10km/hr (Vang Vieng, Laos)

After being in a very hectic Vietnam, I've quickly grown accustomed to the Laos lifestyle. After a tremendously long and jam-packed 22 hr bus ride we made it into Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. It just hosted the 10th annual ASEAN summit and is quite proud of it. The country is known to be quite underdeveloped and poor. Well, in Vientiane you'd never be able to tell. They definitley have some cool, modern architecture there. Unfortunatley there's not much to do. So we left after 2 days of strolling around and doing nothing.

We're now in a tiny little town called Vang Vieng. Once again, there's not much to do here. Its beautiful though, with lots of mountains and caves surrounding it. There's a river to go tubing or kayaking down and a clear lagoon to swim in. Other than that there's a tonne of restaurants that cater to backpackers by showing old re-runs of "Friends" and a variety of movies. I've caught up with a lot of friends! I got to see the final episode!

So anyway, we've discovered that in Laos there's no hassling, no bussling, no stress. Its nice. However, I'm still looking for something more meaningful to do, there's a farm here that's set up for volunteers to come and go as they please and help out with farming and building mud houses, etc. I'm not sure its what I'm looking for. Its not the labor that turns me away, its just my instincts that tell me its not what I want right now. I'm keeping my options open.

I hope everyone's Christmas season is going well and stress free. Remember what its really about ok?