Drink Beerlao!

Imagine this: you are preparing to board a rickety canoe to enter a 7 km long cave with a river running through it. Once you enter the cave, you will be in the darkness for the next hour with whatever light your small headlamp can provide.  You come across cave cathedrals 100 m high and twist and turn around bends covered with stalagmites and stalactites.  A few km into the cave you step out of your boat on to the edge for a cave walk where you come across large spiders that you never believed you would see outside of "Planet Earth" documentaries.  It is spooky, it is amazing, and it is called the Kong Lor cave in central Laos.

 

Although it would be a little bit of a detour for us, this cave sounded too interesting to miss.  We made our way by local bus to the village of Kong Lor and set about trying to find a homestay.  During our search, we came across a group of locals playing some form of bocce who called us over and promptly offered us some Beerlao.  As we inquired about a homestay, our new friends poured us glass after glass of the local brew telling us "Drink Beerlao!! Drink more! Finish!!". A couple of games of bocce, multiple cases of Beerlao, and a few hours later, we stumbled off to find a guesthouse that would take us in for the night figuring a homestay would now be inappropriate.  We had a great time though and were pleasantly surprised that despite the questionable ice cubes used in our beers, we escaped the ordeal without harm.  The next day we ran into our new friends having another party right before catching a truck out of town and sadly had to turn down their renewed offer of beers...I think we may have never left Kong Lor otherwise.

 

 

 

 

Before our little detour, we stopped in Vang Vieng and Vientiane. Vang Vieng was a bit of a strange place and if it wasn't for the fact that it is situated in a beautiful spot along the river with a backdrop of limestone mountains, I'm not sure if we would have enjoyed it.  It has become backpacker party central and for such a conservative country like Laos it is a bit sad to see. Backpackers flock to the town to go tubing down the river lined with bars pumping loud music, selling drugs, and encouraging drunk tubers to jump into the river off high swings, flying foxes, etc. A number of deaths have occurred here over the years and we decided we did not need to take the risk.  Instead we opted for a day of caving and kayaking and had a great time on the river.  Another strange thing about Vang Vieng is the fact the most of the restaurants are "TV bars" and play endless reruns of Family Guy and Friends, although this we didn't mind so much...

In the Elephant Cave...

The most interesting thing that we saw in Vientiane was the COPE Visitor's Center that provides information on the unexploded ordnance (UXO) in Laos.  During the "Secret War" in Laos, the U.S. dropped an average of a plane's worth of bombs every 9 minutes for 9 years on the country.  There were more bombs dropped in Laos than during WWII.  The remaining UXO's continue to pose a very dangerous threat to Laotians, especially in rural areas, and COPE provides artificial limbs and rehabilitation services for those affected.