he night. I awoke to find the bus stopped, I think the driver was gone but it was hard to tell, we couldn't move, all the lights were off, the windows were fogged, it was cold and no body had a clue what was going on. All we knew was that we were in the middle of no where with a massive amount of rice, taking up proper luggage space, on board. Well in the next 15 minutes or so the mystery was eventually solved. We were stopped because we were at the border and they were not yet open for business. We couldn't see that far because it was such a dense fog, but as it turned out the customs building was merely 30 ft. away from us. And yes, the driver was gone, inside in the warmth. We were told, with hand signals, to wait. When the border crossing staff arrived we started. Slowly we all fell out of the bus in a confused-sleepy state. As we filed into the building there was a rumor that you better have a US $1 to pay for your exit stamp. Extortion at its best, but what can you do? Well in every group there has to be one, right? So hear we are at the border and I think it was this German guy that was putting up a fight. Refusing to pay, demanding a receipt or document showing this alleged fee must be paid, and so on. Well, while he was ranting and raving, our bus left half of us behind! We all just hoped it was around the corner. As we moved on and finished the stamping process we turn the corner to find out the bus is well and truly gone! The fog has lifted a bit, but it is still hard to see, plus it is drizzling and cold. What can we do? We walk down the only road there is in the middle of no-where-land, in the only direction you could go. After about ten minutes walking in the drizzle we see a building. It is the Laos border! Yay! As we enter and try to get warm we right away find out that the one dollar extortion game for an entry stamp is played here as well. Whats more, is that they only accept brand new US dollar bills as payment. We all had US, but hardly anyone had acceptable"bills"! Ludicrous! I managed to use the change received from one guy's $100 bill to pay for my visa, then passed on my old bills to him. This time the alleged German did not make a stink about the expected one dollar extortion stamping fee. We flowed through what seemed to be a one-way of procedure and found ourselves back with our bus again. Thank God! And we were off. It was now 12 hours since we got on the bus and everyone was starving. We stop at the first restaurant we see. We are still in the middle of no-where.The restaurant is huge and seems to be quite busy with only one cook. Everything is in Laos, no one speaks English. There is much confusion. Do we go up there to order the food? When we do that, she seems to ignore us completely. Or, do we wait at the table? But no one has come to acknowledge our presence there either. Finally, 20 minutes later a woman comes over to take the order of 40 hungry travelers. We load back on the bus and away we go.
Laos strikes me right away as a lot quieter and slower than Vietnam. The 2 are incomparable really. Laos looks like it is going to be a relaxing time staying in places that barely have four walls. We stop at a village for lunch and see them grilling chicken claws. Mmmmm... Tasty. Just kidding. They are also Grilling Banana's, which is actually tasty. It was a good first village to visit in Laos.
Later that afternoon we pull into a factory off a dirt road. Here, excited to get them off we help unload all the bags of rice only to find out it is not rice at all but NaOH, Sodium Hydroxide. And it has been all around us the whole entire time. No one is sure that it is harmful, but still, rice would have been preferred. The bags below the bus were some kind of special Talk powder. Do any of you chem buffs out there know what they would be using the 2 of those for?We pulled into Vientiane, the countries capitol, around 7pm. It was the first day of Olympics and we were all excited to try and find rooms with TV's. I found a room with some people on the bus and I attempted to watch the hockey match, but I fell asleep right away. That was as much of the 2010 Olympics as I got to see :(
But things in Laos were looking up. Vientiane was hard to imagine as a capital. It was more of a big town, rich with cafe life. So I moved on right away to Vang Vieng.
