Due to a lot of various factors I was left feeling tired of traveling and ready to go home during my last few days in Thailand and first day or so in Laos.  Whether it was the Laos people, the landscape, the activities I did there, or the other travelers I met, Laos quickly made me dismiss these feelings.  Out of all the countries I had on my itinerary for this trip, Laos was the most abstract in my mind; not really knowing what at all to expect so it was all new to me.  The country as a whole is really beautiful and the people are nice and not too pushy when it comes to asking you to spend money.

On my first day there I was in the city of Luang Prabang and took a two hour trip up the Mekong River.  The Mekong River is a lifeline for this region, feeding from Thailand through Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia.  This short trip took me to caves that were used as places of worship and were full of Buddha icons.  On the way to the caves the boat made a stop at a village that was known for
	producing its own whiskey.  Of course I had to take a taste and purchase a bottle.  It wasn’t bad, although it tasted more like tequila than whiskey...  That afternoon I headed out to a beautiful waterfall.  The waterfall itself was pretty impressive, but it also fed into many different pools making each different section its own little swimming pool.

The next day I rented a bike (just a normal bike this time, no motor involved), and rode around the city and its outstretches to check out the area and see some of the wats.  April 13-15 is New Years in Laos (Thailand and Cambodia too) and one of the ways they celebrate is by having huge "water festivals."  Basically, just a huge water fight for three days (Chiang Mai, Thailand is known as having one of the biggest festivals and attracts thousands of people from throughout the region.  Picture having a water fight throughout a whole city with thousands of people participating!).  Anyway, apparently the kids in Luanng Prabang decided they needed to start practicing for the big event because that
day while I was riding on my bike I got ambushed at least a dozen times.  I ended the day completely soaked from head to toe to every kip (Laos currency) in my wallet.  It was pretty fun, I just wish I had a water gun to get them back!

After Luang Prabang I headed south to Vang Vieng.  All I knew about this city was that people told me I had to go tubing there and that the Lonely Planet mentioned something about a Friends phenomenon at the restaurants.  Not sure what either description of the city exactly entailed I headed to find out.  OK, so this Friends thing?...picture being in a restaurant with the street-side wall missing giving the restaurants a very open feeling, with tables about a foot off the ground with pillows for you to sit on, but all the pillows are on one side so that everyone is facing the inside wall which is covered with multiple TVs playing endless loops of Friends episodes!  Now imagine standing in the middle of the street being surrounded by ten identical restaurants and hearing ten different Friends episodes from different seasons being played from each restaurant and you can begin to understand this experience.  I don’t know how this started, or why it stuck, but it has.  Keep in mind that my Lonely Planet was written two years ago...meaning that for at least two years (and probably many more) Friends has been playing nonstop everyday at these restaurants.  Basically I decided where to eat each day by which season I wanted to watch...did I feel like watching before Ross and Rachel got together, or after they were on a break?  Is there any episode playing with one of those flashbacks to the 80s where Monica is fat or maybe the one with Reese Witherspoon guest starring?...

The actual city itself had a lot to offer.  First I trekked through a cave.  I started by entering the cave on an inner tube, then swam, walked, and finally had to crawl to get through.  Parts of the cave were so small I actually had to crawl on my hands and knees for over 20 minutes.  I don’t know how babies do it.  It’s not as easy as it looks!  After
that we headed back down into the city on kayak.  This was down the Nam Song River , which ran by this beautiful mountain range.  Of course, my delicate hands weren’t quite ready for kayaking...I mean just two weeks earlier they were making works of art in a Thai kitchen and now they were being used for hard labor?!  Needless to say, I had many blisters by the end of the day.

	My final day in Vang Vieng I went to check out the other highlight of the city, tubing.  I didn’t have good cell reception in Laos, so I didn’t bring my phone with me to go tubing, which is probably a good thing because if I did many of you would have received a text message that said something like: "OMG!!  I am tubing down a river lined with bars.   Welcome to Spring Break Laos!!"  Basically you just sit in a tube and float down the Nam Song.  Every 100 yards or
so there’s a bar playing very loud music and a man with a bamboo stick trying to get you to grabe on to the stick so he can pull you in.  Once you getto the bar you sit there and have a few drinks and then get back in your tube and go down to the next bar.  Most of
the bars had some type of swing set up to swing from the top of the bar into the water.  This was the highlight for me (FYI - I had specifically planned to do the tubing this day because just hours earlier the NCAA championship game ended and UCLA was supposed to be in it and was supposed to win!  This was going to be my victory parade, damn it!!).  I was like a kid in a toy store.  I’d have a drink and then run up the ladder to the swing.

	By the end of the day I must have done the swing 30 times...I should have stopped at 29...  We were at the last bar and I said I wanted to do the swing one more time (famous last words, right?).  By that point everything started working against me: the day’s worth of drinking, the energy it took to hold on to the bar as you swung back and forth 29 times, the blisters on my hands from kayaking and the new ones from the
swing...all combined to me jumping off the platform and then simply letting go of the swing a second later.  I just couldn’t hold it.  I held on just long enough to get a lot of
momentum going in the horizontal direction, so as I fell I hit the water at full force.  At first I thought I broke a rib...but as I slowly came out of the daze and reached the surface I realize I only had the wind knocked out of me.  As I slowly reached the side of the river I realized that my jaw had snapped together from the impact so hard that I actually chipped a tooth!  I was like the walking wounded as I stumbled out of the river.  Fortunately it was just a covering that chipped and it’s not really noticeable unless you look for it.  I can live with it for the next month or so, but I definitely have to pay the dentist a visit when I get home.  Ugh...I hate the dentist!  Moral of the story, go to Vang Vieng and go tubing, but stop after swing number 29...

Laos Fast Facts:

KFC visits: 0
Different swings used: 3
Times swung: 30
Chipped teeth: 1
Splashed by little kids while on a bike: 13
Side of the road driven: Right (first time cars have driven on the right side of the road since LA!)
UCLA consecutive Final Four appearances: 3
UCLA championships celebrated in Laos: 0
Friends episodes watched: 11
Days: 7
Blog Entries: 1

I will be posting a new video soon, so watch for it!

Click here for pictures of Laos