Wednesday, April 2, 2014
The road north to Vang Vieng was good with only the occasional car destroying pothole. We didn’t hit any. And it was nice to be driving through mountains again. Sterlin was running extremely well after the oil change. Might need to change oil more often.
It was not long before we were in Vang Vieng and found a hotel (Laos Haven Hotel) to stay. During our afternoon stroll in search of food we saw a foreign overland vehicle, only the second one we have seen in South East Asia. The last sighting was 4 months ago in Malaysia. So of course we had a quick chat with the owners.
Turns out that Vang Vieng is quite a nice little town. The setting is amazing with a backdrop of limestone mountains. Unfortunately the air was quite hazy. And there weren’t too many back-packers. We read in our guidebook that backpackers go to these special bars to drink beer and watch re-runs of Friends. Well, these sad bars do actually exist.
We had a wonderful evening in Le Café de Paris. The food was magnificent and the wine quaffable. We chatted and shared a drink with the owners and also a nice couple from the Netherlands. Stephen entertained everyone with solving the local Rubik’s cube (sometimes it is good to be a geek).
Thursday, April 3, 2014
It thundered and rained overnight. Is this the start of the monsoon season? If so, it is a little early.
We headed to the Blue Lagoon and Tham Phu Kham Cave for our day’s activity. Although the lagoon wasn’t much to write home about, the Cave was awesome. First we scaled a rocky staircase to the entrance which is half way up the mountain. Then we had to crawl over, under and around rocks and slippery limestones to access the main chamber. But we were rewarded with an extensive cave system that we had all to ourselves. What made this cave particularly nice, was there are no man made paths, elevated walkways or artificial lighting. We could just roam around like we were the first to discover the place. Stephen went for a quick dip in the lagoon, the water was cold but refreshing.
We drove around some of the backroads just marveling at the mountain scenery and noticing the poverty of village life. It was a fun day indeed.
According to Mike, our host at the hotel, there are only two good restaurants in town. So tonight we tried the other one, AMD restaurant. We both had very nice Lao meal. It is quite incredible what the chef can produce from such a small kitchen. Just before Caroline got her Lemongrass soup, we saw the chef’s assistant picking herbs from the plant next to our table. Now that is not only fresh but must have an incredibly low carbon foot-print.
Fridge is still working.
