Laos: From Lost in the Wilderness to Buckets of Lao Lao

Our first jaunt after arriving in Laos was the Gibbons Experience: definitely one of the coolest and most intense things I've done in my life. Although ziplines were not the key part of the experience, we did one (more than once) that was 580 meters long and 200 meters high (do the math, you non-metric-system people), and ziplined in order to cross valleys around 8 times each day. I was especially pleased to do so much hiking, which involved at least a few hours a day up to 6+ in an area so remote that proper roads don't exist within a 2-hour walk of the beginning of the trail...Both nights we stayed in treehouses that were approx. 150 meters off the ground, accessible only via zipline and surrounded by nothing but trees and gibbons. The second treehouse even had running water and a shower (completely open to the forest: talk about a view).


From there we moved on to Luang Prabang, Laos, a World Heritage Site that was a beautiful little town full of markets and monks and meandering...Then we left for Vang Vieng. VV is a backpacker's ghetto, designed specifically for amateur tourists that want nothing more than to travel around the world and get wasted. The main highlight there is to tube (think tubing the Guadalupe), stopping every 20 meters or so at the next bar to drink buckets of cheap liquor (mostly Lao Lao, the equivalent of moonshine) and trapeze off rope swings. Emily ended up with a bruise covering her entire right thigh as a result of landing incorrectly. Mind you, we had a great time, and had our fair share of happy shakes, but also managed to do some legitimate sightseeing (involving biking to some remote, monstrous caves and swimming holes)...We were so elated to get out, either way. We also visited an organic mulberry farm there, and had fried mulberry leaves with honey, mulberry mojitos and mulberry wine, and starfruit wine, which were all elements of a truly delectable meal. One of the best things about Laos is that there are maybe a total of 20 ATMs in the entire country...We went from there to Vientiane, the capital of Laos: we kayaked most of the way down, and took a songthaew for the remaining hour of the distance. After a crazy dance party on the shore of the (currently empty at that latitude) Mekong River, we left immediately for Hanoi. Getting to Hanoi involved being on a disco-lit bus for 24 hours and passing through a customs that had: no formal lines; people inexplicably disappearing with your passport; you crawling through a gate to the other side; a fog rolling in that obscured all of this completely inefficient nonsense.

More on Hanoi and Vietnam next.