Day 9 GAP: Vang Vieng Vang Vieng is a very interesting town - geared toward tourists - young tourists with lots of sporting activities to do including mountain biking, white water kayaking, trekking, mountain climbing and cafe exploring, etc. There seemed to be three main industries in Vang Vieng: restaurants, guest houses and adventure travel companies. A few of the restaurants are odd places in that they are filled with "beds" with a table thing in the center. You lie in bed and watch endless reruns of "Friends" while you eat and drink. I guess they have the youth market cornered because the restaurants were all full. The older members of our group sat in chairs for dinner.
Vang Vieng's main street
Our guest house is a little less then basic - a little dirty with mold in a few places. I guess it's all part of the experience. This guest house was a new stop on the GAP tour and certainly was the low point on the tour.I took one look at the bed pillow and put it aside and made my own pillow by stuffing my fleece jacket into a pillow case I brought just for cases like this one.
A group breakfast behind our hotel
Continuing the journal and uploading photos was an ongoing challenge.Luckily I had made a CD of all the photos on my SD card because the last computer erased the SD card! The morning of the 9th day was an internet morning for me. Others went tubing down the river.Unfortunately, the tubers ended up coming back 2 hours late so our drive to Vientiane was longer because the two hour delay put us in the evening Vientiane traffic. Day 10 - 11 GAP:Vientiane The drive over the mountains from Vang Vieng to Vientiane - the Lao capital was along Lao Route 13 – the infamous road where only two years ago bandits were a constant plague for travelers.A government cleaned it up and brought safety back to the route.The original route for the GAP tour was to fly from Laung Prabang to Vientiane but the increased safety on route 13 enabled us to drive it.The trip from Vientiane to Hanoi was originally to be a long bus ride but was changed to a quick flight to Hanoi. The drive from Vang Vieng took us through the hill tribe people's villages. The poverty is heart braking -- so many people living on next to nothing. The final two hours driving to Vientiane were in the dark with many of cars, trucks and were tractors driving with one or no lights – no street lights. The roads were also filled with people going about their business or headed home.Only our bus lights and the constant hooking of the horn got us through.Our driver did a great job of getting us through it all safely. Our hotel in Vientiane is great - wonderful court yard in the middle so you can get away from the noise of the city. Dinner was at a big, fancy Lao restaurant with live "American" music-- turned up to the maximum volume. After a good night's sleep in our Vientiane hotel, it was breakfast in the court yard then on to the central market. I enjoy the fast activity of the markets although I never buy anything.On one of my first trips to China several years ago, I stocked up on packaged vegetable seeds from one of the markets only to have to dump them when I went through US Customs on the way back.So the market visits are for the atmosphere and to see how the locals live.The markets also make good photo opportunities.
One of the Vientiane markets
Vientiane is a fairly big city with lots of traffic and a good number of temples. I stopped at one temple that was also a school - the kids were on their way home for lunch when I passed by. The monks were doing the dishes and laundry.
Vientiane school
Monks washing their cloths
Central square in Vientiane
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