Vang Vieng is an interesting place, if nothing else. The majority of backpackers head here as it is known as one of the biggest and best party towns in South East Asia. All though, not your typical party scene. It is built on the river and the town's major attraction is "Tubing in the Vang Vieng", as written on the back of many t-shirts bought by backpackers to celebrate that they too have joined in on this adventure. You can rent a tube and float down the river, passing by
bamboo bar after bamboo bar on the way. When we did it, we did not bother renting tubes as we hear most are to drunk to return them and retrieve their deposits. Instead, we
just floated. As it was the end of the dry season you could actually just walk in the shallow river. The bars are not far apart and they each have men "fishing" for people to pull on in off the river. They men stand at the waters edge throwing empty soda bottles with strings on them at you. You can then grab a bottle or string and be pulled into the bar's deck. How 
convenient. Each bar gives out unlimited free Laos Whiskey shots. With beer and whiskey buckets (buckets full of whiskey, red bull, coke, ice and a couple straws) for sale. To entertain its visitors each bar also has, at least one, water entry contraption. You can swing on a flying trapeze into the water, or jump off an 8m high platform. There are of course zip lines and slides as well. Choose your level of pain! And 
here is the other main attraction to the town- each bar, on and off the river, has a "happy menu". These menu's consist of all kinds of concoctions. You can get a pizza with pot as a topping, or garlic bread with pot as a topping, milkshakes made with magic mushrooms, and tea made from opium. And any other combination you can think of. These, along with the beers and whiskey buckets, are for sale while you tube or party at the river/beach bars in town. I do believe they keep the concentration levels of the toxins to a minimum though because if they didn't there would be a lot more problems with inexperienced tourists then what you see. Hey, When in Rome?Unfortunately for those that miss it, Vang
Vieng also has so many other things to offer! The landscape itself is insanely beautiful. You are in a valley between these square, not 
triangular, shaped limestone mountains. They are separate from each other and the sun comes shining through the spaces between. There is lush greenery around even though it is the end of the dry season. And there are other places on the river to splash in and cool off enjoying the peaceful mistiness below the tall table top mountains, escaping the loud scene full of music and laughter coming from the "tubing bars" upstream. And Vang Vieng has many caves to be explored cut into th
e limestone mountains. It is great just to rent a bike and ride around the area for the day. But then, on most nights, it was back to the party. It is a great scene to view around dusk when all the tubers come back into town covered in paint and mud with smiles on their faces and whiskey buckets in hand. At 11pm it is always wondrous to see who is still alive and not passed out yet. 
Then there are also always those passed out in the weirdest of places. Just walking down the street around 8pm can be a laugh. For all those to hungover from the day before to move, all the cafe's in town play either Friends, Family Guy, or Simpsons all day long while providing comfortable cushions to lay down on. It is truly a town on its own. Not representative of Laos, but a hell of a good time! I got caught here for about a week. Most get stuck longer.The day I woke up and decided to leave I decided to go to the Plain of Jars in the Northeast of Laos. I decided I wanted to be intrepid and not take the bus. I wanted to hitch hike and meet Laos people, learn about and from them. Start practicing my language skills and see their culture first hand. I stuck my thumb out with a sign in my hand and waited. And waited. And waited. I was there for 45 minutes before anyone pulled over. Now I have hitch hiked a lot in my life in many different countries, never ever have I ever waited longer than 20 min., let alone 45! So when this car pulled over I was sooo happy! It turned out to be quite a little comfy van with about 5 people in it. And they were so happy to meet me and talk with me and teach me some Laos and share some of their culture with me. I thought, "yes, this is what I wanted". Only to find out when they dropped me off they expected payment... Of course. I wanted to give them something towards their gas, but they wanted a lot more from this foreigner. In the end, I paid the same I would have paid to just take the stinking bus. All though I did have a more in depth experience than what the bus would have offered, I still felt a bit like I failed my mission. Oh well, I was in PhoneSavan, the town of the Plain of Jars and I was happy.
In general, let me first describe this whole area of Laos. Actually most of this information is true for the entire country. Laos was the secret victim of the Vietnam conflict. The US dropped more bombs on Laos then were dropped in the entirety of Europe during World War II! I'm not lieing. Whats more is that many of the ordinances remain unexploded. They are barely under the surface of the earth and after 35 years of rusting,
they appear just as rocks or old toys. Many people die from accidentally setting them off. Sometimes they are farmers trying to farm a piece of land, or they are school children kicking around rocks. The unexploded ordinance (UXO) plague the country with their coverage. At least one person a day dies from a remaining UXO. There are programs in place to try and locate and destroy these bombs, but there are so many and so much land to cover that at the rate they are going it will take over 100 years for the country to be safe to walk around. It is advised you never go off of any trail and female travelers should not be conservative when they have to pee during a bus ride. When the bus stops for a potty brake (often in the middle of no where as that is most of the country) just stay near the bus and hope everyone acts as a gentlemen, not staring at you. DON'T GO PEE BEHIND A BUSH! Just don't. *Note to any female traveler planning to go - wearing a skirt on bus rides makes this easier!
The Plain of Jars is this region covered in rock formations looking like 
jars. There are many stories as to why 'the ancients' constructed these jars, but no one knows for sure. The most likely answer is that they were some kind of tomb; teeth and bones have been found in some. Three sites in total have been cleared of UXO and are open to visitors. I had a private guide for the day who took me around the area on a killer motorcycle! After visiting one of the Jar sites we went to a beautiful and lush waterfall. We hiked up the cliff, zig-zagging our way through the many levels of ponds of the waterfall. At the top we went and visited a Hmong Village.
