Saturday October 7, 2000 This is my bonus day in Vang Vieng, Laos' clean river and natural cave capitol. I have already been here for six days and have explored most of the local sights which were all uniformly natural and impressive. My companions on all the day trips for the last week were an English couple Dan and Heidi who had just finished three years teaching English in Japan and a friend of theirs named Hide (also known as Mongoli-san). They have just gone ahead to Laos' cultural capitol Luang Prabang and left me here to my own devices. I rent a bike, ride 14 kilometers north to Phatao village, find the nice man with freckles, no shirt and flip flops who leads me to the cave. Once inside we walk for one and a half hours up the subterranian river inside until we are standing in chest-deep water in the pitch blackness. I have the flashlight in my mouth on the way back. The man sings beautifully and his voice resonates in the cave. There was this liquid rippling effect on some on the sufaces of the cave sides. One part looked like a brain coral of thousands of tiny ridges where the water jingled musically in the darkness. The cave was smooth. Then I biked back to Vang Vieng and my tire popped only 4 kilometers from town. I carried the bike for two kilometers and rode in a tuk tuk (overpiriced at 75 cents US) back into town. Gave back the bike, rented a truck innertube, went across the Nam Song river floating on the tube (which made the ferry man laugh), road a small metal tractor (called Lot Kwai Lek in Lao meaning "iron water buffalo") to Ban Nathom village. From there I walked carrying this big innertube around my neck to Tom Phu Kam cave. Just before reaching the cave I ran into an American honeymoon couple who told me there was a crazy Scot named Nigel at the cave's natural pool. I swam in the pool for the second time this week. Tom Phu Kam's pool is the perfect swimming hole every kid dreams about. It is emerald green and clear as glass, it is fed by a swiftly flowing river coming out of the sheer cliff face nearby, its sides and bottom are all smooth granite rock, a huge gnarled tree with a rope swing hangs over it. It is possible to swing from the edge of the pool atop a boulder and PLOP down into the middle of the gently swirling green waters. Ahhh. Had a swim, met some locals, met some tourists including an American strangely named Jenz who just got to Laos from China, ate some Ramen noodles fixed by the nice hut lady near the hole, put my innertube in the water, waved goodbye to everyone and floated off downstream. Now my plan was to take this unknown and uncharted river all the way to the big Nam Song river and then end my journey an explorer par excellance back at Vang Vieng. As it turns out this river was milky turquoise like the hole but far more windy. I wound back and forth through low hanging trees filled with huge yellow and black spiders hanging on every branch tip. The branch tips brushed the passing river lovingly and with each caress dispensed these hopping very poisonous looking spiders onto my belly. I had to self dunk every ten minutes tget these off. I discovered that while I respect spider for the good insect eating work they do I do not like them on my body. Sometimes the river passed under fallen trees and over sharp rocks which bursted the water's flow into a churning spray of channels, some of which were quite tight and fast flowing. Several times I had to get out of the tube to pass some obstacle and ocassionally I just rode it out with a gasp of panicked breath. After a while it started to rain. The afternoon air was cooling off and already wet from self dunking the chilly rain started to rob my body of its heat. After about two hours I came across a man fishing with a swordlike knife at his side where the vegitation opened breifly into agriculture. He looked surprised and waived. I did not know enough Lao to ask him anything and I was soon out of earshot anyway. When I finally came around a bend filled with rapids and saw a fjord the tractor had forged on the way to the village Ban Nathom earlier (these tractors can drive in water up to the last top inch of the engine) I hopped out of the river and began walking the five miles back to Vang Vieng. When I got to the Nam Song ferry crossing it was dark and the ferrymen had all gone home. In the faint light of the few riverfront restaurants on the opposite bank of the river I started out again in the tube. Halfway across I worried so that the much stronger afternoon current would pull me past he village that I had to get out and drag the tube the remaining twenty feet by foot. I almost got carried away by the current. A fat English tour guide watched the whoel thing from the riverside with no offer of help made. When I got back to Les Jardiens Jenz and the honeymoon American couple greeted me. I was cold and had a leech on my right leg. Catharine the nice French hotel owner got a ciggarette to burn it off but it was two hot for my skin so I flicked it off instead. Catharine made a beautiful Cotelet du Porc just two times the normal size (I had probably eaten this dish three times in the last six days) and I ate with Jenz telling me tips on China which I transcribed to the page of my guidebook. Great Day.

See More Stories