#8 kong lo caves #9 vientiane

On the recommendation of a friend living in Vientiane who described these caves as a "must see", we made the arduous hike to the mysterious Tham Lot Kong Lo caves which run for 7km through the base of a limestone mountain, and through which a river runs. This better be worth it, I thought, as I ate mouthfuls of dust on our second two-hour stint in an open-air truck. The most intriguing thing I saw on the trip was a fellow passenger who was toting a plastic bag full of dead rats. How bizarre.
After 8 hours of travel, we finally got to a traditional village at the edge of the caves and bunkered down in a homestay arrangement with some friendly, elderly locals. They were really sweet to us, and it hardly mattered that we didn't speak the same language, or that with every meal we were given a kilogram of boiled rice to eat. Snotty-nosed children came from all around the village to stare at us and yell "Sabadee!" (hello), and that puffed our chests up a bit and made us feel real special for making the long trek out there (only to discover the next day 10 more foreigners who turned up at the village to stay).
The next morning, after being woken up at the crack of dawn by various farm animals and various screaming children, we went to the mouth of the caves and hired a boat to take us through them. Kris and I were quite pleased with ourselves for bringing headlamps, only to find that they did shit-all in the vast abyss-like darkness of the caves. Luckily our two guides were hooked up with some whoop-ass powerful lights so we could marvel at the cave walls, the high ceiling and some stalagmites (which one of the guides even thumped and played a tune on, like a bongo). We had a swim in the beautiful river and returned to the village. When I tried to take a shit, I discovered a 4-year-old boy spying on me - little rascal!
But Kong Lo was worth it in the end - especially staying at the village as it was like nothing we'd ever experienced before. But boy was I glad when we got to Vientiane the next day and showered for the first time in a few days...
In a town on the edge of the highway, we had a run-in with who we think might have been a local gangsta. He came up to us and said he was from Minnesota, even though he looked and sounded Laotian, and offered us a free lift to Vientiane in his minivan. We accepted at first, as we'd just missed our bus and thought we had an hour to wait and he seemed quite nice, then I noticed his huge chunky gold bracelet on his fat wrist, and he pulled out this really flash mobile phone and started talking, and I started thinking "uh oh, maybe we shouldn't have said yes..." Just then, our bus materialised and Kris looked at me and said, "Let's just take the bus." I agreed straightaway and we jumped up and apologised and thanked him, and he just looked crushed and said, "So you don't want to ride with me?"

# 9 vientiane
The biggest highlight of Vientiane? The bowling alley. Kris and I escaped the scorching midday heat for a couple of games of tenpin at the local alley. We did orright - well, Kris did better than me but I scored my fair share of strikes and spares. We were most impressed by this elderly white dude who was there by himself, polishing off games with scores of 220 and more.
We hired a scooter and saw the Patuxai - which is the Lao version of the Arc de Triomphe - and it actually looks alarmingly similar, then we spent the next hour riding around trying to find the street our guest house was on.
Interesting fact #1: The maximum money you can get out of the ATM here is $70. Ridiculous. (Especially with all the overseas bank fees you get charged.)