Vang Vieng, Laos

The day after Christmas, we took a three-hour drive north of Vientiane to a popular tourist destination, Vang Vieng. We didn't do a lot of research before we went, but found a cheap guesthouse to stay in and decided we would check it out.

 It will never cease to amaze me what people can get on the back of a scooter:

 Our guesthouse, complete with mosquito nets. It wasn't really necessary during the cold season, but the kids sure thought they were fun.

 Long boats on the river.

 Scary bridge.

 We heard about an organic farm, and thought it might be fun for the kids to see some farm animals. While we were figuring it out, the kids had a great time playing with rocks.

 goats

 pigs

 guinea pigs

 Scott could not get enough of the pigs... and they just stayed right by him the whole time.

 Bobby didn't want to get too close

 Geese

 I thought the ground looked so cool with all of the tiny pink petals from the trees above.

 Then we drove out to a place to hike up to a couple of waterfalls.

 Scary bridge.

 Little waterfall

 

 Scary bridge. (are you seeing a theme?)

 We were hiking through the jungle!

 This was supposed to be the big waterfall, but since it wasn't rainy season, it was just a little trickle. But the kids had a fun time throwing rocks in the pool.

 Then we walked out a cave... on another less scary bridge.

 Up a lot of stairs...

Not the most impressive cave we've ever seen, but it was a fun little walk.

My favorite part was the boat. I'm starting to realize that my favorite part of any trip is usually the part on the boat...
We went in the morning and saw these boats, but it was supposed to be two people per boat and they didn't have any life jackets for kids. So, we weren't sure about doing it at all. We went back later in the afternoon and miraculously, they had two kids life jackets, so we used those, and they let all four of us on the boat. The boats are initially empty, and they put in four deck chairs for us to sit on. They aren't bolted to the boat or anything...
We went about 5km up the river and 5km back. It was a fun ride.

 The life jackets came with whistles... nice... We heard a lot of whistling for the first part of the trip until we threatened a lot of time outs of they didn't stop.

 Another scary bridge!

So, Vang Vieng was a pretty place to visit, but we felt like were pretty done after a full day there. We could have stayed over night at our guesthouse again, but Matt wanted to get home so we could have a full Saturday at home. So, he drove back in the dark. It was a good trip. Both Scott and Bobby saw pictures as I was going through them and they both want to go back. Maybe someday...