Day 221 - Professional Nomads

Our Queen of the buses arrived in Vientiane at about 6:30 this morning. We quickly caught a jumbo (jumbo-size tuk-tuk - like a three-wheel bus) into the town center and began our quest for a room. Because we decided to leave for Vientiane a day early, we had not booked anything. We figured that being the capitol city there would be plenty of options. We were wrong.

All of the decent places were either fully booked or weren't sure if the people who said they would be checking out (and thereby freeing up rooms) would in fact be checking out. In my quest for a guesthouse, I found one with with twice-daily service to Vang Vieng, the next stop on our itinerary. Seeing as the only thing we really wanted to do in Vientiane was see the Beer Lao factory, and seeing that Vientiane suffers from 'Capital City Syndrome' (everything costs more than elsewhere in the country), we decided to go ahead and catch the 10AM minibus to Vang Vieng rather than waiting around for a room that may or may not appear.

This proved to be a wise decision. We arrived in Vang Vieng at about 3:30, and by 4:30 had found a guesthouse for a paltry $4 a night. And four dollars a night in Vang Vieng buys this view (actually taken from the rear door of our room).

While wandering about Vang Vieng before finding our guesthouse, I met a girl traveling alone who wanted a tubing buddy (tubing the Nam Song is one the prime Vang Vieng activities). Within minutes of checking into our bungalow, we met up again and walked to the tubing place. Unfortunately it was already closed for the day, but a friend of hers was sitting in the outdoor cafe next door. We joined them, planning on just having a few fruit shakes. An hour and half, sandwich, and noodles later, we decided to meet up again in a few hours for dinner.

In case you hadn't gathered already, eating is a big deal in SE Asia - very cheap, and very good. Vang Vieng is not generally known for its cuisine, but there is an organic farm near town that supports a local school through its two cafes. we opted to do our part for the community by eating large plates of stir-fried veggies and fish and by drinking local fair-trade sugar palm beer. By the time we finished stuffing ourselves, it was past 10PM, and apparently most of Vang Vieng's bedtime. Failing to find and open coffeeshop, we settled for a another round of fruit shakes - I could easily get addicted to fresh lemon-mint smoothies - and then to bed.