The Hmong people are the large ethnic group in the region. They brake
the borders extending into Thailand on the west and Vietnam on the east. Here the Hmong people use bomb shells as stilts for their houses and chicken coups. They use them to grow onions in or store water for the buffalo in. Bomb shells litter the country side and the people make use of them. After lunch we visited some natural hot springs. But I never found out what the geological mechanism making
them hot is. We also visited a cave where about 375 people died during the Vietnam conflict. They were hiding in the cave in the middle of a mountain face when the US successfully shot a rocket into the cave. The war being waged, unknown to most US citizens, in Laos during the Vietnam conflict is known as 'The Secret War'. It was here 
in this cave that I made a new friend, Jared. He is Canadian and a foreign corespondent living in Cambodia covering stories in South East Asia. I made plans to meet up with him and his friend Cairen for dinner that night. The three of us hit it off right away and decided to embark on an adventure together. As Jared was doing a story on The Secret War for CBC radio we decided our next stop would be even further off the beaten track. We would go to the North east border to a town called Vieng Xi (City of Victory). Along the way we met Anja who also joined in our adventure.
When the four of us arrived in Vieng Xi we were amazed at the peaceful beauty before us. This was another place in Laos with limestone mountains surrounding a flat valley at which the town center sits. Incredible sights! There is a big lake in the center, but it is actually a bomb crater that has since filled up with water. It was here that the future Laos government hid in caves built within the mountain sides. It was here they lived for 4 years making plans to defend and rebuild a new Laos. Allies of theirs, Russian, 
Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. visited them here bringing food and entertainment. A whole existence lived in these huge caves. There was a cave for movie's and concerts. At least one a week! Just shows you how full of life the Laos people are. 
They had communication lines setup between the caves to so that they could plan movies or meetings. Every few days people would go out during the day to find food to last a couple of days. They would only cook in the morning to mask the smoke in fog. They had shelter caves
built for when Agent Orange was sprayed. They had caves for banks and mechanical repair. They had caves for a whole civilization. It was only moving between them that was tricky. Only since Nov. have these caves been open to the public. Their is an awesome audio tour you can take of all the caves and find out who was where and when :) Very cool and well done. But it is still way off the beaten track. The four of us only met one other group there. They were a Dutch family of four, the Van Hek's!This young Dutch family was incredible! They were Paul and Ans (father and mother), Sil (girl, 11), and Freck
(
boy, 7). We just had the most brilliant time with them! They took us in their truck they had rented, with their guide that Paul had befriended the previous year, and the guides' deaf and dumb 3 year old cutie-pie daughter, to a school one afternoon. We were able to meet local kids and bring balls for them and Paul even did a magic trick, (the one where the handkerchief disappears and 
reappears in som
eones hat or back pocket). Let me tell you how A-MAZED these kids were to see such a thing. And to see white people at all. It was cool. Next we went to a waterfall. It was a treacherous hike down, but worth it when we got there! None of us were equipped with swim suits so we all went in in our underwear. What can I say, it had to be done! On the way back up the waterfall Ans and Paul mentioned where they were going next and offered to take us along. We said "sweet"! Cruisin' the mountains of Northeast Laos in the back of a truck! Sounded like a great time!That night Jared had an interview with one of the men who was an original founding member of the town when the caves were created. He used to sing patriotic revolutionary songs and we wanted to get one on tape. I
went with Jared to this interview and it was such an experience for me. To hear this man talk of loosing family members only feet from him due to the bombs. And his job during the revolution was to protect, as a bodyguard, the head of office. The Prime Minister to be. He was an incredible man who has seen a lot. One look in his eyes will tell you that. But he was warm and friendly and kept making us drink tea. He was very welcoming and he did sing for us one of his revolutionary songs. Then he wanted to hear me sing one. He doesn't speak English (we had had a translator), but he was very insistent about me having to sing one. So what could I do? I sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". Jared laughed silently at my choice when he heard it come out of my mouth. It was pretty funny.Later that night we met back up with Anja, Cairen, and the Van Hek's and had hell of a night with the people who ran the restaurant. That's right, there was only one in town. We had eaten there every night before,
where we first met the Van Hek's by their similar need to feed themselves, and tonight was our last night. The lovely family who ran the restaurant broke out the rice wine whiskey called "Lao, Lao" and were forcing it down our throats. I kid you not. One thing I learned about the Laos people is they certainly like to celebrate with their Lao Lao and Beer Lao. They served us the most amazing dinner which ended up costing practically nothing so we left them double what they asked. There was a keyboard and microphone and everyone took turns 
singing while everyone danced up a storm all night long! There was Laos singing, English, Dutch, and German as well. Another couple we had met on the bus ride there showed up in town as well! They were all quite fantastic to party with. It was a full moon and we had our own full moon party. The Laos people, 4 of us backpackers, the traveling Dutch family, and our befriended retired American couple. What a night!The next morning the Van Hek's came to pick us up at 7am! Gosh, we all had such terrible headaches. Everyone was hungover. When we tried to pay for the hotel, the Laos guy woke up with a huge headache mumbling something about Lao, Lao whiskey. We eventually got the bill sorted and hopped in the back of the truck. Anja was not to continue on with us as she was going to Vietnam. We dropped her at the bus station and said a sad good-bye, then the 7 of us were off.
