Blue Lagoon - Outside Vang Vieng, Laos

We had to be packed by 9am the day after our wrap party. The party ended up at a place called Smile Bar, a place that serves Disco Buckets; Thai Whiskey, Redbull, Opium, Weed and Mushrooms all served in a toy bucket, like a kid would take to the beach.  Needless to say, much of the crew was in rough shape whilst packing up the vans.

We said our goodbyes to the crew that were movin' on and watched them bounce off into the morning haze. With nothing left to do and a day off to kill we decided to visit Blue Lagoon. Walter, Digby and I rented 3 scooters, I handed over my passport as collateral. With Nick and Ana riding bitch we putted off on another adventure.

The road to Blue Lagoon is 7 kms, but it takes 40 mins to get there. The road is a moonscape of stones, craters and ruts. Single lane bridges with precarious gaps charge 10, 000 kip per vehicle. Each way. Construction almost foiled us, our scooters sinking into freshly unearthed ground. We made it past, and a couple of wrong turns later we came to the lagoon.

A small fees gains you access to both the lagoon and a nearby cave. (There are thousands of caves in the limestone mountains of Laos.) The lagoon is a little pool of water along a river. Downstream the water is too shallow to swim and too rocky or littered to wade through. Upstream the river is choked by vegetation twisting from the banks. The water is blue and small fish dart amongst the tourists. Swings have been hung for the tourists to play on. The heat of the day was stiffling, so I climbed up a tree with via a makeshift ladder nailed to its trunk, and traversed the overhanging bough.  The water, cool and refreshing was only about 8 feet deep and I touched bottom. Shortly thereafter Walter jumped in forgetting his glasses so I made a second trip to the bottom to retrieve them.

We played for a while, splashing about and swinging in. Eventually we got tired and climbed the banks. We took over one of the small gazebo styled huts and took turns basking in the sun and retreating to the shade. As the sun lowered Walter hung a makeshift blind to protect us from it's burning rays in our little hut. A small canteen kept us in beer and water.

Walter and Nick decided to head back to the city, and Digby, always the adventurous sort, decided to check the cave. He opted not to pay for a guide. Ana and I sat and talked about the film we were shooting and watched people basking in the son. One girl I recognized from 2 nights earlier at smile bar. She had been wearing a dog chain at time. She must have left that home today. Digby had been gone for quite some time and we were getting worried.

When Digby finally arrived he told us he got lost and finally ran into another adventurous spelunker whom he followed out. It was time to go, but he wanted to get a bite first and urged us on. We made plans to meet back for dinner.

Ten minutes into the ride back I asked Ana if we had made a wrong turn. The road was WAY worse than it had been. on the way in. It was soft, and loose, making the little scooter almost impossible to handle. I got my answer a moment later when a grader came rumbling up the road, exchanging craters and ruts for loese earth. Ana suggested we try cutting through the rice paddies and taking the path behind the communist flag across the river from the Silver Naga hotel. Ok.

We took the first road that had a sign and followed the path marked by trampled ground and white flags. Eventually we came across a family of french people purchasing the right to visit a cave from two young Laos. We asked if we could get back to town this way and they said no. Damn.

We headed back and stopped to take a picture. I said to Ana, "You know, I have yet to be lied to by a Laos person, but that doesn't mean he's right, lets try another way." She agreed and we took a left into the rice paddies.

The thing about rice paddies is, they need to be kept full of water. To do that, small burms create boarders around patches of earth to make up a field. Being dry season, we cruised the fields easily, but the mounds of earth were hard to navigate. A couple of times poor 'ol Ana almost got bucked off. Others times she had to get off while we practically lifted the little scooter over the border.

After several wrong turns, more than a few hard bumps and some genuine worry we'd made a reckless mistake, we found our way to the back of the communist flag mountain. Hurray. We circumnavigated the landmark and found the walking path back to town. Our last hurdle was a walking bridge railed on only one side. Ana suggested she get off for that leg of the trip. After everything we'd been through she didn't trust me to get us across safetly. I'm sort of glad she didn't, my confidence on this one was pretty much shot, but I made it ok, and the tourists on the bridge politely moved out of my way.

When we returned out scooters the guy checked them all over for damage. I was quite shocked there was none, but relieved to get my passport back. I was exhausted and sore but still managed to get some dinner before crashing. We had a 14 hour travel day ahead of us.

Back to Chiang Mai...