Vang Vieng was a "falanged" out town (or in other words very touristy). Despite that Tim and I enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. Tubing was definitely the highlight. We rented a few inner-tubes and rode the river for about 3 hours stopping at various riverside bars. One of them had a few water slides and rope swings that Tim enjoyed immensely (they were free when you bought a beer).
After a few days in Vang Vieng we headed south to Laos capital Vientiane. The city was pretty expensive (we only stayed for 2 nights) but we enjoyed wandering around and taking in the big city life during the day. We teamed up with a few Americans Nate and Jessie and ate some street food and checked out the night market together.
From Vientiane Tim and I headed further south to a smaller town called Savannakhet. We had a difficult experience on the local night bus which dropped us off 30 km outside of Savannakhet at 4am. Luckily we caught a ride into town with a nice family. It was incredibly hot in Savannakhet so during the day we mostly hung out in the shade and read/played cards and in the mornings and evenings explored the river front, casinos, lao bbq, and noodle soup stands.
Our next and final stop in Laos was the Four Thousand Islands or Si Phan Don. Tim and I stayed on the island of Don Det. We found an amazing bungalow for 5 dollars a night right on the river and sunk in there for a week. The swimming and the scenery were fantastic but the best part by far was the family that owned our bungalows. They were incredibly friendly and generous with us. The father of the house, Paan took Tim and I fishing 3 times in his boat for free and even brought us to an island deep in the jungle to dine with a few of his friends. Their children were amazing also; they swam with us and jumped off our shoulders at the island (Jesus Island) that was a five minute swim from our bungalow. On the last night we had a bbq of chicken and fish that our family prepared for us along with a lot of Lao lao (rice whiskey). Tim and I were very sad to leave but we hope to go back and visit them again!
Yesterday we made it all the way from Don Det to Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia). Today we got a tuk tuk driver for the day and saw one of Pol Pot's killing fields which was sad but very moving. We toured around the city and saw Wat Phnom (a temple) and the Central Market. We also ran into some friends from Luang Prabang, Jen and Dave. We're about to splurge and go out for our first Mexican food for dinner tonight so we have to run! But tomorrow we'll get to our first beach in 1.5 months, Sihannokville (and maybe make it to a more secluded island like Ko Rung). We'll keep you updated!
