How Now Brown Cow?

Khmer New Year is the biggest holiday in Cambodia. Unfortunately, it happens to occur at the hottest time of the year, so a few other Volunteers and I decided to escape to Laos over the Khmer New Year school vacation, which, to be completely honest, started on about March 1. (I taught for roughly 8 hours in the entire month of March, and when I asked why students weren't showing up to school, I was given the logical answer, "It's almost time for vacation." With that reasoning, why do we go to school at all? After all, vacation's never more than 3 months away...)

Anyhow, we came up with a name for our trek, The How Now Brown Cow Lao Pow-Wow (Yow!), bought us some o' them airplane tickets, and made as few plans as we could get away with (apparently, you can get a visa at the airport!).

We found Laos to be a truly awesome place, and repeatedly voiced our longing to be Peace Corps Volunteers placed in Laos (yeah, it's never gonna happen). It was perfect for an outdoorsy type of vacation, since you can do just about any activity there that will cause you to break a sweat (although there's no snow skiing). The people were laid-back but friendly. And Lao New Year is a fantastic hootenanny, with 2 main liquid ingredients: water, which is thrown at hapless passersby, and Beer Lao, which is guzzled with abandon (not by yours truly of course).

We landed at Luang Prabang. The town itself was cute enough, but the biggest draw was the Kuang Si waterfall, about 30 km away.



We went to some caves of spiritual significance where peope had been putting Buddhas for (apparently) hundreds of years.



We also went on an elephant ride. The experience made for some great pictures but it was a lot like riding a big, water-squirting horse. Still, I would do it again.



We also did a 4-hour river kayak trip. By the end, we were all ready to commit hara-kiri with our paddles. It was the longest workout of my life.

After we had exhausted the marvels of Luang Prabang, we headed to Vang Vieng and Vientiane. Unfortunately, I am currently unable to continue the story of my best vacation ever because I have to hop on my bike and go back to my site so I can teach some English tomorrow. Guess I'll hafta leave you hanging....