I feel the need, the need for speed!

Well, to those of you who prefer my pictures to my writing, you're out of luck for a little bit. While I am able to find decent wifi connections in Laos, the upload speed is just too slow for me to create blogs with pictures, unless I want to sit for 3 hours. I head to Vientiane, the national capital, tomorrow and hope to find the speed I need there. Hense the Top Gun reference, which I hope you all got and appreciate. Once pictures load faster than one every half hour, I'll make up a good one with some of the better shots of Laos.

I'm finding Laos to be very relaxing and do not regret adding it into my trip at short notice. The people are friendly, the general pace of life is slower, and everything is so much quieter. Right now, I'm in Vang Vieng. It's a very small town that is, and will continue to, undergo a tourism boom. I've caught it while it's still fairly quiet, still very farming based. But if the number of guest houses under construction indicate anything, I doubt I'd find the same place 10 years from now. The big draws to the area are the mountains and the river. The mountains are practically beyond description. They are great towering cliffs, blue in the distance and awe inspiring. Many are peppered with caves, so caving and rock climbing are popular. Kayaking and tubing are the big river activies. For those of you who know tubing, I hope your injuries are healing nicely. For those who need a description, you basically rent a tractor tire inner tube and float down the river from bar to bar. They pull you in from the river, you drink at your discretion or lack there of, you fly off a few zip lines and swings, then you float home again, stumbling up to the first street food vendor you see. It's a bit ridiculous, but it's generally good fun. I made the trip sober yesterday and had a fantastic time.

This afternoon I borrowed a bike from my hostel and crossed the river, heading out of town into a small farming village. Cows are still driven down village streets and the farm fields lying in the shadows of the mountains are gorgeous. I loved getting a feel for the local life. Even with the tourist presence, you still see beautiful, often naked, children playing in the river, alongside men fishing by hand with nets and older women bathing. In town here, children run everywhere because everything is family focused. Babies are slung over backs of mothers and grandmothers at work in the shops and markets. Toddlers run around with bare butts in front of the family businesses. The adults love to have the babies say hello to the westerners, so I walk around hearing Sabai-dee from these chubby little faces where ever I go. It really makes me smile.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I will be taking a kayaking trip down the river to Vientiane. I've never kayaked before, but it's got to be exponetially better than another bus ride. I'll let you know how it goes, and hopefully with pictures next time.