Vang Vieng has a reputation as a party town, and it didn’t disappoint. As soon as we got to our hotel, we could hear from our balcony the chants and yells from a party at the hostels nearby. The town is surrounded by gorgeous karst mountains, caves, and lagoons, so we spent the last two days exploring.

First stop was an overlook just outside of town. The road to get there was full of potholes and muddy in spots, but we made it. Once again, hiking through the Southeast Asian jungle proved to be insanely hot and sweaty, but the view from the top was 360 degrees of mountain ranges, rice paddies, and small villages.

Yesterday we drove out north of town to a cave with a river running through it. You sit in tubes and pull yourself upstream into the cave about half a mile! It was like a spooky subway tunnel, with all sorts of fissures and side chambers to peer into. Eventually we let the current take us back downstream and out of the cave altogether.

Afterwards we rode over to a lagoon fit with a food stall, zip line, and rope swing, and spent the next couple hours trying to do tricks into the pool. We drove home in the afternoon at rush hour – kids were walking home, folks were letting their cattle out to snack, and the road was full of dust from all the traffic. At least the views of the mountains were sublime! We got back, showered, ate a tasty southern Lao sandwich and some Nutella roti for dinner, and played some pool at a bar in town before heading to bed.

This morning we hit our next misadventure of the trip: I went to grab some cash at an ATM, but it ate my card! We walked over to a bank branch nearby, and the clerk said to come back at 2 this afternoon once they’d gotten the card extracted. Unfortunately, our train out of town leaves at 2, so we had to reschedule for later this evening. After we got the card back, we had a couple hours to kill, so we got some massages, had dinner, and played some more pool at a nice hall where the ladies working there rack the balls for you and everything. It turned the day around! Tonight we head to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and spend the day there tomorrow before heading to China in the evening. We are so excited about this extra unplanned leg of the journey!