Fun and games with Julie!

Sa bai dee! It's a hot Saturday in Vientiane and I'm taking it easy after an awesome but exhausting week with Julie! :-)
Let's start from the start. Julie arrived last Friday afternoon after taking the long way through Darwin, Singapore and Bangkok. We took her out for crepes on Friday night (one of the best meals in Vientiane!) and then let her get some rest :-)
Saturday morning saw us boarding the local bus to Vang Vieng, a picturesque small town on the banks of the Nam Song river three hours north of Vientiane. Vang Vieng is the heart of the backpacker scene in Laos - but all I had seen of it until now was amazing, jagged limestone mountains (from the bus heading to northern Laos on my work trip way back in October). We sat on plastic chairs in the aisle (a bus is not full here until the aisle is also full!) for most of the trip, but it didn't bother us because we were too busy catching up :-)
We arrived in Vang Vieng at midday and headed to our bungalows on the river - complete with bathtub, which I was rapt about. After some food, we headed to Tham Jang, a large cave within walking distance. After climbing about 200 steps to the entrance and exploring inside (the cave is electrically lit) we found the main cavern where there is a viewing point out across the town - very pretty :-) We then went swimming in the cave - this was pretty incredible too (Lao people like to swim in their clothes though, so to be respectful I did the same...then had to walk around with wet clothes for another hour...I felt like I spent the whole weekend in wet clothes!) We went home, had a shower and headed out for dinner...at least, until Chris fell into a hole in the footpath. It seems like the concrete here is fairly bad quality/people like to steal parts of it, so there is often holes in the footpath, but it was dark and we didn't see this one. Chris cut up his leg fairly well :-( It was rather amusing a few days later to see that someone had put a stick with a plastic bag on it in the hole to alert people to its presence!!! Dinner also took a very long time, so it wasn't such a good evening :-(
Sunday morning we headed out of town to a collection of caves. The first one, Tham Sang (Elephant Cave) had an interesting elephant like stalactite, and a rather ugly Buddha (Julie said she has Buddha overload after Laos!) The next two, Tham Loup and Tham Hoi, were shown to us by a Lao guide - apparently Tham Hoi extends 7 km into the mountain and has claimed the life of one tourist in recent years who got lost inside (hence the requirement for guides now!) We headed to the nearby organic farm after this for some famous mulberry pancakes - this is also the starting point for tubing down the river (which is the main backpacker activity!) so we figured we could get a tube here. But no...all the tubes are in fact in town, so we headed back to Vang Vieng, got a tube, and came back :-) Chris didn't come due to his leg :-(
Tubing was a bizarre, surreal experience....we could hear loud music as we headed down the river, but didn't know what lay ahead. Then we rounded the corner...and saw massive bars alongside the river, full of young, white backpackers wearing next to nothing, Chilli Peppers music blaring, huge structures where people were swinging into the river. I couldn't believe it...such a beautiful place, transformed into simply a place to get drunk and stoned. It was rather disturbing....Jules and I finished that trip rather quickly (plus it was getting cold in the water!)
Monday we chose to come back to Vientiane via a kayaking trip on the Nam Lik river (it was a public holiday thanks to International Womens Day!) Despite our best efforts to keep Chris from getting his wound wet, he capsized a few times in the rapids :-( Meanwhile, Jules and I zigzagged up the river - we made kayaking look hard!! We came to a large rapid and Chris and I decided to try it together. We watched everyone else go over successfully...then we promptly capsized and floated off down the river (thankfully rescued by our tour guides!) Lunch was on the rocks next to the large rapid, then we did some more kayaking, stopped to let some people chuck themselves off a high rock (I didn't try this one!) and then caught a sawngthaew back to Vientiane and took Julie to dumplings for dinner :-)
Tuesday it was back to work - the boss was back this week, but I didn't experience the same increase of motivation I did last time - I think I'm just getting frustrated and need my holiday (just three weeks now!) to refresh me and get me excited about my job again. We took Julie to our favourite bakery for breakfast :-) and then for a massage in the evening to iron out the kayaking kinks (unfortunately it wasn't very good!) and our favourite Japanese restaurant (Julie says she will remember Laos for its food!!!) Julie saw most of Vientiane during the day! We returned home that night to no water - for some reason half of Vientiane had their water turned off (I was told it could have been due to water shortages because we are approaching the end of the dry season).
Julie went on a day trip to the national park the next day. Thankfully she arrived home just in time to enjoy cheese and wine with us on the banks of the Mekong as the sun was setting :-) Then we headed off for some Lao food for dinner, and to a French restaurant for creme brulee for dessert :-) Thankfully that night the water was back on (not a moment too soon - the weather is starting to get very hot now...)
Thursday I got an early reprieve from work and Julie and I headed to a guesthouse that runs short Lao cooking classes. We chose to cook laap (the quintessential Lao dish), papaya salad and fried spring rolls. We headed off to the market with our teacher to shop for the food, then came back, donned our aprons and started cooking. I was amazed at how simple Lao food is to cook (although Jules and I didn't do much except chop a few things every now and then!) Then we ate all our creations for dinner - it was the best Lao food I've ever had, so fresh and tasty, and made with that extra special ingredient, love! We had another massage after this (much much better this time!), Julie bought me a present (to go with the Vegemite, Tim Tams and c.d she had already brought from Australia for me!) and we met Sam for some more crepes :-)
Friday we gave Julie a final hurrah by going to the bakery again for breakfast, and she jetted off to Nepal for a three week trek at lunchtime. It was lovely to have her here, Julie has such an infectious smile!!!! :-) But I was so exhausted by Friday night that I ate Vegemite on bread for dinner, watched Sex and the City for a few hours and then crawled into bed :-)
The next week promises to be interesting as well - tomorrow Chris is giving a sermon at church, on Tuesday the next bunch of AYADs arrive, and on Friday Jane arrives for a weekend in Vientiane. I will try not to count down to my holiday too much during the rest of my time!!

Nok jork,
Susan