Backpacking, Beaches, Bikinis & Board Shorts: Sabaydee From Laos!

It's time for a Laos update!!

After an excruciating adventure to get up here, aka - two night buses, no leg room, painful sleeps, and a runny nose on my part, we finally made it into Laos!!! Looking back, the only good thing about our night bus from hell, was the two amazing Canadian girls we ended up sitting beside on the way. Winnipeg rules! We made sure to catch up with them after we settled in!

After we arrived in Vang Vieng, found ourselves a guesthouse, and crashed hard for the remainder of the day, the next day was tubing time! The thing to do in Vang Vieng is tube down their river. I'm quite used to Leif talking about how much everything has changed since his last southeast asian adventure, but he can't believe how much the river in Vang Vieng has changed. When you are at the starting point, all you see is a mass amount of bars luring you to float into theirs to drink, swing, and slide. The first three bars are the best, and people find themselves not even tubing and just bar hopping between them. We were these people. Tubing adventure day one consisted of MAYBE one minute in total in the water. Luckily, we met the Winnipeg girls there, and we proceeded to have the most ridiculous day so far. Three Canadian girls on top of a picnic table belting out Bryan Adams Summer of 69...pretty awesome! Lol. We took on the challenge of the swings, Leif was a master...but I, however, somehow managed to come out with a swollen eye and missing eyelashes. We were honestly stumped as to what the heck happened, and only a few days ago, upon reviewing the video did we put two and two together. When I let go of the swing to plunge into the water I plugged my nose, and when I hit the water, I punched myself in the face!!! Come on eyelashes, grow back!! Lol.

After our ridiculous day on the river, Leif was "sick" the next day, and I miraculously was not! I hung out at the pool with the Winnipeg girls and went to an irish pub with them at night. It was so awesome to have a girls night!! I miss them already!

We were then greeted by rain....so we've been reading books, continuing on with our Solitaire tournament, and watching movies on my ipad. The best part of our "rain" days... for me anyways, has been supper time so we can go to the restaurants playing Friends! Leif finally saw the episode where they all go to Vegas and Ross draws on Rachel and they get drunk in their hotel room, literally one of the best episodes ever ("there's that macadamia nut!!") Leif claims he is getting sick of Ross' voice, but for some reason, I can't get sick of this show!

Yesterday, the sun returned. We scurried to the pool to try and revive our fading tans, and today we mastered tubing once again! We tubed right on past the first three bars as we really wanted to just tube down the river. It was awesome, and the sun was amazing!

I can't believe how soon Ang and Thad will be here! I get butterflies thinking about it! Less than two weeks left, and we're back into Thailand.

Enjoy some pix...

Note: The first two pictures are of Laos people trying to master English, they usually do a great job, but have made a few crucial mistakes in their menus, which I can't help but chuckle at...

Soft Dink?