I love Family Guy!

I love Family Guy!

Vang Vieng, Laos, Asia

I woke up to an awesome view outside of my window today. It really showed me why people come out here, even if it’s not for the tubing trip. The landscape out here is stunning. I went down to the lobby at the Popular View Guest House (a very apt name), and had an awesome breakfast. Then I had to do my least favorite thing and pack all my stuff up to move hotels. I found a place in town that offers a single room, rather than a double or twin room where I have to pay for two people. That’s not cool.

I booked a room for two nights at Luang Prabang Backpackers and found it on the map, so I headed up there. Unfortunately, there were no signs for LP Backpackers, but on their website there was picture of a place called Pany Guest House. I found that right where LP Backpackers was supposed to be on the map. I went in to try and check in, but the girl who was working didn’t speak a word of English. Another guest tried to translate for us, and eventually I was given a room with a big double bed, private bathroom, TV and A/C for $7. I was expecting no A/C, no TV, shared bathroom and a twin bed, so I was well pleased with that.

I decided that I wanted to go out on a scooter to see what was happening outside of the town center. I knew there was a waterfall not too far out of town, and I’m still desperate to find one. I found a place renting a scooter for 40,000 kip ($5) a day, so I grabbed it and headed off. The guy showed me on a hand drawn map where the waterfall is, and he said it’s 4k (2.5 miles) up the road. I headed down this side road and realized at the first big hill that my back brake didn’t work at all. I had to tap the front brake as light as possible so I didn’t fly over the handle bars when I just wanted to slow down.

The road I was on was mostly covered with mud, and it was pretty deep, so it was damn near impossible to ride a scooter on. It was at this point that I realized my odometer wasn’t working either, so I had no idea how far 4k was. I think I probably rode about 3k before getting stuck in six inches of mud and had to push the bike out. The road ahead didn’t look any better, so I had to turn back and go into town. And this point it started to rain, so this whole endeavor was really going down in flames.

I rode back into town and returned the bike after telling the guy how pissed of that I was that the brakes didn’t even work. I ended up getting my money back though, so that was pretty good. I went back to the guest house and had a quick shower to get all this mud off of me. I’m sure the guest house cleaners were thrilled with me trailing that up the stairs to my room.

I figured I should go get some lunch considering it was 2pm and it was raining out, so I had nothing else to do. I found a Family Guy restaurant in town and took a seat right in front of the big screen. No one else came into the restaurant for the first hour, and then another solo traveler came in. I invited him to join me and we ended up chilling in that same bar for eight hours just watching Family Guy. It was a great day! Ben, from Liverpool, is thinking about going tubing tomorrow as well, so I might have someone to go down river with.

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