LAO - Vang Vieng (written from Vientiane, Friday 29th March, 1.00pm)

For 3 days I suffered from an acute contrast of sentiments. In many ways I felt I ought to despise the place. A town that has totally sold is soul to the hedonistic backpacker's whims. The main street is just shoulder to shoulder bars all offering an extensive selection of 'specialities'. The banks of the Nam Song are lined with bars pumping out dance music, the locals hollering to the Farang as they bob past in rubber tubes "Beer Lao? Beer Lao" before fishing us out of the water with long bamboo poles, furnishing us with intoxicants and watching us swing whooping into the water from 6 meter high rope swings. I'm sure that quite a lot of you are reading this and wondering what I'm complaining about...
I really can't complain, it is a very beautiful place, surrounded by craggy limestone cliffs. It was lovely to float down the river, which was totally silent when out of ear-shot of the bars, and it was also rather nice to stop for a beer and then hurtle into the water with all the other farang so I am a hypocrite.
I feel bad for the Lao people though who have to indulge us, it does not give them a nice picture of us Westerners and it doesn't set much of an example for the children who watch us intently from the river banks.

I was quite ready to leave when yesterday we set off south to Vientiane. Rather than sit on another bus we decided to kayak it down there instead. More early starts and a fantastic day paddling down stream along a much quieter river, negotiating rapids. "Only one person die, 3 year ago" our guide assured us as we paddled frantically towards the white water. "Just go straight!" Right. Our success was debatable. We capsized but survived so I felt the victory was ours really. We then stopped for a lunch before being taken to a 10 meter cliff "To jump!" I wasn't feeling too game so I watched the boys scale the cliff, edge forward, look over and whimper before tumbling into the water below and contented myself with a peaceful swim.
We arrived in Vientiane last night. Tiny for a capital and rather pretty in places. It is an expat haven of cafes and western restaurants with some nice old French buildings as well as some gloomy concrete structures. It has been on the front line for some of Lao's troubled history, for over 1000 years and has been biffed about by Vietnamese, Burmese, Siamese, Khmer and French conquerors. The French confirmed its status as the capital.

Tonight I am leaving for Pakse, an uninspiring town far down south but on the way to Si Phan Don (Four Thousand Islands) where the Mekong fans out forming small islands. It is supposed to beautiful, although this being the end of the dry season, it might be slightly lacking in water... Here I shall rest for the weekend before making my way across the boarder, bribes at the ready, and down through Kratie to Phnom Penh where my program begins on the 7th.