We got breakfast in the next town and since the kids had heard the 3 of us singing and laughing in the back
they decided they wanted to join us. So we bought another mattress for our bums and now the back of the truck had 5 people in it and the back seat had all the luggage! Haha. It was a great 2 days in the back of that truck. Sil and Freck are such funny and creative people. Sil visually, and Freck musically, but I would bet those two overlap. They are so
we
ll mannered and have excellent temperaments. At the ages of 7 and 11 they are both fluent in English and have traveled India, Africa, and Asia. Not to mention Europe. Getting to know them and their parents was a special experience for us all. We only hope they enjoyed meeting us half as much.
Riding in the truck had so many benefits compared to a bus. We were able to stop 
whenever we wanted, get out and explore. We had picnic fruit brakes and river swims. We also stopped at a few UXO clearing sites along the way and watched the teams search for the UXO and systematically cover an area. Jared played harmonica and we all could s
ing basking in the sunlight with our trusty driver Paul behind the wheel. We stopped at one town that clearly do not experience many white visitors and Paul did his magic trick again. 
These people 
were beyond amazed. The look of shock and disbelief on their faces. Absolute silence before a brawl of laughter and excited screams erupted. It was insane. We actually all jumped back in the truck and tried to get out before they invited us in to drink Lao Lao at 11am!Oh, that's what the Laos people are like. If there is something to celebrate then they are celebrating it with Lao Lao before 11am! They know how to have a good time and celebrate life :) They are always so warm and
welcoming. And as there is not much else to do... so there you go. One time in Vieng Xi, the awesome foursome of myself, Anja, Cairen, and Jared were invited in a Hmong persons home to watch an 
engagement ceremony. The bride-to-be was dressed traditionally, but no one else was. The grandfather sat in the middle of the room with the groom-to-be and chanted some words. Then some shots of Lao Lao 
were exchanged and then a gift of money. Then everyone smiled and shots were passed around the room. They also had a bamboo bong going around filled with tobacco. We thought at 
first it would be opium as that is huge in this area of the world, but no such luck in seeing that part of their culture enjoyed first hand. It was only tobacco. We left before they were to make us drink more Lao Lao. But it was cool to see. Such an 
important ceremony done so simply with the little they have.
In Nung Kiew we had our last times with the Van Hek's. They were to go north and the three of us south. NungKiew was a beautiful town on a river and was the first time we could eat anything other than fried rice and fried noodles for the first time in days! We were actually now back on the map.
The boys and I went south to Luang Phabang for a night before
continuing south. There wasn't much to do 
except visit a night market. But the town itself was a picture perfect photo everywhere you looked. Monks and temples, river and riverboats. Beauty was everywhere.And don't you know, before our 2 o'clock bus we ended up getting pulled into yet another Laos family tradition, celebrating the birth of a baby.
They stuffed us full of food and the Grandmother adopted us all 
as her children. They tied prayer bracelets to our wrists, connecting us to them until the bracelets fall off. Here they were actually drinking Johnny Walker Red Label instead of Lao Lao, a nice change of pace. At least this stuff doesn't make you feel like death while you are drinking. It has the courtesy to wait until morning! It was a bit of an escape job getting out of there but we had the excuse 
of a bus to catch. We caught our bus which then went on a 6 hour journey of winding mountainous roads, up and down. Not fun on any kind of whiskey! And when it was all said and done, I found myself back in Vang Vieng. I stayed another 2 nights with the boys, did not go tubing, and was off headed further south to the Laos/Cambodia border.Just north of the border crossing, on the Laos side, there is a place called 4000 islands. This is an area of
islands on the Mekong River. There are a few main islands that have accommodation.There are no roads, only bike paths. In these islands they also offer the "happy menu's" but not as a crazy party town like Vang Vieng. Here it is a lot more chilled out.
Electricity is over at 10 o'clock and most just go to bed. And the bungalows are dirt cheap, but barely have four walls. They are almost all built on the river and have hammocks on the front porches. A perfect place to chill out for a few days. It was here I 
saw the rare fresh water Irrawady Dolphin and the largest waterfall, in terms of volume, in South East Asia. And actually, when I saw the 
dolphins I was technically illegally in a boat in Cambodian waters. But it was just for a few minutes. What a magnificent sight they were! I stayed a few days chillin' out, reading in my hammock, biking, and learning how to cook in their kitchen, with coals and no proper stove. I then made my way south to Cambodia.Thank you beautiful and magnificent Laos! I love you and your people; you are like none other!
More pictures can be found at
http://picasaweb.google.com/find.barlow/Laos#
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