Kong Lor Cave - thumbs up. GreenDiscovery - not so much...

After Luang Prabang we headed on towards Vientiane again on a 9hour bus ride - jesus. We at that point intended to go on a tour from Vientiane the next day on what sounded like a jungle trek combined with a trip to Kong Lor cave in Khammoun province. Unfortunately we heard about the tropical storm Parma and when we checked the weather forecast the area we were headed for was potentially in the risk zone with possible thunderstorms, flooding and land slides... Not particularly desirable so we decided to postpone the trek for a day and follow the storm. Instead we spend the evening chilling in Vientiane with an excellent dinner (including fisk soup!!!) at a restaurant run to support street children in Laos - and run by these. The next day we spent time walking around Vientiane - seeing their version of Champs Elysses - very charming name, not so charming in real life ha ha - and different local markets. We also took a tuktuk to see the Great Stupe, the greatest national monument in Laos. Ok, but nothing spectacular.

Rather, the storm stuck to its original position and passed on northwards over north vietnam and not laos so we went on the tour. However, we had needed to worry in the first place as is wasn't at all a jungle-trek as we thought from the description - too bad actually. Anyway, the first day was spent on transfer from Vientiene to Ban Na Hin on a public bus - this was an experience in it self as at one point where the bus paused at the side of a road we got hit by a truck!!! How the truck drive managed to drive into a big bus, I still don't get. He must have been asleep. Anyway, we were parked and he wasn't going that fast so nothing serious happened except for a broken taillight on our bus and a bit of the bottom corner broken off. However, we had to wait for some insurance representative to drive out from the nearest village and record the accident and the possible damages... For which he took his time. So we ended up waiting for 2hrs for this. He he. well all part of the experience. When we arrived at our guesthouse we had a quick lunch and then went through the forest out to a small waterfall - nice walk and nice cool water at the (small) waterfall. Back in the village we just walked around for 10minutes and that was quite fun as well as the people here obviously were not that used to seeing tourists and we were greeted by all the children with smiles, laughs, goggling eyes and pointing fingers. Quite funny.

The next day we went for a 47km mountainbike ride to KongLor village. Amazing. I can't describe the countryside in Laos as anything but beautiful. One becomes happy just watching it. Driving through sleepy villages, cows crazing, people harvesting rice in a relaxed dignified manner, stark cliffs on both sides of the horizon and clear blue sky. Mmmmmmmm..... Wonderful.... Not for my skin though. Even though I apply SPF50 numeous times a day I am still constantly pink and have gotten one bad burn on my shins so far... My legs still look weird now more than a week after the fact... Anyway, the bike ride let us to a lake where the entrance to kongLor cave was. Kong Lor is basically a mountain that has been excavated by a river such that the river flows 7.5km through the mountain!!! Wauw. It was numbing! The cave was pitchdark, cold, water was dripping and it was enourmous!!!! We were in a motorized canoe controlled by local guides that, thankfully, had good headlights otherwise it was impossible to see anything. Still, it was very VERY dark. At some places I would estimate to cave to be 100m wide and maybe 50m high. You could not really see the end but you could feel the massive darkness just pressing upon you. Daylight was sudden and blinding. Oh yeah, impressive stalagmites and stalactites were visible inside the cave. Amazing. After that we walked for about 45minutes to a local village where we were supposed to have a homestay. Well, this involved us being installed in a cabin outside town where our dinner was served... So we really felt like 'the rich tourists getting the special treatment' which wasn't that great. We didn't get to talk to the villagers at all (tried but they shied away like spooked cows and the language barrier was a hassle as they didn't speak english and all I can say in lao is 'one, two, three, hello and thank you'...). And the food wasn't anything to cheer about. Instant noodles for lunch (seriously???) and chicken soup for dinner... Well, chicken soup made from everything on the chicken - toes, intestines... you name it... I wasn't particularly comfortable about that and just slubbered the broth and tried not toi eye the suspicious pieces floating in my bowl. And the water was boiled water that tasted like smoke.... Yuk. Anyway, we did have a few rounds of LaoLao (local whisky made from rice) and a talk with our guide about his time as a monk and all his girlfriends!!! Ha ha...

The last day included one of the most extreme experiences of my life. We had to kayak through the 7.5km river inside the mountain.... In a kayak that was almos impossible to control and with headlights that weren't really working properly. Damn it was dark... scary and eerie and first but once we got a bit into the cave we realxed a bit. At times all one could hear was the sound of us paddling and the water dripping from the cave roof into the river (and Anders laborous breath as he was sitting really uncomfortably in the kayak and he had to do all the streering. The kayak was literally impossible to control and if he was to slack for even 2s the kayak would just spin and pivot about its tail end...!) Jesus... And Anders' headlight kept shutting down and my helmet was so big is feel of my head all the times and tried to strangle me. We made it through and were happy. Not particularly comfortable during the ride but.... As we returned to Ban Na Hin to get our bags we got ourselces a ride with the husband of the guesthouse owner that drove us to the bus station in Tha Khaek - nice drive staked four people inside the truck house and one on the back of the pick up:)

We have now made it to Siem Reap in Cambodia where we have checked in to an ok guesthouse for a couple of days. Tomorrow we will go see Angkor Wat - or more precisely some of the temples out there and try to decide how many days we can spend exploring the vast amount of breathtaking temples. Tonight I think I will try a massage by the blind people - a famous thing here in Siem Reap.

Hope everyone is doing fine. Many hugs from Mette:)