King Konglor

We have been busy busy busy since getting home a week ago, but today I find myself temporarily unemployed. A good time to update, and share about one of the most spectacular places we went in all of our travels.

In going to Laos, I told Morgan that there was only one place on my "must see" list. Konglor Cave (Tham Kong Lo) promised to provide something relatively off the beaten track, yet still well worth the trip.

Seeing the cave is a several day affair. Only local buses make the trip to the nearest village of any size, Ban Khun Kham (Na Hin), on Route 8. It was about a 5 hour trip from Vientiane, and we were the only foreigners on the bus. We left the bus unloading and walked into the town.

The town was basically a single road running parallel to the highway, with a smattering of guest houses, a couple restaurants, and a small local market. We saw a tourist every now and then, but they were few and far between. Because of this people were very friendly and happy to converse if they spoke English.

We found a great restaurant where the locals ate, and our 16 year old waiter was very happy to practice his English with us. We ate their three times in two days! Luckily, we spotted a couple that we had eaten with in Nong Khiaw, and made plans to hire a songthaew and go to the cave the following day (50 km away).

At the end of the road is a large hut full of local boatmen. Each boat carries two boatmen and up to three passengers. Any more will make the boat bottom out too much, and make it too unstable. As it was, we still had to get out and wade several times while the boatmen rug the canoe (sound familiar). One boatmen was in the back of the boat manning the prop, and the other was in the front scouting the river bed. He would signal spots to avoid and where to turn. They both had powerful halogen headlamps.

The cave, 7 km long, was absolutely amazing. It was impossible to take pictures in the dark, so you'll just have to pretend. The river was between 20-50 m wide, and usually very shallow. We could see the cave walls and ceiling from the lights of the boatman, but most of the space in our peripheral vision stayed in the dark. The most incredible part of the experience was emerging into the daylight on the far side. Click to watch.

Need I say more? And that after half an hour in the dark cave. We were very pleased.

On the far side was a group of a dozen plus kids around a couple of small cafes. We sat down at one of the tables and beckoned the children to come over. Warily, but quickly, they came closer. I took off my backpack and we pulled out a special purchase we had made in Luang Prabang: Lao children's books from the organization Big Brother Mouse. Considering how little volunteer we had done in our travels, compared to what our plans had been, this was a great opportunity for us to o something small but significant. The excitement of these kids conveyed the great need of local language reading materials in Laos, and as a bonus, made us feel great. One of our boatmen was very excited and asked us if he could have one for his child. We gave him our extras. Spirits were high as we made our way back own the river for the return trip through the cave!

All Good Things

Well, I finally found a computer that I'm able to blog from! The flow of information in Vietnam is not quite as free as in other countries, we've found...

So for those of you who haven't already heard, the rumors are true. We're throwing in the towel, and flying home Wednesday. There are many interesting things that have happened to us over past couple of weeks, and I do intend to blog about them. In other words, just because we are coming home does not mean the highly informative travel blogging will stop. Morgan and I both have some mental debriefing to do, and thoughts we'd love to share about our year of travel as a whole. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, let me give you the scoop on how we were pushed over the edge. From Luang Prabang we headed south to Vang Vieng, a backpacker party town that we would normaly have no interest in, but for an organic farm and school we had been hoping to volunteer at. The farm was 4km from town, so we were looking forward to some isolated peace and quiet.

It was not meant to be. 50m down stream from the farm were half a dozen catering to drunk 19 year olds who were tubing down the river. The bars competed to play the loudest music, so we heard three songs at once, so loud you couldn't think, all afternoon and evening.

On top of this, enough English teachers had been procured for the week, and there was very little to make ourselves useful on the farm. Then Morgan came down with some dreadful stomach disease, and I soon followed after. This is not good when you are sleeping in a bamboo hut/furnace with unsantitary bathrooms outside.

We decided to pack up, slam to lopramide, go south to Vientiane, get a room with AC and cable, and not leave until we were better. 150km on a local bus took 5 terrible hours. Running a fever, I could not lean back because the bench seated ended at my mid-back. Despite my repeaed attempts to crush her fingers with my shoulder blades, the woman behind me seemed to think it was ok to use my seat as a headrest, her knuckles digging into my ribs.

We finally got to Vientiane, found a hotel, and collapsed at noon. Three hours later we awoke to bed bugs feasting on us. We left in a hurry, fortunately not having paid yet, and found a nicer hotel. Alas, history was doomed to repeat itself, and Morgan discoverd a second infestation at 1:30 am the next night. Clearly these bugs had been living in the bed frame for quite some time, yet the hotel had the gall to blame us. They also had no other rooms, so Morgan slept the rest of the night on the floor and I just read in a chair. The next morning we booked into the most expensive hotel of our SE Asia trip, following a thorough, headlamp-aided bug sweep.

Eventually we recovered from our stomach ailments (thank you, Ciprofloxacin), but we were at the end of our rope. Both of us had been reduced to tears, and it was clearly time to go home. The reality was, it had been time to go home for some time. When we got to a new place, we were no longer motivated to explore, see the sights, or interact with the people. That being the case, it was ridiculous to continue with the trip. We called United, paid an exhorbitant amont of money, and moved our flight up three weeks. It was the right decision.

It was the worst week of our entire trip, the only positive being that we got to watch some of the Olympics. When watching the winter Olympics from a sub-tropicalcountry is the highlight of your week, you know its bad. That was 10 days ago, and much has hapened since, but we are still ready to be home.

Like I said, I promise to blog about the good stuff too!