After doin' the LOOP. Jasper, Kimbo, and I were on the road making our way up to the capital, Vientiene where Funk decided to meet us for his first tour outside the US of A.
BTW... Scoo-touring around Laos is the way to go. The roads are nice, not much traffic, and for better or worse you don't need a licence. We saw tons of kids riding scooters around town.. how old could this kid be? And to all the folks disappointed in us for not getting a push bike... well here's some of the reasons we opted for the scooter:
- Scooters come in one size (easy to sell and buy)
- We had a lot of distance to cover
- We didn't have any bike gear... you only need Helmet (5$), and gloves (1$ for cheaper ones, 2$ for leather) to ride.
- You can throw 2 people on it or ride it solo.
We wanted to visit Lao Vegas, but alas... Funk was calling our name.
We did make a few stops on our way up to break up the 150+ km days.
That is a nest of red ants...
Lao is not only blessed with kids that love to say "Sabaidee" to every farang (foreigner)... but it's share of amazing waterfalls and caves. There are so many waterfalls in this country that we were the only ones at this one during our 3 hour break.
The road out from Tad (Waterfall in Lao) Xae
Near the waterfalls, we stopped to eat some noodle soup... and the locals invited us over for a few drinks of the Lo Lao (Homemade whiskey)... it was past noon... so we figured we weren't braking any rules.
Farm animals run amok everywhere in the Laos countryside.
You can tell buy Jasper's enthusiastic face that he's stoked to be peer pressured into eating a lettuce wrapped.... rat tail (as best as I could tell)... they kept calling it "squirrel"... but regardless it was pretty gross... so I encouraged Jasper to try it too, and our Laotian hosts helped me pressure him into it....
Unlike Central America, the dogs here are friendly (for the most part) and the puppies are much cuter.
And Finally! After a flight from LA, an overnight train from Bangkok, and a tuk tuk across the border... here's the one and only... Funkster...
Here Jasper is showing him all the problems of "Nice." We actually had a shop in Vientiane put a new seal around the engine and add a new clutch. A 4 hour, 2 person job... for 1o$. Another reason scoot-ouring in Lao is fun. Scooters will break down, but there is always someone that can fix the problem near by... for very cheap... and you can practice your Lao.
In Vientiene we had an amazing pork, noodle, lettuce dish... don't know what it's called, but probably the best thing we ate in Lao... then we went bowling for the first time in 2009.
The broom seller?
Funk's Helmet Cam...
A quick break dancing break on our way up to Vang Vieng...
Vang Vieng!!!
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