In Vang Viang, Lao

Hey everyone sorry it's been so long. Well, we took the train from bangkok to Nong khai and realized that we had to change our plans. we'd been warned not to make travel plans in laos--and it was true. the train took 1 hour longer than expected and then we got driven around by tuk-tuks in vientiane for a while and finally made it to the correct bus station only to find out that the bus we needed left the following morning at 4am. With not enough days in our vacation we changed plans and headed to vang viang, where we are now. it's fabulous here, but of course with our luck, our camera stopped working when we stepped of the bus!! here are some online pics to give you an idea...

http://www.travelmarker.nl/bestemmingen/azie/laos/bezienswaardigheden/vang_vieng.htm

the bus ride was hair raising to say the least! i thought matt was going to kill me! the breaks seem to have been completely warn down and made an awful sounds as we careened around sharp corners at 80 mps! always an adventure! we were stuffed in with about 10 other people (laos) with a million boxes of lao tobbacco and lao pop music playing on a rigged up stereo! i, kate, of course thought the whole thing was fab. matt just read his book and seathed!

The view once we got here was worth all the trouble. it is amazing here! we spend yesterday exploring caves in the karst cliffs and floating down the river in tubes. the laos line the banks of the river selling "beerlao". the have long sticks that you can grab onto to pull you into shore.

the town itself it totally wierd--a cross between somehting out of the wild west and a bad backpacker scene. the restaurants all have "happy" menus that you can order off of, specifying how happy you'd like the food...i'm sure you understand.

we were going to stay another night, but i think we've decided to see if we can start to head south to the beaches...we've learned everything takes longer than expected.

we'll be in touch! the truck we're taking back is open air with seats in the back!