing different episodes of Friends.  A lot of the restaurants have "Happy Menus" as well which pretty much means that you're getting a little extra something-something on your pizza or in your milkshake if you catch my drift.

Despite how touristy the place is though, it's a bit addictive.  First of all, it's in a stunningly beautiful location surrounded by vertical, razor-sharp peaks which seem to jut out of nowhere.  Second of all, there's always something to do here.  If you went out the night before and are a bit dead to the world the next morning, it's pretty nice to lie down and watch a couple of movies or maybe four straight episodes of Family Guy...  And then of course there's the tubing.  As a veteran of the Penticton Channel, I have to say that this place is even better (not to take anything away from the Channel.)  Just imagine the channel surrounded by amazing mountain views and jungle and with bars along the river selling ice-cold Beer-Lao (the best beer in Southeast Asia so far) for a dollar.  Plus the bars have the craziest rope swings I've ever seen.  A few of them are so huge it's almost scary to take the drop.  I'd guess about 8 or 9 metres.  We got a sweet video of me pulling a double back-flip off of the big one so hopefully I'll be able to put that up soon.  Oh, and there's a beach volleyball court at the same bar too so all in all it's a pretty sweet place.  If you're looking for a taste of Laotian culture then move on, but if you're looking for a place to chill out, meet a lot of young travellers and have a lot of fun then you'll find it here.

This is our fourth day here and we've gone tubing twice already and have gone to some great caves so maybe we'll go tubing once more tomorrow and then we'll move on probably to Southern Laos.  As for the rest of today, I'm going for a massage to fix the damage I did to my body on those damn rope swings...

To finish it off here's the best quote of last night from a great Australian guy named Jade that we've been travelling with as he goes up to a guy who's about 6 and a half feet tall:

"Maaaaann you're a tall dude."  Then a pause...  "How big's your penis?" 
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