Well guys, I made it to Vang Vieng, Laos... It's this little town about 3 hours north of Vientiane (the capital of Laos) that has been completely over run with backpackers. So to summarize what there is to do in this sleepy town - float down the river on an inner tube and watch movies in the numerous video cafes. Ok... you can also supposedly go look at some caves - but so far I haven't found anyone who can actually get to them - the bridges that are supposed to exist don't.

So I've taken advantage of the things to do here - floated down the river this morning for a few hours. Really relaxing and by the third hour it was a bit boring... But I ran into a couple girls from Calgary and we had some fun floating together. So glad I didn't have to do it alone though! Would have been a bit boring. There were all these Lao people on rafts in the middle of the river asking us if we wanted any beerlao (the only beer in Laos). Hmmm... drinking at 9:30 am? That's a bit too early for me.

Got here in Vang Vieng yesterday afternoon after a non-eventful bus ride from Luang Prabang. My last day in Luang Prabang was pretty awesome actually - went up to the waterfall. Met some people on the ride up and we decided to find the swing at the uppermost pool of the waterfall (there's 3 pools that you can swim in at the waterfall). Now, this pool with the swing was rather difficult to find actually - people kept giving us different directions but said "oh - you just HAVE to go! It's so much fun!" So we ended up finding our way to the very top of the waterfall (this entailed some climbing through the waterfall even!)... But, no big surprise here, the pool with the swing wasn't at the VERY top... So we had to climb down some really slippery rocks and voila! There it was! The pool with a swing... We spent a few hours enjoying the cool water, swinging out and dropping about 10 feet into the water. It was bliss. Afterwards we climbed back down (again through the waterfall - seemed a bit treacherous actually) and watched them feed a tiger at the bottom.

A very good way to spend the day. That evening I met up with the guys at the waterfall and we enjoyed some beerlao. I saw this bottle of Green Palm beer that I had to try (always up for new things) and it was the most disgusting thing I've ever had! On the back though there was this label: 'This "beer" contains vitamins in the "b group." This is healthy beer' Maybe that's why it tasted so bad - it was healthy beer.

Here in VV I ran into my Irish friends (I'm really not stalking them!) and tomorrow we're heading down to Vientiane together. But not by bus! Nope, we're kayaking our way down! How awesome is that? I'm very excited. And I've put in my passport for a Cambodian visa today and I can pick it up in Vientiane next week complete with the Cambodia visa and a 4 day extension on my Laos visa. Life is good....