Farang Teacher Finale in Laos

Since we had become so close with so many of the other "farang" English teachers over the year we decided it was essential we have one final horrah before all parting ways. And what a better place to do this than Laos? Our new years tubing there proved to be amazing and we couldn't think of a better spot to have as much fun as possible before saying our goodbyes.
The foreign teachers group rallied together and we all packed up our things in our towns and met each other in Vientiane, Laos. We had to overnight in the capital to sort out our visas the next day so we could all get to the countries we needed to after Laos. We had a good night of bowling, cordon bleu, and Beer Laos (all Vientiane traditions for us) before waking up early to make our way to Vang Vieng for the tubing adventure to begin!

We packed into the standard mini-van and began the 3 hour ride. From previous experience, this bumpy ride on mostly dirt roads through the Laos countryside was extremely beautiful. Passing nothing but a few wooden shacks here or there you were totally surrounded by green rice fields, and giant craggy mountains. We finally arrived in Vang Vieng around 2 o’clock and bee lined straight to a baguette stand for the sandwiches we had been dreaming of since our visit to Vang Vieng 9 months prior. After changing we went straight for the river to being the insanity that is tubing. Again, if you’ve read the previous post “ We got Laos-ed on New Years” from our trip to Laos in the January archive, you will know what tubing is all about. It is bar after bar that you tube to down a river all on rickety wooden platforms, that acts as an adult Disneyland with rope swings, zip lines, slides, pumping music, games, and free shots wherever you go. You just have to experience it to understand just how unbelievably fun this place is. All the Laos people that run the bars are extremely happy and dancing around, and while you are doing all of these things the giant Laos Mountains loom over you on the opposite side of the river. This youtube video is a good depiction of tubing (if you ignore the injuries section).

We had a fantastic first day and Laos was once again everything I had remembered it to be. Maybe even better than our first visit! This time the shots they gave us were bottles filled with just about any kind of gross crawling thing you can imagine. Some had real snakes in them, while others had giant centipedes, or hundreds of massive bees. I’m not going to lie, it didn’t taste good, and when opening a bottle your eyes almost immediately brim with tears. But hey, we’re in LAOS, when else will you get to drink rice wine made of snakes and bees and fly off swings into a fast moving river? There was even a bar I will deem “PUPPY BAR!” that was filled with 4 month old fluffy puppies running around your feet which just added immensely to my happiness.

We continued to day two with pretty much the same events. More fun that you could possibly handle on the river. We started further up the river this time where there were lots of new bars that weren’t there on our prior visit. It was a good decision because we came upon a bar where we were the first people there and the old Lao woman and man couldn’t have been happier to see us. The bar had a fun little slide, which simply popped you in the river and was nothing scary but just pure fun. The man stood there all day with his hose to wet it down while dancing around to the American music. The lady constantly brought us plates full of shots and when we couldn’t take anymore we had her take them herself and she happily did. Soon the entire bar filled with people which made us feel good that we were the first ones of the day to stumble upon it. We played beer pong and they had games for us there where you tie a balloon around your ankle and try to be the last person without your balloon stomped on which was something new and fun. The mood for the day had been set in a great way and didn’t fail us for the remainder of our tubing adventure.

Our final day in Laos we decided to take it easy and discover what else was out there in beautiful Vang Vieng. All 8 of us piled into a tuk tuk which was going to take us around to some good spots. We bounced through dirt roads running straight through rice fields for about 45 minutes, and took in the gorgeous scenery. After having to get out a few times and push the tuk tuk through the mud we finally arrived at a cave we were going to explore. The cave was a huge cavern that was wet, slippery, and pretty dark. We waded through pools, and climbed up rocks as far as we could go until the opening was pitch black and we realized without all having lights we would never make it very far.

After exploring the cave we came to a little river with a tree to jump off of. The boys spent the next hour jumping from the different branches into the little river that looked like you could walk across it but actually proved to be extremely deep. We boarded the tuk tuk again which took us to a river that that looked to be a bright blue color that had some more swimming for us to do. We think the driver got a little confused and we missed some good sights, but just riding around and RELAXING (after all the tubing we were pretty beat up mentally and physically) and getting to explore a little more of beautiful Laos was great for us. We all gathered for one last dinner and the next day parted ways, all smiling with the knowledge of how much fun we had in the past 3 days. Felix, Rich, and I headed back to Vientiane to pick up our passports where we had (you guessed it) more cordon bleu, beer Lao, and bowling! It might have been our 6^th or 7^th time following this Vientiane routine, but hey, it was a good one. We spent one last night there before saying goodbye to our great friend Rich that had been with us close all the way from Inburi, to Chaiyaphum. All that was left was for Felix and I to board what had been nicknamed the “Death Bus”. A 22 hour journey from Laos to Hanoi, Vietnam that we opted to get the cheap $18 ticket which didn’t even guarantee us a real seat. It was bound to be a long ride, but we were up for it. While we were sad to begin the process of leaving everything that had become familiar to us in the past year, we were ready to start a exploring some new countries and undoubtedly making more fantastic memories.