Where were we...? O yeah, on our way to Vang Vieng, between Luang Prabang and Vientiane, the capital. We had a nice bus-trip over mountain ridges with splendid views of valleys covered in clouds ("sea of clouds"). Vang Vieng is a sleepy town that has been turned into some sort of outdoor activity centre for people that seem to arrive straight from the Thai beaches. When we got there we saw an endless stream of male and female 'farangs' (as the foreigners are called here) floating down the local river in large innertubes, complete with beer bottle in hand! And on the shore there were more, sunbathing, in hammocks or getting ready for a large bbq dinner. Other activities included rock climbing ("now we are talking...", said papa ...."Oh, no you don't.." said mommy) and also rafting, kayaking, hiking, caving, etc. And then at night there were some locals offering: you wanna smoke something...? That's progress I guess, but at least the locals are benefiting from the tourist dollars that keep flowing in.
We came here basically on recommendation of someone who told us the river trip was a highlight of her trip in Laos. So we booked this kayak-trip through our hotel and after a quick breakfast we boarded a pick-up truck with our guide and kayaks (open, surf-board type). We were dropped 20 km. or so up the Nam Song river and were soon on our way down the gentle stream: Mommy and myself with the guide and Papa in a solo kayak. The water was relatively clear (at least not as murky-brown as the Mekong!) and not too deep. A few rapids here and there, but nothing to write home about. The one big attraction was the scenery: high limestone cliffs everywhere, sometimes close to the river. There where not many villages, but I saw kids fishing sometimes. The other big attraction was the cave! We got on shore and hiked for 15 min. to the face of one of the cliffs. Picked up innertubes along way and the folks used them to float in a small pond that led to a narrow passage at the base of the cliff. Since the cave was low and the river deep, I was left with another guide at the cave entrance to await their return. I'm sorry I didn�t see it as they told me how the passage opened up to a large water corridor leading into the mountain. Thanks to headlights they were able to see the smooth surface of the low ceiling. After 20 min. of floating they got to some sand and with lit candles in hand they had to crawl through a 2 ft. (70 cm.) high passage to get to another cavern. It was quite the expedition, but soon they came upon a group of other 'spelunkers' who had come from another entrance. Mommy decided to head back with them and check on me, while Papa continued on with the guide for some more adventurous crawling. After doing a small loop and headed back as well. Everybody was happy to be out of the cave and into the bright sunshine once more. We had lunch where we had left the kayaks, played a bit with the resident monkey (yes, a real one) and left for the second half of the river trip. Soon we started to see the signs for 'cold beer� here and there along the river. These were riverside bars for the innertube crowds! And later we started paddling past quite a few of them (I thought that it seemed pretty slow and rather boring...). I was glad to be in a faster mode of water transport and had a great time even though I didn't do any swimming.
For our next destination we had to get a 6 am bus (the last one!), so that meant getting up at 4:30 am... Around noon we were dropped off in Ban Ha Nin, on the way to Luk Sao (near the
