It’s starting to feel more like home in Southeast Asia. It must be because our host parents ROCK! Here in Vientianne, Laos, Bob has an amazing guitar collection and his wife Jiangping even gave our beat-up whiteboard a complete makeover (with stylish fabric and shoulder strap included!).
It hasn’t always been so comfortable though. To recap on our adventures in Vietnam, 
we knew we were in for a battle when we had to move trains at the 3:00AM border crossing AND our first room had been “temporarily closed”. No problem, we moved to an open one next door only to discover that a couple had literally moved in first, packing boxes and all. Upon arrival, we discovered that our original “closed” room was for good reason. The light bulb may have burnt out – OR maybe the giant hole in the shattered window would have made it too breezy.
Speaking of breezy, we literally had to dodge a sea of motorbikes as we first made our way through town from the Hanoi train station. We were impressed, however, with the locals’ ability to carry a full family on a mo-ped; while others managed to transport refrigerators and even 3 mattresses on more supped-up ones. We stayed mainly in the Old Quarter where we were introduced to a traditional Water Puppet Show. Yeah we saw some water, but on our way home we were hit by what seemed to be a tsunami. Apparently we missed the memo that this is the rainy season but good thing we had our whiteboard along for cover. The motorbikers didn't need any help as they zipped by in their massive superman ponchos (only the driver being allowed to see).
We were planning on booking a 3-day tour to Ha Long Bay for some kayaking and climbing, but we decided to blaze our own trail after meeting an experienced climber named Nina who offered to show us…well, the ropes on Cat Ba Island. To start off our 7-hour journey, we were led onto the wrong bus—our bags were thrown on as the wheels were turning—and were taken only two hours instead of the whole way. We did manage to land on the island before dark after an adventurous cab-bus-cab-bus-bus-walking-kicking the dirt-motorbike-ferry-bus combination.
Deep Water Soloing, or as our travel companion put it, “soiling”: the act of rock climbing so high without a rope you “soil” yourself knowing the only way down is falling off into deep water. Luckily we didn’t have that problem; pulling ourselves onto the rock was hard enough. However, it was awesome watching experienced climbers scale many meters up, as well as enjoying the beautiful scenery.
We did get a second chance at rock climbing—this time it was sport top-rope climbing where someone belays below. Our journey to the rock in “Butterfly Valley” went something like this: Rent motorbikes, teach ourselves how to shift, try not to fall over, get lost in circles, push bike off legs after falling over (Kristin), get bike out of ravine (Justin). Finally, we made it to the end of the dirt road to find a pasture with cows and unspoiled natural beauty to climb on. We avoided the cow land mines, ventured through the jungle, and even shimmied by rope over a swamp. We both mounted a challenging climb, and it… ROCKED.
ON TO LAOS! 
Our first destination was Luang Prabang—a quiet city with an amazing night market of authentic goods and pleasant people. We also enjoyed a day at a nearby waterfall—the scenery was great, but jumping off one of the waterfalls into chilly water made the trip even cooler.
Sitting in the very back on our overnight bus to Vang Vieng, Kristin woke up in the middle of the night to find she was sitting next to a man with a gun. Shocked and confused, she said a prayer and inched her way up the isle to another seat, not taking any chances. She later found out he was there to protect us; an English explanation rather than a smile would've helped. Yikes.
Vang Vieng is known for its crazy tubing down the river, and we soon found out why. 
There were over ten makeshift bars along the way— many equipped with fun music, drink specials, and trapeze-like swings and slides for water fun. We watched people fly off left and right into the river like acrobats…some were more graceful than others. OUCH!
Vientianne – along with ROCKING out and fixing up our whiteboard, Bob and Jiangping 
took us to his work where we toured the US Embassy and even got to meet and whiteboard with the Ambassador to Laos. If that wasn’t enough, we had our first “Hashing” experience (it’s not what you think – there were no potatoes involved). It was, however, a running event meant to “work up a thirst”. We followed the flour-scattered path through jungles and over rivers and were rewarded afterwards with an “initiation” of drinking beer and sitting on ice. BRRR!
Up next: THAILAND!
